Before and After (Our DIY Journey...errrr....or Dan's journey!)

 Before: Honey oak cabinets, blue laminate counter tops, and oak trim

After: White painted cabinets, concrete counter tops, and white trim.  So far we are pretty sure that total with paint, concrete, sealer, and spray paint, etc we've spent less than $1,000.  That's quite the change!  Very proud of all of Dan's hard work even if I do get resentful because he gets busier with these projects than I'd like.  No more BIG projects for the winter!

 Before: Large china hutch of the previous owners with identical wall art on either side

After: It's our cow! Hey cow!

Moo!

Before: Dark and dreary.

After: White and bright!

A couple more just for fun! If you look closely you can see he is in the process of transforming our dining room table as well.  Painting the legs white and he'll stain the tops a darker color.

 I love our "new" kitchen.  I especially love the price tag.  I don't always love the time Dan spends on it (he has self admitted that he is slow), but the end product is a huge improvement.  I am so thankful that even though he has distinct and good tastes that at least he does it himself and for a fraction of the cost.  House value too!!!

New House!!!

We are moved into our new house and have been here for over a week now.  Things are slowly being put away, but I'd say we are doing quite well.  Except for being a little wary about new noises and fears of things breaking (it takes awhile to trust a new house right?) we are just enjoying being here.  I never thought I'd love the location as much as I would, but I do. It's so quite.  Our house is situated at this weird angle so when we are in the backyard we don't really have any neighbors who can see us.  We love the lay-out and how much we are together.  The kids have adapted to it no problem and much better than the rental house. I will eventually post pictures of it when everything is up and done, but for now here is a couple of pictures from when it was up for sale. These are the old owners photos.

 Front view

 Backyard...they left the swing set and the kids have been enjoying it!

 Downstairs family room is nice and big and cozy!

 It's very open.  Upstairs we have our bedroom on the right and then the kids' rooms are straight ahead.

No backyard neighbors!  Yeah! There is a road, but it isn't heavily traveled.  We also have a walking path back there too.

Schools Starting and New Daycare

Well-we are back into the full swing of what a new school year bring for all of us.  Only, this time we are in a new town, new house, new daycare, and new jobs/co-workers.  It's a lot of "new"!  The transition to Moorhead (so far) has gone/been smoother than when we moved to Paynesville.  When we went to Paynesville we felt like we had to leave because the conflict and turmoil at our church was too much to take on.  I definitely left dragging my feet and bitter that there was a conflict going on outside of our control. But, I do believe we were supposed to go to Paynesville even though the transition was really painful and hard.  It turned out to be a wonderful place to be and we brought both of our babies into the world there.  We eventually became comfortable and loved the places we worked at.  We met amazing people and neighbors and developed deep and forever relationships.

 Now we are in Moorhead and the reason I say it hasn't been as hard is because..

  a.) We knew what was coming and we embraced the chaos of moving and are just "feeling" those uncomfortable feelings that come along with being in unfamiliar territory. It helps that Svea and Kieran (although feeling it and struggling at times) have handled the move better than we thought.
b.)Like I said, the kids are handling it better than we thought.  If  that weren't the case I know I'd have it on my mind constantly and it would keep me up at night, but they love their new daycare even though they still bring up Lynda and their friends and they like our new church even thought they ask for our "old church" and or "real house" from time to time.  This isn't to say that they haven't struggled.  We've seen fear, anger, resentment, and sadness from our two little ones and it does break our heart.  Thankfully it's not as much as we thought it would be and it's getting better.
c.) Even though we weren't looking to move when this church was placed on our hearts we felt drawn to it (slowly) and it felt like and we felt it that we were being called to this place.

 So, we continue to pray and trust God that he will protect and look over our family. We continue to ask him to show us our mission here and what our role is in his work.  We continue to take it day by day and try to establish a new and safe environment for our family.

 I am working full-time.  Dan is full-time.  The kids go to daycare at Rita's and she is fabulous.  It took a couple of weeks, but the kids say good-bye to Dad in the morning with a quick wave and a kiss (no tears) and when I pick them up Svea asks why I am there so early and wants to stay. We are surviving and although we know there will be more ups and downs on this roller coaster of moving to a new town we at least feel like we are on stable ground and so far so good:)

We're Here! Moorhead That is!

We've officially arrived in Moorhead.  Well, at least over two weeks ago, but that is how long it's taken us to get settled and get internet hooked up.  It's been a busy couple of weeks, but honestly a very rewarding and "our hearts are full" kind of time:)

 The kids went to Jamestown and stayed with Gaga and Grandpa while Dan and I finished up the move.  A huge thank you to them.  I know they were worn out and my Mom took days off of work to make it happen.  We COULD NOT have done it without them so thank you SO much!  The move is a blur.  We did get everything packed up, the movers came and loaded it all, we cleaned, and then drove to our rental home in Moorhead.  The next morning they came, unloaded everything, we unpacked the bare minimum, and set up the kids' rooms.  I went back and got them a couple of days later and we started our new life in Moorhead:)

 Dan started work and so far things are going very well.  He comes home so excited about the relationships with co-workers and the people we are meeting are just great.  It feels weird to say this, but it already feels like home.  We've had two Sundays there now and just tonight had a 5K fun run.  It's so nice to be immersed in young and old, but to have a lot of young families with kids is so awesome!  Svea was bound and determined to "run" tonight and we couldn't believe how much she ran.  At the end she was running with Dan and people were cheering her on as she got closer to the finish line.  She sped up and wanted to "win the race"!  When we left outdoor worship she cried in the car so hard that I turned around and let her run back out to Dan:)  We had left because Kieran was antsy.

 So far we are loving Moorhead.  There is so much to do, so much opportunity for s and the kids, and there is a TARGET!  And it's within ten minutes.  I am in love:)  Our monthly Target bill was higher this month than normal so we'll have to get that under control:)  Here's what we've been up to (the kids and I) when Dan has been at work and some with him after work.

 -7 different parks, wade pool, city zoo, splash pad x2, library x2, Children's Museum, and Jamestown for Bible School (Svea is still singing the songs), Kieran also got his haircut today and we have two appointments for him in the next week.  We've been to a neighborhood party (for our house we are buying), dinner with the call committee, a 5K fun run, and tomorrow another council family dinner at one of the congregation members house.  It's been a great busy though.  I feel like so much of the first part of summer was spent packing that now this quality time with the kids is heavenly.  I am so glad we are getting a few weeks of doing this together.  I start back to work in two weeks and I know I am going to miss these precious days and moments with them.

  Kieran and Svea are handling the move better than we thought they would.  The first week Svea would just call out for Jaley and Brody (our neighbors in Paynesville) or say she wanted to go "home".  It broke our heart, but it didn't last too long.  They got used to the new house quickly and were napping and sleeping through the night right away. Our next biggest hurdle is how they do when I go back to work and they start a new daycare.  Today I drove them by Rita's house (new daycare) and Svea said she wanted to visit her "this year", which really means today:)  We will have the kids meet her this Friday morning.  Svea said she missed her and was worried she missed her even though they haven't met yet.  I like Rita, she said.  I hope that continues:)  We've been talking about her here and there and dropping her name to get her used to it.

Big Changes

We have some big changes coming up for our family.  Over a year ago Dan came across and heard about a church in Moorhead, MN that was going to be needing a senior pastor.  He had some really neat moments where he actually felt this push from God that this was something he needed to look further into.  We didn't know the why, but we knew if it turned out or didn't that for some reason he was supposed to travel down this path.  Fast forward to right after Christmas and Dan was preparing his paperwork.  It was hard to put it in because we are happy here and things are going well at the church.  I love my job and we have wonderful daycare.  I wasn't super invested in it or kind of removed myself a bit, but remained supportive.  I guess you could just say that we were just "open".  I can't think of another word to describe it. 

Dan got a Skype interview and he really clicked with all of the people on the call committee.  We still remained hopeful yet calm and content with whatever happened.  When he got called for a second interview is when things started feeling real.  I'll spare you all of the long details, but we traveled as a family to N.D. and stayed in Jamestown and Fargo while he went through the interviews.  Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd called Dan on April, 16th and offered him this role as senior pastor.  He is very humbled, nervous and excited.  You can also say that for me as well. 

Since then things have been a blur, but not overly stressful.  Things so far have just fallen into place.  I got a job, we sold our house by owner, and now just this morning officially got a house as well. God is so good and amazing.  He made all of these things gently fall into place one by one.  We told our current congregation a few weeks ago and then shared the news with Svea.  Overall she is doing well with it.  She says she doesn't want to say goodbye to her friends and I'm sure we'll have many more days now and after we've moved of some tears.  We keep inviting her to talk about it and share those feelings whatever they are so that when she is sad or mad she feels like she can talk about it. We also bought a cute book about a cat who has to move to a new town and that's really helped.  Some thoughts from Svea on this move.....

 -our new house will have a lot of windows

-concern for Meeko as to how is he going to get there without a seatbelt

-I don't want to say good-bye to my friends/then wanted to be held and cuddled on the couch (break my heart:(

-But, we will make new friends

-We can walk to Gaga's house now:)

Kieran seems to not understand, but we'll eventually talk more about it especially when he is immersed in boxes and we can explain to him what is going on.  Dan's last Sunday at PLC is June 29th and his last day of work is July 3rd.  We close on our Paynesville house July 16th and close on our Moorhead house on July 18th.  We are incredibly thankful that we'll have a home to move right into!  Dan will have a little over two weeks off and then he'll start at Good Shepherd on July 22nd.  His installation will be in August sometime.  
We've been praying for our current congregation (I cried like a baby when Dan announced that we were leaving/they've been like family to us), and for our future congregation and how we'll blend with them, for a smooth transition, for our families as this brings change (positives and negatives), and finally that we remember to let God lead our path.  We can very much feel God's hand on our backs leading us to Moorhead. I pray that he reveals to us early on that yes, this is where we are supposed to be.  So far we really feel it:)