Nomads

Nomad: A person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer.

That's a pretty good description of our family's life up until now.  Why? For a lot of reasons.  One is certainly Joe's habit of moving throughout his life.  Another is our general indecisiveness about what we want in our life.  Then there are job changes and other reasons we decided to move at different times.  I think mostly it's just become a habit for us.  We've moved so many times that it's not much of a barrier for us so we're not afraid to pick up and move again.  It's not that we like moving (or at least I don't), but it just doesn't seem as impossible as it might for other people.

We don't just pick up and move without a lot of thought, fasting and prayer.  We have felt guided in our decisions, and looking back, we can see purpose behind this twisty path we've taken.  

Our poor kids, though.  They have handled all of the moves like champs.  They've never really been all that sad, or overly scared to start over at a new school.  This move has been a bit different.

One FHE, we sat in the back of our van with the seats down, eating ice cream, parked in front of the temple, and told our kids about our decision to move again.  They were pretty heartbroken.  Especially the girls.  This was the first time any of the kids had cried about moving.  They've always been so easily persuadable about a new place (i.e. Last time it was "Idaho--snow and cousins!  Hooray!").  That doesn't mean it hasn't been hard, but it has been relatively smooth.  

They loved Idaho so much.  They loved their neighborhood friends.  The freedom they had in our neighborhood.  The open space.  The snow.  Their school. Being close to Atkin cousins for the first time they could remember.  

One thing Joe and I both have in common are these competing parts of ourselves: one part that loves open space, lots of land, quiet living.  We dream of becoming completely self-reliant on our own farm.  Living off the land, completely off the grid.  Then there is this other side of us that loves diversity of people, cultures, and food.  We love to travel and dream of living abroad, jolted out of our comfort zones, learning new languages, truly becoming global citizens and teaching our kids to love other cultures.  The time we spent in Idaho helped me to see that the "country" side of us has passed strongly to our kids.  They love to roam in nature.  They fully considered themselves Idahoans, even though they'd spent only a year and a half there.  

But, when it came down to it, city life makes more sense for us right now because Joe's job is tied so strongly to big cities.  And he's really good at his job and can make a comfortable living for our family doing it.  So, he started looking for another job--just not at a big firm like before.  Then, he was recruited for a great opportunity that we'd considered before, but just weren't in the frame of mind of being willing to accept.  And the offer was better than the first time.  The big issue was that this job was in San Francisco.  We were pretty opposed to it at first, but gradually felt like it was the right path.

So, we started looking at places to live with a commute that wouldn't be too killer.  We eventually settled on a house in Fremont and we prepared for our move.  

I took some last runs/walks along the canyon:

I sure miss that beautiful place.

Eventually, the day came.  We had to say goodbye to the house and neighborhood we loved:

It really was a great house.  I miss it.

After a reunion, we made it to our new place.

Here we are waiting for our landlords:

I sure love those kids.  They are pretty great.

Now we're settling into our new place.  More on that to come.