The big one, I began working outside the home again....after 8.5 years off at home raising our babies. I am the Life Enrichment Director (fancy way of saying Activities Gal) at a fabulous Assisted Living Community which is only 16 miles from our mountain home. Absolutely love my senior citizens!!! My kids know them all, as well. A big huge extension of our family really. The downfall....things at home have deteriorated by my not being there managing it. This could go on & on, so I will just say I have really put my foot down forcing myself to leave all my work at work at the end of the day. Whatever goes undone, unfinished, will have to wait till the next day. I am working very hard on working no more than 40 hours per week. This will help our family very much!
Next BIG one, our oldest son Payton James has enlisted in the Army! We are so proud of our boy. I know - I know .... he is 19 but he will always be my boy! I was hoping & praying he would choose a "safe/safer" job in the Army....vs heavy artillery which is what the recruiters & MP's were recommending, since he wants to become a Detective specializing in forensics, in the civilian world. BUT our smart smart son chose Human Resource Specialist!!! He ships out November 14th and I have never been away from him for more than 1 week. It is going to be very hard. He will go thru his basic training in South Carolina. Hoping he gets to come home for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas.
In other news, we discovered in April 2011 that Alan had a 14 year old son we were not aware of. This blessing of a boy came to be a couple years before Alan & I married. I never dreamed I would someday be a stepmom, so very poorly prepared but trying as hard as heck. More on this later. But I will say Alan & I love all 5 of our children very much & equally!
Ok, so the super fabulous newest of new news....
We did it! - - - - We went for it! - - - God provided us with the most wonderful opportunity!!! We have been dreaming of having a farm for years!!!! I would say it was probably 3 or 4 years ago that we agreed we would like to relocate to Estacada, both Alan & I's hometown. We wanted our kids to experience the farm life he & I did as kids. We also were in favor of the switch to Estacada School district. We LOVE Welches School & the beautiful community BUT NOT Sandy High School. Anyways, we are doing all we can to get moved & get our Welches home "Market Ready". We have family members willing to live here/ house sit until we do sell our home but in the mean time our family is ecstatically moving one truck load at a time to our new 40 ACRE FARM in ESTACADA!!!! It is a dream come true for us! Our goal is to become as self sufficient as possible & good stewards of the land & blessings God provides.
Will post photos soon. Lots of packing, cleaning, sorting going on...yay!
