Missing Fishers

Today I started to think about all of the things I miss about living in Fishers, Indiana.  I have to admit that living there was not the greatest experience of my life, it was incredibly challenging and full of struggles, but I cannot ignore the good either.  So I started to put together a list of all that I miss, I know it won't be complete, but it was nice to sit and think of all the good for a few minutes.

I miss the humidity,

I miss the giant field we used to play in,

Evening soccer games with the kids,

Oooh, having two swimming pools.

I miss all of the home school resources and that amazing library.

I miss Kim and her fur babies.  I miss watching the boys play fetch with them until both dogs and boys were so tired they laid down in the grass to rest together.

I miss my work out class with all those fun ladies.

I miss Carmen,

and Daniell and her girls, her whole family,

I miss Swetha and Priya and all the friends I made over there.

I miss the smell of Indian food and get togethers with good friends that also included good food. :)

I miss the diversity of people, and getting to know more about and learnimg to love Hindus, Muslims, and Christians all the same.

I miss the sound of cicadas and chasing fireflies at night.

I miss the bug hunts and the giant spiders.  (I do not miss the mosquitoes.)

I miss the thunder storms and playing in the warm rain with my kids.

I miss the summer BBQs at the park with the Methodist church down the street and how everyone would talk about religion without worrying they would offend someone.  

I miss the missionaries.  I miss feeding them and chatting with them and being the go to home away from home.

I miss the smell of summer nights as we sat on our deck and just talked.

I guess even the hardest time in my life was also the best time in my life. So many of those experiences never would have happened here in Utah.  I have so many wonderful, sweet memories, and I cherish them all.

One year

It has been a little over a year since we moved away from all of our family and friends and set out on a new adventure together.  In that year we have had some of the worst days of our lives and some of the sweetest days as well.  We added a beautiful baby girl to our family, we made new friends, tried new foods, and grew as a family.
I can't believe it has been a year.  Time has just sped by.  It seems like the harder I try to hold on to every moment and enjoy the here and now the faster it goes.  I find that I can't hold on and more then I can hold back.  As I watch my baby, my last baby grow up I want so much to keep her just how she is.  I find myself wanting to push her back down on her bum when she stands up to walk, but I just can't hold her back and end up encouraging her and cheering her on instead.  As it should be.
Over the last year I have learned so much, I cannot even begin to list off everything I have learned.  I have learned to let go of the little things that are unimportant so that I can cherish what is.  I have learned to be less of a stickler about bedtime and cuddle more.  I have learned to hold onto my babies because soon enough they are going to pull away and run off on their own.  I have finally learned to make the mundane divine as I work backstage to keep the house running, the kids happy and fed, and be everyone's personal cheerleader.  I have learned to be less selfish so that I have more of myself to give.  I learned that I didn't move out here to save the world, I moved out her so God could save my world, my family.  I have learned to dance in the rain, figuratively and literally, and I have learned that when storms come the safest thing to do is to hold onto my family for dear life!
Speaking of being less selfish, this post was supposed to be about Abigail.  My baby girl is one today!  Can you believe it?  We have been her for that long.  This girl is my joy!  She is my bonnie blue eyed baby.  I prayed that she would keep her blue eyes since non of the other kids did and it was a tender mercy from the Lord that she did.  She is always smiling and giggling.  Abigail was my "drive across the country having contraction to get to a new place" baby.  :)  Everyone said I would give birth on the way, but she held on and had perfect timing!  It was miracle after miracle the way she got her and when she got here.  Abigail had brought me joy during some seriously dark days as I struggled with depression and anxiety again after moving here, but her smile was like a ray of sunshine.  Every time I saw her smile shining through the darkness I felt like Heavenly Father was telling me he loved me and everything would be ok. She has brought me so much joy and I look forward to sharing many smiles with her.

I get to serve!

 I am so excited!  I have just been given on apportunity to serve.  It's what I have been praying for, looking for, and hoping for.  It's just what I need to stop being such a baby about being here.  :)  I am so excited!!! Let me go backa bit.
Glen rides the bus and one of the rules is that a parent has to be there to drop off and pick up the kids.  On one of the first days I met a woman whos son is in kindergarten as well.  We didn't get much time to talk most of the week, but over the weekend we invited her son over to play and I went oer to her house after to talk with her.  Her name is Pia (ok, that's really just the "shortened for Ruth English version of her name)  She has been here for four months and moved here from India.  She lives very close and I think that the fact that we were both very far from home and all that is familiar to us made us instant friends.  Sometimes we have abit of a hard time understanding eachother, but we keep trying because we need eachother.  We are both lonely here and being together we are not so lonely.
Anyway, Last Saturday after I went to her house I told her if she is ever lonley come on over I am almost always home.  She did for the first time today and she stayed for about an hour before we walked to the bus stop together to get our boys.  While she was here she told me again how her son is struggling to learn the language and so he is struggling in school.  He is also struggling because in India kindergarten in just the ABC's, not phonics, reading and all the other stuff we get here.  I showed her the reading system I used to teach Glen to read and that I am using to teach Benjamin.  I offered to let her use the set, but she said that she would just teach him wrong because she would say it wrong.  I told her I would help her son with his homework if he came over after school each day and she said yes, that would help and would I also help him learn to read.  I said yes.
I am so happy for this opportunity to help her.  Her son is sucha sweetie, so full of life and eager to learn.  I love kids, and I love to teach, it's just perfect. So each day he will come over and we will work on homework and sight words together, then I will help him learn his letters and sounds and when he finsihes that I will help him with reading.  He and Glen can play together after homework and after school gets out I will have even more time to help.
I expected the first opportunity to serve would be in my new ward, but my neighbor has beat them to it and I will serve gladly wherever I can.  Hopefully this will help them save money hiring a tutor

Whirlwind Adventure part 2

Remember when I said I saw the Lord's hand so much the past few weeks?  Here is why.  Everything fell into place EXACTLY, it was all just too perfect.  We fasted on Sunday for John to get a job, he had one by Monday.  The house got packed up super fast and we could leave early, turns out we did leave early.  We found an appartment just before we left, and they would let us in early.  Everything on the way here was just perfect.  Once we got here the miracles did not stop, though.  Part 2 is even more fun to tell.

John's insurance would start after his first day, but here is the catch, it would start on the first day of the first full month after he started.  If he had started on the 1st of April then we wouldn't have had insurance until May, but he was asked to start on the 31st, so we had insurance.  That worked out perfectly.  Next item, find a midwife.  That turned out to be kind of hard because no one could tell me if the midwife I had chosen would be covered under John's insurance.  I worked on this every day from the monday John started until Friday.  John told me ot go either way, but at 11:00 I had figured outt hat she was indeed covered.  Perfect timing. I had taken John to work that day so I loaded the kids in the car and we headed off to my appointment.  I was 38 weeks to the day.  It was about a 30 minuted drive and five minutes from the clinic I figured out I was having contractions, I had been since the night before.  Oh yeah, and they were really close together.  I told the nurse and she sent in my midwife who checked me.  I was dialated to a 4.5 and 80% effaced.  She called hospital security to come pick me up and get me to the hospital, I was in labor! Problem.  I had 3 kids with me and I had the car and no way to get ahold of John because I had dropped our cell whone somehwere on the way.  Great.  So much for everything working out, right?  Acutally it was pretty much perfect.  One of the nurses took charge of the children att he hospital while I got checked in and the clinic nurses were able to get ahold of John just as he fisnished up work to tell him I was in labor and what hosptial I was at.  The night before I jokingly told John I would try to go into labor so he wouldn't have to miss any work.  It was Friday and I was in labor, but still no John.  I was so close to delivery and praying he would make it, but I had no idea how since I had the car and he was 45 minutes away.  It turns out John had made friends witha couple at work.  They gave him a ride to the hospital and also took our kids.  John got there about 1/2 hour before Abigail was born.  Again everything worked out perfectly.  John nailed it on the head when he tole me Thursday that as soon as we got the insurance taken care of the baby would come, and she was here withina  day.
Even when it seemed like things were not working out, how could I be in labor with three kids and no husband, the Lord was watching out for us and linig everything up perfectly.  I have felt and seen His hand in my life daily for a long time, but never have I seen and felt His hand so much as I have the last two weeks.

Whirlwind Adventure part 1

Oh boy, where to start.  The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, tornado may be a more accurate discription, and I have barley had time to breath.  I promised myself I'd take a few minutes today though because 1. friends have been waiting to hear all about it, and 2. I see too much of the Lord's hand in the last two weeks to fail sharing it all.
As you know, John has been in Virginia since Thanksgiving.  After the training they were going to find him a job and we knew that once they did we would have to get all packed up and go REALLY fast.  On the 24 of March he called me to say he had a job, they wanted him to start on the 31.  He told me he would not have time to come back because the company wanted him to stay in VA until Thursday and finish up some work and paperwork.  The plan was that I would get everything packed up with help from the Re;ief ociety and drive the kids out with his mom on Monday.  Women came en mass and packed like crazy people!  By Wednesday morning my friend asked why we didn't leave earlier since everything was getting packed up so fast.  I was still planing on leaving Monday so my mother in law could drive out with me and then Wednesday evening I got home after an afternoon of errands to find John!  He totally surprised me, I was shocked!  Well, that changed everything. We had to get packed up and out by Friday to get John to Indiana in time to start work the next Monday.  We still didn't have an appartment, but by Thursday I had found one, they would even let un in early, on the 30 so we didn't have to stay in a motel for a few days until April 1.  Everything was so crazy rushed I didn't get to see my brother before I left, and I bet some friends asked after me and I was already gone.  :)  We got everything packed and loaded and Friday afternoon we took off.  We made it as far as Laremy, WY that night, depressingly close to Utah, but we did get to stop and see my mom and dad so it was good.  The next morning we got started at 8:30 and drove until 12:30 before we stopped in Des Moines, IA.  Sunday morning we got going at 8:00 and arrived here in Fishers at about 6:00.  Thank goodness the nice lady in the office stayed and hour after so we could get into our appartment.  A group of men from the ward and the missionaries were waiting to help us unload the truck and car and taht was done by the end of the night.  The next day John would start work.  Here are a few pictures we took on the way.

Rock climbing for a few minutes right before we left Wyoming

There were so many cool things to see and fun places to visit, it would have been fun to take a few weeks and make it a vacation road trip.

The sunrise Sunday morning.  I had nver seen the sun rise without mountains blocking the view.

Benajmin had been looking forward to seeing the Mississippi river for months so we stopped to take a closer look.

A quick stop at the park for Lunch on Sunday before we made the last leg of the journey.

And finally these strange things we begane to see in IL.  They mark the touwns and each has the town name painted on the top.