Back at it again

I've done this so many times...keeping up on our blog...then 'life' happens and it'll be months and sometimes years ;( between posts. I always have that little voice in my mind that says...'you need to write that down' when a special moment happens in our family. But now that we've moved to Alabama...I realize that it is more important than ever. We've only been here 2 weeks, and in that short amount of time I've found myself telling the same experience to friends or family over the phone and thinking 'I swear I've told them this story already'. And although I'M SO HAPPY to talk to ANYONE over the phone. This will help keep everyone up on the Holmes' family life, especially us for when our kids are older and we want to recall our experience here. So here we go again... Back in November 2013 Nate decided to put his resume online just to see what jobs were out there. (He would usually get random calls for jobs, but never took anything.) In December he got a job from Protective Life here in Birmingham, and after a phone interview, they immediately asked him if he'd fly down for a person to person interview. January 6, 2014 was the date...and it's been a roller coaster ride ever since. There were other companies over the U.S. that were still contacting him for jobs, but for some reason we were drawn to Alabama. Who knows, maybe it's because Nate served his mission here 20 years ago, it definitely holds a special place in both our hearts. Nate agreed to a start date of February 17, so at the end of January, he and I flew down to find a house for our family. Through an LDS realty agent website, we found Steve Chambers, who would become more than just our real estate agent. When we were scheduled to fly down, it was the weekend of the 'Snow pocalypse' here in the south. People were stranded at work, schools, the freeway overnight because of a huge ice/snow storm that shut everything down. Our flight was delayed an entire day, so we only had one day to look at houses. And honestly I didn't like anything that we saw. Homes are different here in the south. The dining room is in the front of the house, right in birds eye view from the front door. No one likes to see the garage door from the road, they are mostly always to the side of the house and in the basement. Those are two things that I've had to become accustomed to. I was bummed that we didn't find anything, but both Nate and I had received answers to our prayers that we should and will move. So something had to turn up right? While we were looking at homes with Steve, he mentioned that he needed to go to a baptism that evening. Nate was all over that, especially when he asked Steve if he knew the Mitchem family. Nate had known the Mitchem's while he was serving here and had absolutely adored their family. Steve said that they would probably be there at the baptism. It was such a fun experience to go to the baptism and see the excitement of those missionaries and of course Raven who was being baptized and also to see Sister Mitchem's face light up and she recognized who Nate was. We were done looking at houses and Sister Mitchem invited us over for dinner after the baptism. I'll never forget some of the last words from Steve. I think we could tell that we were a little frustrated at not finding anything, but he did something that we'll never forget. He told Nate that he would be welcome to come and stay with him once he started work and Nate could continue to find a home and prepare a place for our family. So we went home still second guessing our decision, but still moving forward. Nate and I looked at thousands of houses online. Even though we didn't find 'the house' there were some things that we did come to realize that we wanted in a house. First being the school district, Oak Mountain, we'd heard that is was top ranking and so we were looking in a certain area. We also didn't care if we were in a ward or a branch, we'd come here to help with the Lords' work and do whatever we were asked. We knew we didn't want a fixer-upper...our family had done that for the past 8 years and we needed a break. On a side note, this is why we wanted this adventure. We realized that we had only about 3 1/2 years until our kids started to leave. We wanted to experience something new all together and not be tied down to house and yard work EVERY SINGLE SATURDAY! Our kids paid the price with our home in Pleasant Grove, every last cent and every last free minute went into that home to make it beautiful. But we loved it, and we all learned a lot from working together. But we were all ready for a break. Our plan was to sell our PG home and buy something here so that we would have little to no mortgage. That's not how it turned out...but that is a different story for the future. Nate left for Alabama on February 14...yes Valentine's Day. Sniff. He arrived in time to go to church on Sunday, and start work Monday morning. I can't imagine what we was feeling like leaving PG alone and driving 1800 miles by himself. But he's amazing and we chatted into the night sometimes, just so he could make it a little further in his journey. After about 2 weeks of searching he finally found us a home. It is in the Shadowbrook community and we love it! There is one other member family here, just right around the corner, and of course we've become good friends. But the neighbors here are so friendly. They regularly come over to introduce themselves and bring a treat. There are quite a few kids here, and our kids always have someone to play with. Nate closed on our home March 20th, and flew home Wednesday, March 26th. Thursday was the big 'loading the truck day', Friday we finished up and we hit the road at 3pm. We had some great talks with the kids during that 3 day drive. We slept just outside of Denver Friday night, and Saturday was our big push to cover as many miles as possible. We made it to a dive of a hotel Saturday night about 1 A.M. in Mt. Vernon, IL. And what a great feeling it was to listen to 'Sweet Home Alabama' as we crossed the state line on Sunday. We drove directly to our home, and enjoyed making plans for when our stuff would come. Even though we had a few kitchen items and sleeping bags, Steve wouldn't hear of us sleeping on the floor. He and his daughter Victoria had a wonderful meal ready and waiting, southern hospitality at it's finest. Nate also received a couple of texts as we were driving with offers from ward members to have us over for dinner that night. It's like a second family was waiting for our arrival, we've never felt so loved. I'm going to stop there for now and add more of our adventures later. We are loving our neighborhood, and we are so excited to go to our ward for the first time today. Although we've met a large part of our ward already with get togethers, YM, Activity Days and Cub Scouts. I'm sure there are plenty others to meet.