Change.

This summer has been full of change. Full of ups and downs. Full of stress, anxiety, craziness. It has been a blur.

As most of you know, we are heading to California. A move of immense proportion. A change that is much more than just a simple "change of address" form. We are moving our entire life to the west coast. Why? Because it feels right. Because it feels we are being led this way. Because we feel it is what is meant for us.

So let me digress...

At the beginning of the summer, Dusty was laid off. The company he worked for, which was full of immense potential, was not being managed appropriately and was suddenly--without warning--closing its doors. This job was finally the job that he had been looking for. It fed his artistic creative side like none other. Needless to say that when it closed its doors, it was a hard pill to swallow.

The irony here was that we learned of this lay off at the exact moment we were landing in Dallas from our trip to California. A trip that was different than others. During this most recent trip, I had found myself thinking about how I could live there and actually saying out loud to Dusty at one point, "I could do this...I could live here...I like it." I am someone who has always believed in "everything happens for a reason"..one of the many gems I learned from my mom. It felt like someone was trying to tell us something. Was this our opportunity to make this move?

The very next morning, Dusty began his job search in the Dallas area--with not much luck. He kept looking. He kept making calls. He kept trying. Through all of this, he received a job offer in California--in his home town of Porterville working for a steel company as a welder. (let me just say, welding is hard....my husband makes it look easy...he is amazing) Decisions had to be made quickly because this job couldn't be held for long. We discussed, argued, prayed...and decided he needed to head out to see if this was going to be THE opportunity. On July 2, he headed to California.

He has been there for the past three weeks working his tail off. Addy, Duke, and I have been here missing him terribly. I have purposely kept it all quiet because we wanted to make sure it was right before I blasted it on facebook and this blog! Dusty has landed a great job and it feels RIGHT. He will fly here August 1 and will be greeted by myself and his little girl...both of us bursting at the seems with excitement!!!! We will spend a week getting things packed up, the house listed, and my finishing up my summer camp and then head to California on August 7.

We are scared, excited, anxious, hopeful, terrified, and optimistic all rolled into one! This, as you can guess, is and will be hard for me as I have never lived further than 3 hours from my family my whole life. I will be homesick, no doubt about it. But I feel in my heart of hearts, as does Dusty, that this is the best thing for us.

I leave you all with a quote that I have loved forever and was reminded of in an email from my parents this morning...

"To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did."

Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!