the last days

That's right, the last days. Not THOSE last days of 4 horsemen and all that other apocalyptic stuff, but my last days. Specifically, my last days here in PA. Its been great being here in PA for the past 3 years. Today I have my last day at work. Tonight we'll spend our last night in our house. Tomorrow, I'll walk out of our house, get in the moving truck, and drive away for the last time. And early Thursday afternoon, we'll leave PA and drive south towards VA. And this may be the last time I'll be in PA, maybe for a while, maybe ever.

A lot has happened here. We've had 2 kids. We bought and sold our first house. We made some amazing friends. We were a part of the best church that, up until now, we've ever been a part of. I shoveled snow for the first time ever (a real novelty the first time, but not so great after that). We bought our first minivan (making us official grownups - I knew that when I stopped drooling over pickup trucks and SUVs with large tires and high ground clearance and started looking almost exclusively at minivans that I was growing up).

Whenver I leave a place and go somewhere else, I think of what I will and won't miss. I will miss lots of things here - Blue Route Vineyard and all our fantastic friends there, our house, some aspects of my job, Rita's water ice, Iron Hill, Total Wine in Delaware. There are also things I won't miss - east coast drivers, east coast abruptness (otherwise known as rudeness, but I'm trying to be nice), having to buy beer by the case, some aspects of my job, etc. These are not by any means exhaustive lists.

Its hard for me to be extremely sad and look for closure right now. Partially since phone calls, Facebook, blogs, and emails mean I'm in almost daily contact with most people I know. But also, since Jo and I have been married, we've had big transitions every few years and this is just one more biggie. In brief,we came back from China in 2001 and got married. We moved to France in 2003. We moved to Morocco in 2004. We moved to PA in 2005. And now we're moving to NC. Jo and I just look at each other and say, "God please let this be the last big transition for a while, please?" We'd love for our kids to grow up in Chapel Hill. We'd love to really plant ourselves there and really invest ourselves there. We'd love for lots of things to happen.

So in these last days, 'mixed feelings' is definitely the way I would describe the way I feel. But as cliche as it may sound to some people, I find my greatest comfort in the promise of Jesus, "I am with you, always."

life is interesting

Life has been interesting since Evie was born. There are 2 ways to interpret this statement - interesting in a ways that are enjoyable and interesting in not so enjoyable ways. Evie is a doll and is a real joy to have in our family. Both Jo and I feel our family is more complete with her in it. And Adelle has taken the whole change amazingly well. But that's mainly because Jo and I prepared her the best we could (you could also say 'brainwashed' her) for Evie's arrival. And Jo and I have been enjoying each other. So from that side of life, things have been interesting in a good way.

But also since Evie has been born, so many other things have been springing up, just life things that can happen anytime, but things that we wished weren't all coming at the same time. Two examples are termites and our recently purchased used minivan.

Almost 2 weeks ago I found termites in our kitchen. The exterminators are coming out Monday to treat our house and that problem will be fixed (hopefully) soon. We'll probably have to replace the window that they've infested.

And also about 2 weeks ago we bought a used minivan to hold our family since our Saturn is just too small with 2 kids and car seats. It has gotten to where Adelle has to be folded in half to get her in the car. And we can forget actually taking anything with us if we go somewhere. Anyways, we bought a van and had it for about a week and a half and had driven it maybe 4 times when it started doing crazy stuff. We took it back to the dealer 2 days ago so they could fix it (its covered by a 90 warranty). They then called this morning saying it would be at least another day or 2 before its fixed, and it might even be next Monday or Tuesday. Praise God the van is under warranty so we don't have to pay to have it fixed and that the Saturn hadn't sold yet so we still have transportation. But its frustrating that we dropped all that money on a van only to not be able to drive it.

There are other things too that are going on which I won't bore you with, but these are 2 of the big ones. Anyways, life is interesting, in some really amazing ways and in some really ridiculous make-me-want-to-bang-my-head-against-the-wall kind of ways too.

an intense week

This past week was quite intense. Actually, the past 10 days have been intense. Last Sunday, I had to coordinate a large event at BRV (our church). Thankfully, all went well, but I'd never done something like that before and was hoping things would go as planned. Then my wife woke me up at 1am Tuesday morning telling me her water broke. And 10 hours later, our 2nd little girl was born. Since then we've been joyfully deprived of sleep and life has changed lots (for the better!). And then on Friday morning I got a call from my mom at 7am, which let me know something bed was up since she never call that early. She let me know my grandmother (my dad's mom) had suffered a massive heart attack at 4am that morning. Then my grandmother passed away about at about noon on Friday. So I had to make the decision to go to the funeral in Georgia or not (it was today and I didn't go). Now pile work pressure on top of that. To be more specific the pressure of one particular person at work who has been really stressing me out. And then blend that all that together and you have one of the more intense 10 days of my life.