The begining....

The news if official, we are heading to Phoenix, Arizona. Francis gave notice last week and his last day will be this Friday, November 7, 2008. He will begin work with General Dynamics on Nov. 17. Of course this puts into action a wild and crazy chain of events...get the house ready, get the kids ready, find a new house, try to breathe...trust in God...trust in God....trust.

Over the next couple of weeks we are working on the 'get the outside of the house' ready. We are frantically racing against the cold winds to get all of the outside work complete. Unfortunately, we found carpenter ants making a home in the porch and so we are tearing out the old wood, treating for the ants, and trying to rebuild and paint before the weather changes. We are praying that God will provide several more beautiful and warm fall days for this work.

I have been putting all the gardens to bed for winter for the last time. This might sound really funny to some, but it has been a sad task for me. I feel like I am saying farewell to good and trusted friends. They represent hard work done side by side with my husband, fun and exciting trips to the greenhouse with kids clamoring for all the beautiful flowers, years of planting little groups of crocuses in the grass with the girls to surprise us in the early spring....the list goes on and on. They have been a labor of love and it has been surprisingly hard to say farewell to them. I am trusting that God will provide a buyer that will love them as much as I have.

Most of all, I think this will be a time of pulling ten years of memories up from us as we prepare to say farewell to this home and to our dear friends here in Cedar Rapids. I fear that I am in for a few tearful months to come. Trust...trust...trust...