Life Changes

So much has happened in the last 6 weeks. This is exactly why I should be more faithful at updating the blog since it is my only source of journaling. Next year, I will do better. If it's my only resolution I can't blow it right?  All the things that have happened recently are going to get a mention but no detail.  And I guess that is ok, since I won't need a journal entry to help me remember the events.

On November 1st, Alan lost his job with Argosy in CA.  I'm not going to go in to what happened but it was sudden and very unfair, which has made it very hard to deal with.  We considered filing a lawsuit against the company but in the end, we just decided to take the severance and move on.  Since CA was so expensive to live in, and we didn't know where he would end up getting a job, we have moved to Utah and are staying with Callie and Brian in their basement.  I don't know why this particular trial of "joblessness" keeps popping up for us, but I am very grateful that we have such wonderful families with empty finished basements! ;-)

So we packed up our house in Cali very quickly and moved away on the 20th of Nov.  After only 5 months of living there.  We were extremely sad.  CA is beautiful and our ward was amazing.  Maybe we will end up back there.  Alan has been applying for jobs everywhere but for now we are just trying to figure out where the Lord wants us to be.

Before leaving CA, since Alan had free time and we already had the passes, we spent A LOT of time at Disneyland.  That was so fun.  We definitely got our money's worth.  And we had a few last trips to the beach and spent a few last days with our friends the Foates.  Dave and Louise and Matthew came out to visit and helped us pack up the truck and drove up to UT with us. We stayed a day then turned around and went down to AZ for Thanksgiving. 

Thanksgiving was fun.  All of my siblings and their families were there.  We got a new "whole" family picture, and since nobody is prego, it might be complete! We spent time with Cara and Shane and the kids had fun with their cousins.  On the Friday after Thanksgiving we went to the park and Zachary fell off the monkey bars and hit his face, shoving his front tooth through the inside of his lip and outside the front.  It was very bloody and traumatic, but the doctors didn't stitch the inside and he only got one stitch on the outside.  He knocked his tooth pretty loose.  But the dentist didn't think he would loose it.  His gums have firmed back up and his mouth is healing nicely.  It's a good thing that kids heal fast.  And we were also pretty lucky that this happened the day before our health insurance expired!

Alan's face is starting to get a little better.  He has been using this electro-shock thing that his parents have.  The improvement is mostly just twitching and minor movements, but that is encouraging since he has had absolutely nothing like that for the last 3 months.  His job search feels slow, but it is actually going better than the last one.  He is finally starting to hear back from some of the first jobs he applied for. He's had about 5 interviews, but no second interviews yet.  Job hunting is such a slow process.  We have had a hard time getting AZ to issue unemployment payments.  They are making him wait because of the severance and jump through a bunch of hoops.  I know that is why you have an "emergency" fund, but we are now out of money in the checking account.  Hopefully the unemployment $ comes in soon, because I really don't want to have to dip into our savings.  It would be nice to have that around when he does get a job and we want to buy a home somewhere else.  Or even to cover moving expenses a second time.

It is nice to be around all of Alan's family since we haven't gotten to spend any significant time with them for a while. I am grateful for all the wonderful people we have around us.  The last 6 months have been pretty hard on us and the next 6 months probably will be too.  But we have loving family and friends and we have the gospel and I am doing my best to be thankful for what we have and our blessings rather than focusing on our trials.  I'm doing better this time around with that at least.........