It dawned on us earlier this week that one year ago today is when we drove from Northwest Arkansas to West Tennessee! Two moving trucks, 1 Montero, 1 mini van, 1 pickup truck, and some very tired people, and VERY cranky kids!
When we drove it, it would be only my second time to see the area. My first time to
see our rental house. We drove into town on a dark and rainy night trying to decide what had to be unloaded and what could wait until morning. Not too long after that I did my
first blog post about moving.
At the time we didn't know how we'd like the area, if the church we
thought we'd attend would become home. If
Union would be what it seemed. Missing friends and what is familiar.
I don't think you can ever not totally miss something after you move. To stay honest, I still miss:
* CCF Bible Study
* Going ANYWHERE in Siloam and running into someone we knew (or someone that would ask me why I didn't have my choo-choo wagon with the boys in it!)
* Women of Worth (our ladies group from church)
* Moms and Tots with my friends and the kids friends
* Tender Care (the boys preschool)
* Carrabba's Italian food (YUM!)
* Fellowship groups/Sunday School classes at First Assembly
* Mall choices
* An airport that is only 20 min away (That flies
Allegiant!)
A year later the word that continually comes to our mind is BLESSED!
We have been SOOO blessed to find a church home, FRIENDS, friends for my kids, a GREAT working environment for Dan! We never thought we'd have what we do, especially in only a year!
Our Blessings:
* Friends!
* the boys transition
* Our new house (our dream house!)
* Sunday School Class
* 20 min drive to most anything we need
* the parks
* Open Gymnastics time & Fun Zone Jumpers
* Dan's job at Union
* Sam's club being a lot closer :)
* FRIENDS! (yes, I had to list it twice)
* being asked everywhere if we have a church or if we want to visit their church.
Having children ask lots of questions makes you sometimes figure out things in your life that you have never completely ironed out in your head. My children are old enough to ask a lot of questions about moving, friends, etc. They still ask for some of their friends from AR! It has made me tell them something I have to remind myself all the time, so that we are not sad about moving.
"Sometimes people are in our lives for a small time, and others for a big time. I know it's sad that we moved away from friends and it makes my heart sad too. However, if we didn't move, we would have never met our new friends! And if we would have never moved to our old home, we would have never known those people too. God let us meet each person in our lives for a reason, and we can keep that memory in our hearts to make us smile."
Thank you Northwest Arkansas for being our home when we needed it, and thank you West Tennessee for opening your arms to us as our new home!