Life is a Journey :) Enjoy!

This blog is to chronicle the new part of our journey, as we begin our adventures in Oregon. I thought this was an appropriate post!

LIFE IS A JOURNEY NOT A DESTINATION: Sometimes our journey is like a rollercoaster! Sometimes it seems it's all uphill. But a lot of the time we get to just enjoy the beach!
We're going to live by this and believe it! We are going to enjoy this part of our journey and look forward to the new things we'll get to experience on this part of our journey. Life is an adventure, enjoy!!

Motorcycle trip!

Chad picked me up at the airport in Portland and we took off on a motorcycle/camping trip. We took our motorcycle tent trailer and we had a wonderful time! It was nice to live primitively with my honey. We took in some beautiful scenery, cooked, played cards and other "stuff" and had a great time together. We have been so busy the past several months and I think we were a little out of touch, this trip was just the medicine we needed! We are planning a trip to Yosemite National Park in a few weeks! We are loving the camping thing! We loved our travel trailer but I think we like this tent trailer camping much better, maybe because the bike ride is so wonderful, you just see more of the beauty around you on a bike! I will create an album of the photos because we have like 400 of this trip and post it later!

School Days, School Days....almost over :)

I am taking 18 hours this semester and this will complete my bachelors degree! It will make our bike trips a little more trying but hey I'll have a degree before the end of the year! I got my associates in May 09 and I can't wait to have the bachelors! I was going to take 20 hours but decided I could do the technical writing class anytime and I didn't really need it for graduation, just thought it might come in handy at some point in my "career". I am excited to graduate (yep I'm walking) but I'm going to miss school I think, I may just take a class now and again, I really love learning a lot!

Washington to Oregon to Utah and back again :)

Yes we have realized a move is a good thing for us at this time in our lives. I have not been really happy about it because I don't want to leave my kids and grandkids but Chad really wants to give this a shot and I have to go along with it, I would rather be with him anywhere than without him in Utah! I love the man what can I say :)
Jennifer & Sarah have really been helping us out a lot with packing and loading up our stuff. They also took a lot of "things" off our hands! I did think that at some point I would get some of the things back like my dining set, my king headboard, my freezer but hey I'm thinking it's no big deal, it's just stuff and is probably a lot more needed right where it all ended up? So we got us a cute little dining set that fits perfectly in our place, and I'm thinking this simplifying is a really good thing.

Jennifer and Sarah took a trip to Washington to spend the weekend with Griffin and we met up with them there and did a little camping over the weekend. It was a good time! The kiddos liked it. Then I rode back with the girls to our house and they helped me with some unpacking and decorating which I was so thankful for. They stayed a couple days and I had a meeting with my professor in Utah so I rode back with them and stayed a week. Chad and Bella did some camping while I was away.
I'm likin it here in Bend!~

photos of our place and the weekend in Washington to come soon!

Sadness

It's hardest to be apart from family when there is sadness. Sarah recently found out she was pregnant, we were happy for her, Keleigh is going on 2 and she didn't want her kids to be too far apart, so although it wasn't expected or planned there was excitement over a new little life. The sadness happened when there was a loss of the pregnancy. She said it was hard but not as hard as if she had made plans, she only knew a short time but it was still a loss. I think it's the kind of loss that is hard to manage sometimes because you know you have loss but you never had real tangible evidence of the existence other than the little test which was positive. I'm sad for her and it's just hard to think about what might have been. Jennifer lost a baby before Jordan and she was much farther along and we knew it was a boy so it was a harder loss but still I wonder what those grandbabies would have been like. I know we will meet them someday and we will get to experience the joy of their life then.

We are blessed...

I was just thinking about the blessings in life. The economy has been hard on many, us included. However when I think about it we are very lucky in some ways. We were able to sell our house at a profit from the purchase price seven years ago! We actually experienced a gain on our appraisal from the appraisal when we bought it. So we were actually lucky because many people are having issues selling because they are upside down in their homes or there is no equity because of the housing bust. We were blessed and we made some money, which is a blessing because we have had employment issues, so all in all Heavenly Father is really looking out for us! Plus we have wonderful family looking out for us too! Chad has wonderful siblings who really care about us and are there for us, we are actually living in a house which Chad's brother owns right now until we figure out what to do and Chad is going into business with this same brother. We hope to build a house here or buy one at a cheap price and fix it up (there are lots of those around!)

The move...

Well we are finally totally in Bend, Oregon. It took 4 trips with our truck and trailer to get everything here, and we didn't even bring everything we owned! We simplified a lot before the move and have even gone further in that effort since arriving! I am kinda liking the whole making life simpler effort finally. I was not keen on this whole move at first, Chad was so so excited to get here and get settled and I finally gave in and said I would give it a chance. He has explored a lot on his bike and has gotten to know the area somewhat well. I however have been hanging at the house trying my best to get it organized, and continuing the simplification! It is actually very beautiful here! We took a bike ride over to Sisters, OR yesterday and what a beautiful ride it was...love it! I am now finally excited to get to know the area! I'll post pics later! So if you find yourself in the Bend area, drop on by for a visit :)