April 2013

Spring Break

We made it to Post Falls the first night of our interview road trip. The second day was driving from there to Bozeman. They put us up in a hotel with a nice pool, so the girls enjoyed swimming even while Mike was anxious about his all-day interview the next day. On Tuesday while Mike was gone all day, the girls and I explored Bozeman. We liked the trails and the public library. We even visited Mike mid-day at the duck pond.

 

 

 

 

Mike's interview had gone well, but we just weren't sure how it was going to go. He found out he was one of four finalists. 

Of course we stopped for an epic sandwich from Pickle Barrel after his long day and topped it off with a celebration of frozen yogurt.

 

On Wednesday morning we drove to Billings to see my Grandma and Grandpa and aunts and uncle. We had a great time visiting and touring around my old stomping grounds. 

On Thursday we left Billings to head home. We made it to Missoula. Mike had gotten a call on Wednesday that the Chief Information Officer wanted to speak with him, so we made an appointment to talk with him on Friday morning. We stayed at a hotel with water slides in Missoula so the girls would have something fun to do while dad talked on the phone in the morning.

That night we enjoyed dinner out at Perkins and watched The Croods at the movie theater. That was a special treat since we NEVER go to the movies with the kids.

Mike's phone interview went well. He really liked the CIO. It seemed like he liked Mike too, so all the way home we had hope that maybe he would get the job. We had hoped that they would tell us before the weekend, but no such luck. We had to wait through it to find out our destiny.

On Monday afternoon we got the call. They offered Mike the job and he accepted it. However, the big disappointment came about an hour later when they told Mike he didn't have the job. They actually made a mistake and called the wrong guy. Both the top two candidates were named Mike and they had called the wrong one! We were so devastated. We had thought that this job opportunity was meant to be. Why did all of this happen? What would we do now?  

So Monday evening and all day Tuesday was miserable. We were defeated. However, we continued to pray and seek God's will for us. We had friends praying for us and we hung onto the verse Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." For some reason I woke up determined on Wednesday that it wasn't the end of the story. It just seemed like this was Mike’s job. Too much was lined up for it not to be his. On Wednesday afternoon Mike was home for a late lunch feeling defeated. He was going to have a meeting with the company president in 20 minutes. We were talking when the call came in from the Dean. “We’d like to offer you the job for real this time.” We don’t know what happened to Mike #1, but I guess he didn’t want the job after all.

So…I guess we are moving!

Now we were in full forward movement to get our house sold and our family moved to Montana.

Port Townsend with Girl Scouts

Before we even had the interview, I started to prepare for the chance we might be leaving, so I arranged for a Girl Scout trip for my troop. It was all lined up, so off we went. There is a Girl Scout house in Port Townsend, WA that you can reserve for $40 per night. You have to ride the ferry to get there, so that is half the fun!

The weather was windy and the water was choppy so the ride was all kind of fun for the girls!

We had a fun sleepover and in the morning we were able to visit a photographer. She showed us her studio and gave us some tips on how to take portraits. It was a fun, informative part of our trip. She was super nice and even took a beautiful portrait of my troop!

Then we spent the rest of the morning walking through the town and farmer’s market taking pictures.

 

 

 

The next week I was packing what I could and then we had a garage sale that weekend. We had to figure out how to get our family out to Bozeman. Mike’s first day was May 6, but we couldn’t get an apartment until May 21st. We decided to take a load out when Mike went and then another small load with the girls and I. We had to use U-Haul because a hired mover wanted to charge us $5000 to move our household and we only were allowed $3000 by the school.

On Sunday we had the family over to dinner because I had to thaw a turkey. We wanted everyone to have a chance to see Mike before he left town.

Another last minute thing I had to do for my Girl Scouts was a “Take Action Project” for our “Journey” that we’d been working on all year. We decided to interview residents at Country Meadows Retirement Home on relationships. It was my absolute favorite activity we have ever done with my troop. The girls loved the residents and did a great job asking questions. The residents loved the kids too!

That Friday was Mike’s last day of work. He loved the guys that he worked with! Those guys were his great joy at the job and will miss them terribly. We went to celebrate with them at Sakura for dinner. It was such a nice evening and we had a great time watching the chefs do crazy tricks at the grill. The girls had never been there before and they had blast!

On Saturday we had a wonderful open house party where all our friends could come over to say goodbye to Michael before he left town. So many people came over and it was great to see them all!

We even had a piñata!

  

Tuesday night we had some time to go visit the Greats and went out to dinner as a family.

 

 

We love Olive Garden!

 

On Wednesday we got the biggest U-haul they have and with George and Debbie’s help, we got most of our household packed inside. It was a lot of work, but we did it.

Thursday morning Mike and I left town. He drove the big truck and I drove his car.

It was a nice uneventful drive. We stopped in Post Falls and went on to Bozeman the next day. 

I hired movers to unload the truck with Mike on Saturday and I flew home to be with the girls.

I will be missing the salt water fun in Western Washington! Here are our beautiful San Juans from the plane.

To Be Continued…