End of year

Well here we are at the end of the year. I hate New Year's Resolutions because it seems that I never do anything with them. So I'm making my simple this year. I am going to exercise at least five minutes each day (lol, I told you it was simple) and I'm going to finish my AA if at all possible. I will also start doing some type of blog update every month. That's a lot, but it's simple too. I will be working again soon. I am hoping for a job that is easy and pays really well. We just figured out what I need to be making and it's more than I wish I was going to need to make. AUGH!

Pictures, here they come...

Just finished renaming all 900 of the pictures we took from our move out to Michigan. Now to overload the internet and post them to this blog and to facebook. Enjoy.

Summary of the big move...

Ok for all those that have been hiding in a rock or just don’t get information as fast as others  , we have moved to Marshall, MI . We are sorry to those that we did not get so see before we left. We tried to see as many as we could and we tried to get the word out as best as possible but oh well I guess.

Basically we have moved to Marshall in short because that is what the Lord told us to do. Why Marshall? We don’t know yet. I did service my LDS mission in Michigan but I went all over and never really served in Marshall. The Lord led us here with the idea that we were going to be looking into farming but that ended up not being the case. He just wanted us here. As proof of that I was looking for a good job for over 3 yrs in AZ and after about 40 interviews and applying for 215 other jobs I never got one. Well when I came up here in August looking for a job I got one on my very first interview and 1st one I applied for. Can we say sign?

We left Mesa on Oct 11, 2009 our 13th wedding anniversary and made a mini vacation out of the move. It ended up not being as fun as we wanted it but we made the best out of things. Lisa and Megan were both sick with the flu 1 week before we left and they were very sick the whole time. Lisa even ended up in the hospital for 2 visits while in Colorado with pneumonia. It was bad enough that they would not even let her leave town for 2 days. ( we just got the bills for those… $3200 so far. Boo hospital visits with no insurance) (then her prescriptions were another $300 on top of that.) Lisa is still not doing good and it has been 1 month since she got sick. Megan and Lisa decided to have more fun after we got here by getting pink eye.

Back to my story…..

We went up to Durango and rode the Durango/ Silverton train like we did for our honeymoon. Spent a few days there enjoying the cooler air and the fall colors. Then we went across Colorado and Kansas to Missouri. We visited some LDS church history sites like Liberty Jail, Far west Temple corner stones, and Adam-ondi-ahman. Then we went to Nauvoo, IL and spent 4 days there visiting all the church history sites there and seeing all there is to see. Some of it twice. There sure is a special spirit there. I signed the Family book at the Heber C Kimball historic house. We even made it into the Nauvoo temple for a session. That sure was an amazing experience. It was slow that day in the temple so they even took us on a “tour” of the off limit rooms. Then we went down to Carthage, IL and visited the jail where Joseph and Hyrum Smith were shot. What a moving and testimony building experience.
I got in contact with my cousin Delene who lives in Quincy , IL and we visited with her and her family. That was fun.

Those of you who followed our trip on facebook heard of that already. If you missed it, there are a few more details there, just go to my profile and see the posts.
Ok, now we made it to town on the afternoon of Oct 20th after spending the night in Chicago. We wanted to see the temple there, the one that we are suppose to go to now, that is 2.5 hrs away, one direction. We wanted to have some good famous Chicago style pizza in Chicago. Well after getting all turned around so much that even the GPS was mad at us because of all the stupid construction all over Chicago, we left. We did finally see the temple and a found a small pizza place to get pizza. Nothing special, just enough to say we had pizza in Chicago.

When we got to Marshall the house we are going to be renting was not even livable yet. The previous people trashed the place and the Land Lord never came by and check on the place and allowed the place to go into ruins. For some reason we felt really strongly that we needed to move into this house and it just so happen to come into position for us to rent it. Well the next day we found out why we are suppose to be here. The neighbors’ right next to us has been praying for a good family to move in next door and one that would be good friends with their kids who are 10 and 8. Pretty cool how the Lord works huh?

Well to make it short, to late.., we stayed in a hotel another night while they were getting heat and water working again in the house. The contractors had done $4000 work to the house just to make it livable. ( for those that missed… the house we moved into is a 5 bedroom, 2.5 bath house, built in 1857. It is nowhere in historic condition any more. It has been updated and added to so many times that they messed that all up. But the cool thing is that is has a 3 car garage, with huge work shop and a HUGE 3 story red barn all that sits on 3 acres. Lots of room to put in a huge garden and have some live stock.

The house still has a long way to go before it is really up to standards. All the facets leak, and we are on a personal well, so the well pump runs all the time. They just got done removing the 57 bats that lived In the attic and the 3 foot mound of poop they produced. The people still have to finish fixing the roof, because yes it leaks when it rains and we have gotten 3 inches of rain in the 2 weeks we have been here and the snow is getting ready to fly soon. The carpets smell like cat pee, and quite a few other things still, but we still get confirmation that this is where the Lord wants us so we grin and bear it for now. 

We finally got to go to church for the 1st time this last Sunday. They closed all the schools here because of the swine flu outbreak up here and they even canceled church for the whole stake.

We are slowing getting things put together so it is livable and somewhere we can start calling home. I started my new job Monday of last week at the Cole Chrysler Dealer and things are going well. Megan started school and has met a bunch of new friends. Lisa is still fighting the pneumonia and trying to get well. Some days she is ok, but most she is worn out.

The house in Mesa still has not sold ( it is trying to be short sold for $160,000) but more than likely it will end up being foreclosed on. Oh well I guess. We did our best. It was hard leaving Mesa and our house that we worked so hard on and put over $80,000 of improvements into, but one thing we have learned over the years that when the Lord calls you listen and follow the instructions given you. We still are not sure what the Lord wants us to do from here but the High Councilor from the stake did come out and meet us and did what it seemed like to us as a pre interview for whatever might be coming our way. He did say that us moving into town has been the topic of conversation for a few weeks now and they have big plans for us. Hopefully we will be able to live up to them.

Please stay in touch as much as possible. I know Megan and Lisa are missing you all (I am too but those that know me; I am not a touchy feely person like they are.) 
Just a note.. we took over 1000 pictures on the trip. I will be processing those pictures over the next week or so and hopefully will be able to email our a few and post others to the blog..

Why we are moving - Lisa

Some of you have wondered why we are moving and although we gave a very short answer, the Lord wants us in Michigan, some of you wish that you had more detail, so I have typed it up for you and posterity.

For the past three years Andrew has jumped from job to job, finding no satisfaction and not enough pay besides. As near as I can remember these are the ones he held; self-employed, power washer, water meter reader, service advisor, trash can maintenance man, credit card sales and finally farmhand (this lasted one week).

Finally about mid-2007 I was forced to find a job in order to keep the bills paid. I wasn't able to find a job until December, and I began working at Macy's. At the same time, Andrew changed jobs yet again to become a service advisor for Earnhardt Nissan. In August or so of 2008, Earnhart's let Andrew go citing that he was not brining in enough money, which surprised us because he was 100% commission, so what did they care? Nevertheless, he was unemployed for several months, during which he decided that he wanted to go into computers. We quickly found out that in order to do that line of work you need a good degree, so he began going back to school. I followed in January of 2009. In December of 2008, he began working with trash cans, a job was a good thing, but it was far less than we needed him to be making. We made up for it with out student aid money and were surviving however. We hoped to make a deal with our mortgage company to lessen our payments, which they did for us, but it was not enough. In May we thought he had a fairly lucrative offer to sell credit card machines, but for whatever reason he was unable to make a sale, thus effectively making him unemployed as he again was commission only. This time, I really got insistent with him about doing something he was passionate about, as he had already decided that he didn't want to go into computers afterall, though he only had three classes to go in order to finish his AA degree.

Meanwhile as I believe everyone knows by now, I was in a car wreck on May 12th. We chose to have the truck repaired rather then total it. After seven long weeks we finally got the truck back, but we had a $1000 deductible. Also, as most of you know, I was unable to work from mid-November 2008 to early January 2009 and again for a couple of weeks in February, all of which was unpaid. The car wreck was also unpaid time off, so we were really beginning to feel the affects of not much income being generated. In fact, I wasn't able to work for nearly two months, so it was really difficult financially.

Now, back to the other story. Andrew didn't know what to do, but I finally convinced him to go with his passion, which he wasn't sure what it was. I looked at him and kindly said "Duh, FARMING!!!" For all who know Andrew, you know that's his passion. He was concerned that he couldn't make good money at it. I finally convinced him that I didn't care about that part, the Lord would provide as needed, but I did care that he would be happy. I also told him there were plenty of farmers doing just fine financially.

So, farming it was. He met with a farmer, emailed farmers, interviewed farmers and got lots of information. He looked into loans but found he couldn't qualify as he needed at least one year commercial farm experience, which he had none of. He began looking for a job to obtain that year. He applied online to several positions, was referred to several people and got an offer from some of my family in Idaho that they would teach him to farm (but could offer no way for us to live during the process) and one from a member of the chuch in Michigan whom he had served on his mission. He kept looking and trying and we were unable to find him anything except for the offer in Michigan.

Her name is Ronda. She wants to start an Alpaca farm (they are like llamas) and offered to let Andrew become a partner with her. He wants to raise crops, so he can sell his crops to her for the Alpaca's to eat and help out with harvesting their wool when needed etc. He can build up his farm as he goes. She has a place for us to stay. The BRANCH needs us (they only have about 90 people attending). I found out I could transfer. We kept praying and looking. Michigan was not in our plans and we didn't want it to be. We had no desire to move. Nothing was working. Our financial situation was getting worse and worse. We started thinking we better pray about Michigan and secretly hoped we were wrong. Our roots are deep, we just painted our house, we love our neighborhood, our ward and we both have callings. Mine are new, but Andrew loves his more I'm pretty sure. (When Bishop asked him what he would do if he was released now instead of later he replied that he would go inactive...lol). We were unable to shake the feeling that we needed to head to Michigan however and finally decided to take it to the Temple.

Well, we obviously got a confirmation that we needed to move. Megan is super-excited cause we told her we'd get a new puppy. She is also super-excited cause she is hoping for a horse. We keep telling her that's not going to happen anytime soon, but the faith of a child is strong. She doesn't have one yet, but I won't be surprised when we get there and someone offers a free one to us. That would be just our luck.

We plan on moving on October 11th. It is the Sunday after General Conference.

The Big Move

Well some have heard and others have not. We have tried to tell a lot of people personally but there are just too many people to tell. We have tried to tell other people to pass the word and now we are trying to post it everywhere we can. The short of it is the Lord wants us in Michigan. Andrew has been in and out of work for the past 3 yrs as most of you know. More out than in… last thing most of you heard was he was doing a lot of traveling with a company doing the residential garbage cans. He left there in June in pursuit of another job that he thought was going to pay better, but ended up not paying him a dime yet. Well from there I and Lisa thought that maybe I should go toward farming. I did a ton of research on it and had several offers on the table from all over the country. Even offers to work with the church on church for profit farms. One by one all the offers fell off the table except the offer in Michigan, my old stopping grounds while on my mission. We did a ton of praying and felt very strongly that this is the direction we need to go in. and not just for farming but for church service. Farming was just the door to get us out there.
So here we are… I am leaving for Marshall, Michigan tomorrow Saturday to secure a job. A house has been provided for us to live in for the next several months rent free. The new bank is in process and the schools are ready to welcome Megan with open arms. Right now our plan is to move Oct 11th, driving out there and stopping along the way to see some church site, and make it a mini vacation. We should arrive at our new home in Marshall, MI Late Saturday night Oct 19th ( I think)
This is going to be a hard move, moving away from all of our family and friends, which we have never done before ( expect for my mission) Our roots grow deep here but hopefully with technology we can still keep in touch with everyone.

Travel, Travel and more Travel

well it has been awhile since we have written. I am traveling quite a bit for the new job. I am (Andrew)currently in Lafayette, LA. Before that I was in Eden Prairie, MN. Then I was back in Lafayette. Before that I was privileged to be home for 1 week. Then I was in Maple Grove, MN. I have gotten to go home on the last 2 weekends which was nice.
I am happy to have a job and there is potential in the company. I am getting tired of being away from Lisa and Megan. Such is life I guess.

The Cold Deep North

Well you all. I have been up here in the cold north for the last 2 weeks now working on a project for Otto Container Management. (the new place I work for). We have been delivering recycle trash can here with a little computer chip attached to them. As the people recycle then they get award points online toward all kinds of goodies. It is a pilot program but for the most part people seem to like it.

Yes I am in the same area that has been all over the news about ho cold it has been. The ambient temp. was around -10F for the highs with wind chills down to -40F. And the lows have been much colder than that. It has been bearable since I was in Alaska a few years ago with temps much colder than that. Well for 2 days we called it quits and went home to warm up and now we are back out here.

I have some pictures on my phone that I hope to upload to the blog some day, I forgot my usb cable at home.

Hope you all are staying warm.