One year ago today a chapter closed and a new one began. A year ago today we were in Salt Lake City headed to Lagoon for the day. Danny had gotten a call right before we left on our trip to fly out for a job interview in Columbus OH. We didn’t want to cancel our trip so we had them get the tickets from the SLC airport. I took 5 kids to Lagoon myself after I dropped Danny off at the airport. The feelings that flooded me were with a little bit of excitement and dread. The entire day at the park I had my mind on my husband. He had, I think, he may come on and correct me but 8 interviews that day. He flew home the following day and brought each of the kids an Ohio memento. I remember thinking that if he didn’t get this job that we’d have these mementos to remind us of our disappointments for a long time to come. I shoved it out of my mind and let the children enjoy their tokens of love. We returned to our home later that week and went on with life as usual. We didn’t hear from them for a long time (a week) but when you are waiting that’s a long time (remember that boys when you don’t call a girl). Anyway, they said to be patient, they were doing some reorganization. We waited, months, with no word and went on with life that it just didn’t work out. Then one day in October Danny got the call at work, right after he had been informed that his boss was retiring and that if he wanted the job he could have it. So all of our cards were in front of us. We knew we had to make a choice, Danny didn’t like the way his job was going, he didn’t want to be a people manager and pulled away from his true love of computers. So the decision was simple in the end.
As I reflect on this past year, it has been one our hardest since we started our journey together 15 years ago. I would rather have a thousand paper cuts and do pushups in lemon juice then repeat this year. I always tell Danny that being married is the easiest part, it’s life that gets in the way. It has been trial after trial, but we are happy we have closed this chapter in our lives and opened a new one. Our dog passed away a couple of weeks ago, and I think that was the final event. We decided to put Jazzy down, we also decided to talk to the children about the reasoning’s for making this choice, although we did consider telling them that she was sick and we took her to the vet and she didn’t make it… but decided we could make this a learning opportunity about life. It sucked. I took one last picture with her and the kids and it’s too heart breaking to post. They were all very sad but understood the reasoning behind it and that we were actually showing her compassion to let her go. Here’s hoping for a happier chapter to follow.
Danny is extremely happy at his new job. He’s loving the daily challenges, the large scale of his job, and the international flare. He sees a future with this job, and has plenty of room to grow and learn. There were so many reasons to make this change and we are finally starting to see some of them. We love the community, schools, trees, lakes, laid back attitudes, children friendly activities. Our ward entered a float in the local parade. My children were giddy with excitement, and set their own alarms to get up on time.
Picture overload! Following the parade we went to a friends home for a BBQ and fireworks.
A few pictures of the last few weeks.
