Which Way Is Up

Are you up or are you down?  Are you sideways, crossways or upside down?  I ask myself this as I sit here in my new life in Alaska.  You will notice that I haven't written on our blog for almost a year.  This is because right about a year ago my life took a ride on a giant beautiful roller coaster.  

It started that we were moving from Great Falls Montana.  But where might that be?  Could it be Germany or Singapore?  How about the Middle East, Big Fork Montana, Kirsville Missouri, Heber city Utah?  All of these were job offers as well as others.  We traveled to many of these places and even took temporary jobs at some of them.  Our family stayed together at some of the places while we tried it out.  We thought long and hard and prayed often. We even home schooled that year so we could take our kids with us on our hunt.   We wanted to make the perfect decision for our family.  There were many  turned down opportunities because they did not feel right.  

Finally, we thought we had made the right decision; twice.  We were all but moved to Missouri when it fell through.  Next, we were a day away from buying a house in Utah.  It was not meant to be.  After the ten month process, we were back to square one.

"Well,"   I said to Jeremy, "We have tried all the places I was interested in.  Why don't you go ahead and research Alaska."

  Jeremy thought I was on drugs.  He'd been trying to get me to Alaska for years.  It was a closed book in my mind. . . ."A whole country away from family."  Jeremy had already done research in Alaska.  It had many dental opportunities and the economy was good there compared to the lower 48 states.  

Every thing went super fast at that point.  It all fell into place.  Come June of 2010 we bought a dental practice in Alaska.  We packed up and moved from our beautiful home in Montana.   The 24 foot trailer was filled and headed North for our new adventure.  Jeremy Drove out on the Alaskan Highway for

a five day journey.   I stayed behind and flew up two months later with the dog and kids;  both of which are stories in and of itself which I will share later.  

Since we all arrived here late July we have "only" moved three times.  It must be a record somewhere.  We started out pretty organized with boxes labeled and things easy to find.  By the time we got to this last house, everything was chaos.  We were so tired of moving it did not matter what box this or that was in; only if it got there.  Needless to say, although we have been in our last place for two months, we are often playing treasure hunt when we need any particular item. 

Moving is a funny thing.  It's like a rebirth.  You start from scratch all over again.  It is quite refreshing.  It's also a somewhat daunting task.  All of our routines, schedules, and any kind of order that was once in place fell out from the moving truck somewhere in the last three moves.  

It feels like I am just starting my family again in some ways.  

"Chore chart, what chore chart?"

"There's jobs around here? Who knew"

"Let's have a contest to see who can have the longest hair.  We can't find the clippers and we don't know a good barber in town anyway." (I think Tilly won that one.) 

I should have taken my zapper gun and froze the kids so they would not grow.  Buy the time we found all of our clothing they had all out grown them.  Bummer! 

Half of our furniture is still in Great Falls staging our house to sell.  So, mats on the floor will have to do. 

                    But, life goes on and you throw yourself in!  The kids had friends calling right away.  Thank goodness for the church which snapped our teenagers up and kept them busy with amazing activities.  Jer's business has kept him hopping to say the least.  

School started a month after we got here.  Between school, preschool, football practice, dance, piano, scouts, the kids cleaning their dad's office every day, and packing or unpacking (which ever applied),  we didn't have a second to catch our breath.  

Now that it's been six months and the roller coaster is dying down, I take a step back . . . . . .

and find myself in Alaska!

It is beautiful!

Lately I have had a bit of a let down I guess.  I suppose that's normal after big events.  I'm deciding however, that instead of feeling lost I'm just going to recreate our life.  What a perfect time to sit pack and decide what you really want your life to be about. . . and make it that way.

I hope to share with you (our loved ones and dear friends) our adventures in "The Last Frontier".  It's my way of hopefully bridging the gap over Canada.  :)