Checking out the soil so I can "Bloom Where I'm Planted"

To "Bloom Where You're Planted" is my personal theme for this time in my life.  (I'm evening making a little embroidery do-hickey.  Wait and see.)  It has been incredibly difficult to visualize just how and where I am going to be "planted" because up until last weekend we had not yet seen Austin, our new hometown, in person.  We finally got our first peek, and boy was it an adventure.

We drove to Las Vegas on a Wednesday evening, put our kids to bed at my sister Abby's house, slept for a couple of hours, and then Taylor and I left on a very early flight to Austin to look for a house.  I'm not sure how sane I was... thinking it was OK to just leave five kids... MY five, very difficult five kids... with my kind sister.  Her husband works very long hours, and she has three kids of her own.  Her time and energy are already stretched thin, and here I came along and piled the work and stress up high and thick.  But here is the thing.  I don't know what else we could have possibly done.  I have but a handful of acquaintances here in Irvine who I have only met a couple times at church.  What else could we have possibly done with our kids while we secured a place to live in our soon-to-be new home?  Left them all with our oldest in an apartment in Irvine? A twelve year old? I'm pretty sure that is very illegal.  And if it is not... it should be.  I'm not sure it should be legal to leave 8 children ages 12 and under with one person, even if she is an adult.  But that is what we did.  Oh, Abby.  Bless your heart forever and ever.  What would we have ever done without you?

Our trip to Austin was an emotional roller coaster.  On one hand, we were in a fun, new place as a couple!... A 5 day, 4 night date!  But on the other hand, we were on a very tight time table with no room for error.  Either we found a suitable place for our family of 7, or we would come home empty handed and homeless come August 15.  Between sticking to our price range and finding a place with at least 4 bedrooms, it was tough.  We spent the business hours of each day searching for rentals, both apartments and houses.  By the end of each day we would be pretty sure we had found something that would work.  We would then go out to a nice, fun dinner - just the two of us - and pretend we were on vacation.  

This one apartment complex seemed very promising.  Four pools!  And they had a floor plan with four bedrooms.  But because none were currently vacant, we couldn't see them.  Knowing what I do about living in an apartment with five kids (no yard or "escape" from each other), we wanted to like this place, but we were holding out hope we could find a house for the same price.  

On the recommendation of Kelly (who lived in Austin with her husband during an internship) and other people we met while visiting, we ate at The Oasis, known as "The sunset capital of Texas", or was it "the world"? I can't remember.  The sunset over Lake Travis was spectacular, as advertised.

Not pregnant.  Just really enjoying the food in Texas.  :)

 When the sun finally sank behind the hill, everyone on the patio dining area gave a big applause for the good show.  It made me smile.

 And then... and then we would come back to our friends' home where we were staying (even though they were out of town!  You guys are so generous and awesome!) and I would proceed to have a nervous breakdown.  Every. Single. Night.  I would lay in the dark and think of our options.  I would try to imagine each house or apartment as our "home".  I tried to imagine having the kind of friends we've had in Oregon.  I tried so hard.  And every night it ended in tears, a massive headache, and me getting close to hyperventilating.  Meanwhile... my sweet husband who is able to shut his brain off much easier than I... he slept.  I thought many times during this trip about my own parents who moved their family of seven children multiple times. Hey Oscarsons, remember the Trent Motel?  And then we lived in a two bedroom condo for several months when I was in second grade.  We lived in a Holiday Inn for three months when I was in seventh grade.  I knew that what Taylor and I were doing was not a worse-case scenario.  I knew my mom had dealt with even tighter living quarters and more children.  I knew this could be done.  But how?  It made me appreciate my mom more and more for all she did as we grew up.  She claims she doesn't remember any of the hard times.  If they were anything like mine (and they were probably worse) then that is a blessing.  Whoa. That sounded really pessimistic.  Sorry.  Just keepin' it real.  

On Sunday we visited four different wards in the area.  We had not made any firm decisions about which area to live, so we thought if we found a ward that we felt was "home" it would narrow our search.  Here's the problem:  ALL of the wards in the northern Austin area are A-mazing.  No one has anything bad to say about any of them, and from what we saw, we would have been completely happy living in any one of them.  You would think this would make our decision easier.  But no.  

We walked in to the first church building at 8:30 before the meetings began.  We chatted with the first man we met, and it turns out he is from a family that my family was very good friends with in St. Louis.  They happen to have the same last name as Taylor and I, and his wife happens to have my first name.  It was very cool and a little eery, and I was trying to determine if this was a "sign" that this was "our ward".  You see, we felt so very certain in moving to Sherwood that we were absolutely in the right ward. We were wondering if there was another one out there meant just for us.  Is meeting someone with your same name a "sign" that "this is the right place", or does it mean they already have one of you there?  (It WOULD be confusing, after all.)  Regardless, the sacrament meeting was incredible.  It was like the speakers were speaking directly to me and for me.  One in particular spoke about faith.  Faith is the opposite of fear.  You cannot fear and have faith.  She touched on everything that has been in my troubled heart and worried mind.  I found great peace in it.  The people we talked to before and after the meeting were so kind and welcoming.  This was the ward we would be in if we decided to live in the apartments with four bedrooms and four pools.  It seemed like a no-brainer.  

And then we visited a ward that had been recommended to us by friends of friends... of friends.... who had lived in it.  It has a strong youth program, and it is in the area that we would ideally like to build a home in the near future.  That is one thing we had determined in all of our house hunting: we want to build a new home in Crystal Falls on the edge of the hill country.  It is the most beautiful area of all we saw in Austin and reminded us a little bit of home in Sherwood.  I saw my mother in me once more as we looked at the new model homes in the area.  It was obvious that I was happy happy happy with the idea of moving into a new home.  But the idea of moving into someone else's house was giving me a nervous breakdown daily.  Without the means to immediately swoop in and put down money on a new home, we decided that if we liked the ward we would rent in it and try to build a house in it within a year.

I attended Relief Society.  Before the meeting I chatted with a few ladies in the hall who all insisted that this ward was THE best ward in the world and that we ABSOLUTELY MUST live in it.  What a welcome! We talked with some young women in the hall, and they were so impressive.  They are a fun, tight group who seem to take good care of each other.  That made me really happy.  In Relief Society they made me feel so welcome and a part of their family.  After the meeting several women talked to me, gave me their numbers and ages of their kids.  It just seemed like the ward was that perfect glove that would fit our family.  One problem:  We had less than 24 hours to find a rental home within the ward boundaries.  I stayed up late looking on zillow.com and craigslist for rentals.  It turns out the ward boundaries are pretty small, and looking for a rental house was no small task.  On Monday morning Taylor had to work in the Austin office. I sat in the corner of his office at my computer and started calling about every house for lease in the ward boundaries.

 I arranged to see three different houses.  The first one we looked at is the one we signed on with a one year lease.  Green carpet and purple walls, but it seems just right for our family.  I keep telling myself it is temporary. The plan is to save save save and build build build our dream house ASAP.   It is a very well laid plan, if you ask me... :)

And so just hours before my plane was to leave Austin, we had a place to move it before school starts.  Now that I finally knew which elementary and middle school our kids would be attending, I raced around town to the schools and the district office to gather as much information as I could, and to take pictures for the kids to see.  

 There is something really surreal and yet calming about attending meetings in a church building that is identical in layout to the one we've been attending for 8 years.  It is easy to feel at home there.

I even found a Tae Kwon Do school and got all the info there.  The dojang is right next to an orthodontist's office... the next thing on my list to find!  Now I just need a piano teacher for three kids and a preschool for Alice.  Whew. This is exhausting.  But the nervous breakdowns have subsided.  And I take that as a good sign.  Now if only I can stop grinding my teeth at night and get rid of these horrendous headaches!

I'm looking at my calendar and realizing that we only have 2 more Sundays here in Irvine before we go to Austin for good.  Taylor will still be commuting quite a bit for a month or two.  But we'll get the kids in school and get settled.  Boy, does that sound nice.  Before that all happens, my sister Abby and her family will come to visit us for a weekend.  And Kelly and her family will also be in town, and we plan on seeing them for a day or two.  Besides that, I will continue to hang out at the pool with the kids and take them to Tae Kwon Do in the afternoon.  Waverly is content to hang out all day in the apartment.  The kids actually don't want to go out and have the fun adventures I had kind of been planning on all summer.  They are so tired of being in the car, and that is where bickering escalates into true ugliness.  I have to admit, I am anxious to move on to Austin and start our next, permanent phase of life.  This transition stuff is tough.  Oh, I have so much more to say about all of that.  I learned so much as I stayed with Abby in Las Vegas for the week after I got back from Austin.  I meant to write about all of that, and somehow I got off on this tangent about looking for our house in Austin.  What I learned in Vegas will have to be continued....

And so...

To be continued...

But first, here are some more pictures of the fun moments during our trip to Austin where I was not hyperventilating or having a nervous breakdown: