Let's start with the fact that on October 30th, Samuel officially passed his 4th block of nursing school, and was FINISHED with classes. HALLELUJAH!!! He had a few weeks of meetings and a few more clinicals, but by December he was just working full-time at the prison, still as an LPN, and studying to take the NCLEX. The very earliest date that he was allowed to test for his boards was January 29th. That seemed a long ways away, but he did need the study time.
We had Thanksgiving here in Arizona with his family, and then his actual graduation ceremony was on December 17th- my 34th birthday. It was quite a day, and it will go down as my best birthday ever, for obvious reasons. My parents flew down for the graduation, we all went to dinner, and then the ceremony. I remember that it hadn't really hit me yet, that he was finally finished, until about halfway through the day, and I just broke down and cried tears of joy and relief. And I hugged him so tight and told him how proud I was of him, for doing one of the hardest things of all time.
The ceremony was in Phoenix and didn't even start until 7 p.m., so we left the little ones home with a babysitter and took Kalia with us. She got to walk up on stage with me and "pin" him, and she loved being a part of it all. The next day we were packing up to go to St. George for Christmas. My parents were going to drive back with me and the girls, and Sam was going to stay and work and fly in on Christmas Eve. Floy and I managed to squeeze in a little surprise party to celebrate. His mom has a funny sense of humor and decorated with lots of hospital stuff, and friends and family dropped in to congratulate him and eat from our spread of food. It was only a week before Christmas (and was a very last minute party) and so we didn't get the best turn out, but it was good enough. I was starting to get sick and was trying to fight off whatever was coming.
We were stressed out about our family vehicle. We just hadn't really loved our Honda Odyssey, it had high miles and lots of little annoying things about it. Sam told me to get a Toyota Sienna, but I wasn't sure what I could get for the Odyssey and it's high mileage, so I listed it for sale first, and then when it sold, we were left without a van for almost a month, trying to find the right Toyota. We ended up having to rent a minivan to get to St. George (just a one-way rental.)
We spent several weeks up there, and at one point Sam and I went up to the Orem and Salt Lake area to look at minivans that people were selling. We found an awesome deal on a really nice Sienna, and drove it home. We love that thing. It drives much nicer than the Odyssey, has a DVD player for the kids (I really missed having one for them) and it has leather, power doors a power lift gate in the back, and a backup camera and navigation too. It worked out so great.
Right before we came back from St. George, Samuel took Kalia to Sue's Pet Castle and came home with a baby turtle. An aquatic turtle, called a red-eared slider. We had NO idea how much work he would be, but he was adorable. They named him Tiny. He never would eat for us, and we struggled to get his water the right temperature, and didn't get him a UV light in time (he needs 12-14 hours of UV light a day). He ended up dying a month later, and it was pretty sad. He got buried in the backyard for Sam's parents house.
January came and Sam just kept studying away. He paid for an extensive online review and that turned out to be the best thing ever. I am sure he wouldn't have passed the NCLEX on his first try if he hadn't done that. He took the test on January 29th, and later that night found out he had passed. I was actually kind of shocked because I've heard that it's extremely common for people to take it 2-3 times to pass it (sometimes more) because it's so difficult. We were so grateful that the Lord helped him pass right away.
February was the month we started job hunting. We were open to going anywhere, but we really concentrated on Arizona and Texas. He wasn't getting a lot of interest initially, as he was only applying for ICU jobs, and they are very hard to get as a new graduate. At one point he had 4 days off in a row, and his parents offered to babysit for us so we could go on a little getaway. I had never been to Puerto Penasco, Mexico (a.k.a. "Rocky Point", a beautiful beach town just 4.5 hours away. We both had passports from 5 years ago, and so we took a very last minute trip down there, and had the best time. It was such a juxtaposition of old, poor Mexico (so so poor) and then there were all these resorts built on the beach, completely Americanized, safe, expensive, etc. We had some amazing food down there, but I have been on the GAPS diet again for 2 months, and had to really just stick to vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat, etc. We did fine and it was beautiful and so relaxing and much needed.
Shortly after we got back, Sam decided he didn't want to limit himself to just ICU, so he applied to a "Progressive Care" job at hospital in Mesa. Progressive care is the level right below ICU, where patients go when they are stable enough to leave the ICU but still need extra attention than what you get on just a regular hospital floor. ICU nurses only have 1-2 patients at a time. Regular nurses have 5-7. Sam will have 3-4. He was immediately called in for an interview, and we were excited! He interviewed the next day (got stuck in a traffic accident on the freeway and was 30 minutes late) but still did amazing and they called him the next morning and offered him the job. Woohoo!!! We would be staying in Arizona and he would be working for Banner, a great hospital system with hospitals all over the country. He hopes to transfer into an ICU in about a year.
So that same day that he accepted the job, and we knew where he would be working, I got online and found a rental house that had just become available one day prior (when someone backed out of it.) It was in our old neighborhood (Cortina), was 1/2 a mile from the school my girls were already attending, and had everything I was hoping in a house. We walked through it, turned in our application, and a few days later it was accepted, despite there being tons of other people who applied for it. (We happened to be first! Such a little miracle!) We were completely stunned that in a matter of days, we had gone from no job prospects to a job, a house, and a move in date a week away. It was almost too fast and made us nervous, but my kids were thrilled, I was ecstatic, Sam was not so sure, and wanted to look into buying instead of renting. He went off and got us preapproved for a mortgage, but luckily it worked out that we had already signed the lease on the house and the landlord was going to hold us to it. We moved in right before the girls' spring break.
IT HAS BEEN AMAZING.
Sam's dad and I had to do most of the moving ourselves, Sam had to work several days in a row at the prison (he's still keeping that job along with his new one, I hope he doesn't work himself to death.) So we moved and I'm very slowly getting things unpacked. We got everything out of storage, and I was so happy to see my piano and that it had held up well in the heat and humidity of the swamp-cooled storage unit. I'll post some pictures of the house. 1637 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a den, a great backyard with cement, a fire pit, some grass, some citrus trees. It's a tad smaller than I would have liked, but after being in 2 bedrooms/1 bath for 5 years, I didn't want to get into anything too big until I had a handle on keeping multiple rooms and bathrooms clean on my own. You know, ease back into it. Another favorite thing is that my girls ride their bikes to and from school. They think it is the best thing ever, and we all love the neighborhood. Everyone is so nice, and there are kids EVERYWHERE. They love to just go play outside. There is a park about 100 yards from our house and they like to go play there too. Aria has wandered off on her own there twice, when both Sam and I are home and think the other one is watching her. She follows her older sisters out the door when they are going to friends' houses or to ride bikes and then heads straight for the park. The police were called once because she was there 5-10 minutes without anyone with her. Sam was organizing the garage and I was unpacking the kitchen. We are keeping a super close eye on her now! Speaking of Aria, she is almost potty trained. I've been letting her sit on the potty for months just to get her accustomed to it, but once we had some random successes, and she learned she got M&M's or chocolate chips, she picked it up quick. I'm not quite ready to go 100% because then we can't run errands very easily or go anywhere, but if we are home, and she doesn't have a diaper on (commando works best) then she will hold it all in and let me know when she has to go. Wonder of wonders- she has one more month until she turns two.
The best part is how I have my privacy back. I knew it had been hard and stressful to be with his parents, mostly because of my own anxiety and having everything I did or said on display at all times. I got so irritable with Sam and the girls. I wondered if maybe it was just because having 4 kids was too much for me. But now that it's just us in our house, my irritability is almost gone, and I feel like I have so much more patience. I am so much calmer. So much more peaceful and happy and relaxed. It is truly a little piece of heaven. Once everything is completely unpacked and clean and organized, I might say I have the perfect life, for just a little sliver of time. Of course it will never be perfect as we continue to stress about our new budget and kids and future schooling and health issues and Sam needing a new vehicle because his 1994 truck is on it's last leg...but all of that doesn't seem to matter, because our future just opened right up in front of us, and everything is going to okay.
I just feel that if we can survive the last 5 years we can survive anything. You look back and think, "I don't know how I did that." You just plug along and take it a day at a time and you just DO it because you have to. But I know God had to strengthen me on a daily basis to survive it, and I hope I learned everything I was supposed to learn. I don't ever want to go through that again. I am so thankful for many people who prayed for us and supported us and cheered us on over these years. It has been harder on me than I have even let on, harder than I even knew, until now as I look at myself and who I am and I still have some work to do to put myself back together. I tried to be strong but I turned away from many friends and loved ones and just retreated and tried to weather it all alone, or just with Sam, and I lost sight of my true self. I've seen so many bad qualities about myself that I lost sight of the good ones. I'm on a mission to empower myself again (so many years of feeling so helpless in our situation did that to me I guess.) I have been so lonely, and didn't recognize it. I guess it's just how I coped. But my brother-in-law gave me a good talking to, and reminded me that I need to reclaim my happiness. It seems obvious, but I just am realizing how much I need good friendships and relationships, especially from other women, so I am on a mission to bring that back into my life.
I've also decided to start writing (yes, hand-writing, such a tedious chore. I love typing.) in a journal again. I have been blogging for 8 years, and while that's on it's way out too, I miss the therapeutic benefits of getting my thoughts out on paper, and not having to worry about who's reading them. My mom reminded me how much that helped her over the years, and I'm going to take advantage of that.
So there's the update on the last 6 months. Whew. So much change. So many good things. I feel like the blessings are being poured out and cannot be contained. After much tribulation cometh the blessings. That is the truth.
Now I'm just going to throw on a whole bunch of pics from my phone.
