Well now we live in Oklahoma. There's not much to say yet, it certainly hasn't won over any of my heart with this horrible weather, humid and 105-110 degrees everyday. We thought we were leaving the hot hot heat in Arizona, but we were wrong, very wrong. I am hoping that something will redeem this place, so I can bear living here for the next 3 years. But so far, it's been rough. I don't mean to complain, but the last couple of months have been the hardest of my life. I have cried more in the first few weeks here than any other time in my life. Thankfully Tyler's parents flew to AZ and made the 16 hour drive with us to OK and spent a few days here to help us clean and set up. We were so sad to see them go, they were here at a critical time for us. And oh so thankfully my parents came out a couple of weeks later, driving 18 hours each way within one week - talk about love! - to bring us some of our things we had in storage and help us with some home improvements. Oh how I cried, like a little baby, when they pulled out of my driveway to go home. My parents and Tyler's parents have no idea how much they helped us while they were here, I can't even express in words how much their sacrifices of time, money and labor meant to us, but ever so much more just their presence and love, I am crying now just thinking of it. I honestly don't know how we would have survived this first month here without their love and support. AZ was a different story, it was fun to have a little adventure there, and we knew it was only for 1 year, so we knew any issue we didn't love there was so very short and temporary. But here we are now in OK, one month down 35 to go, and it seems so overwhelming. We are so unfamiliar with everything, so lonely and Tyler's program is so hard and grueling. I know it just takes time to make friends and get settled; we saw that in AZ and certainly experienced a similar rough patch in the beginning of both our missions. So we know there is hope and we know it will get better, but we just can't wait to get there.
Anyway, on a more upbeat note: We finally have a garage and a yard, Hooray! We are still trying to figure out where everything goes in this new little house and don't have any pictures yet, but will soon.
Ben is doing pretty good, he is starting to feel at home here and has stopped saying "no new house, other house" - requesting to go back to AZ - which is good. He is so darn cute, the other night he sang his favorite song "families can be together forever" all by himself and then prayed his whole prayer by himself, and it made my day. Thankfully I have such a sweet little guy and dear husband to brighten my life even when it's hard.
