The unexpected, not drug-induced, trip to employment

While in dental school, we spent a lot of time discussing where we would end up when the books finally were able to rest on the shelf. This topic was discussed until we couldn't discuss it anymore. We talked about it with friends over dinner, with friends at holiday parties, with strangers on plane rides, with doctors at my many prenatal appointments, with family members over the phone, with church members at weekly church events, and on our knees in prayer.

Deep down, we had a feeling that there was a place that was meant for us. I don't think we shared that with many people.

Sean started searching for employment possibilities early on and even interviewed for several positions. We looked for opportunities for him to buy practices as well as be an associate. He received different offers, we even had them send us contracts to accept, and then we always knew, in the end, that those offers weren't going to be accepted.

The long days of not finding 'the position' turned into long weeks and even longer months. Poor Sean.

We made the move to the area we thought we were supposed to be, but before that move, we lived with Sean's parents. We then stayed with my parents as we continued our search. We even house sat and then moved back to my parents' place, to then finally move to the area we are currently. Before we moved into our new, semi-permanent location, we even lived with a family in our new ward for a bit.

Needless to say, we were SICK of living out of our suitcases. We lived out of them for 5 MONTHS!!! We finally got our stuff out of storage two weeks ago and it was like Christmas-- we were sooooo excited!

So, as for the rest of the story.... After losing track of how many places/people we looked at/interviewed with, we finally found 'the place'. For four months our search consisted of looking in our ideal location/state. We set a date to look outside of that ideal place/state as of September 1. Ironically enough, Sean happened upon a position available and had a conversation with the owner that same day. Sean found out that they had served in the same mission in Chile and that they were both married in their third year of dental school, and the commonalities continued. Sean found out that the offer was by far better than other offers, he'd get to speak spanish, it was in the country (which is what we wanted) right outside of a couple of cities, and it was within an hour from a temple, airport, and Costco (our other requirements). We drove to interview on August 30 and accepted the offer the next day. THE DAY BEFORE OUR 'DEADLINE'.

Even though we felt that we were forgotten about and that the position that we were looking for didn't exist, someone was on the other end of our prayerful pleadings. It is a better set-up than we could've imagined, but we would've never picked the location on a map.

There have been lots of blessings in the relocation, including:

1. The ward has lots of young families just out of school.
2. I was able to learn all sorts of canning, jamming and juicing techniques from my mother and another canning expert here in our new ward.
3. We live on a vineyard
4. There is GREAT shopping close by
5. I am in a knitting group, book club, and exercise group
6. There is LOTS of fresh produce (ie: items to can/jam/juice)
7. We are a drive away from both sets of parents
8. We have lots of sunny and warm days
9. ETC....

It was a LONG and stressful five months, but we are happy and both feel we are where we need to be.

Onto the pictures....

Charlie doesn't want baby food anymore, just our food.

Cousin time with Simon

Cousin time with Lincoln

At a local orchard/pumpkin patch

Charlie was fascinated by the corn maze or just the leaves

Searching for our pumpkin

Picking apples-- Charlie likes to have his arm in front so that he can be completely face out.

As Sean and I painted our new place, Charlie caught up on some much needed sleep. When he wasn't sleeping he could be found pulling our hair and causing our straight lines to be less than straight.

Where we take our evening walks-- it smells like grape juice

Charlie loves bath time and mom loves those cheeks!