It's been over 2 years. I didn't think I'd ever write on here again. This blog was such an amazing journal for me from 2008-2014... but then life got crazy, Instagram was easier. But I've just had so many emotions and thoughts for a while, I really want to write them down. And since I honestly haven't written in a physical journal for years, I guess this is the next best thing. I should be doing a catch up of moving to CA, Mason being born, But here we are. It's May 2018 and I have an 8 year old, 6 year old 3 1/2 year old, and a 13 month old.
I was not thrilled about moving back to CT to say the least. I loved living out west where we could see family so much more frequently. Although no family was in Carlsbad, we had Carol in San Diego. Travis' family in Yucaipa for the first year, then just a few hours away in Visalia. Jamie's family in Corona, just an hour away! My family in AZ could drive over in less than 6 hours, or fly in an hour. All the rest of the family is in Utah, which is a drive in a day or a flight in less than 2 hours. We saw Troy's family a lot since Tammy's lives in Encinitas, etc etc.
After 6 years living back east, it was nice to know that we lived out west again. And then Tyler's role at worked changed, and changed again, and then they wanted him to potentially move to the St. Louis metro area, in rural Illinois to run a factory there. I tried to look into it, to see if it could work, but I just couldn't get behind it, so we started looking for other options. There was a chance to do a couple different start ups in Utah, just didn't feel right. There was an offer to be a COO of a great upcoming company in La Jolla. We thought that was going to be it, he was moving forward with accepting that job. And then he told his company (legrand) he would be leaving. And that's when it got crazy... Oh this is all while I'm 8 months pregnant.
Legrand offered him a job back in CT. I did not want to go. I couldn't even talk about it or think about it. The thought of moving back to the same place seemed unimaginable to me. I had been pretty happy to leave that place! I did have fond memories of some aspects of CT, (friends, fall, and spring, proximity to NYC, Boston, etc) But I also hated the winters and how old everything was to name a couple.
So Tyler said No, he would not accept that job in CT, we were taking the job in La Jolla. But then Legrand came back again, with more money, stock options, which were all great, but the real deal was - the promise of being able to run their biggest division in a couple years. That would be a huge opportunity, a huge resume builder and something he didn't think he could turn down. I was in tears. Several times. I couldn't do it. But as the La Jolla company started to seem a little more uncertain - this was our best and only viable option at the time. I started thinking about Abbie and her friends from joy school out in CT. She wouldn't have known any girls her grade at Carrillo. But in Simsbury, she had 3 friends all going to the same school. That was honestly the only reason I was able to get excited about it enough to start thinking this could really happen again.
So we did it. We moved across the country when Mason was just 2 months old. Finding a house was tricky. We knew the area we wanted to be in, but it was hard to find something new enough and big enough for our large family in the tiny window of time we had to buy something. We needed to be out there in July and it was April. We looked at so many houses online, and finally found one and made an offer on it before it was officially listed.
It's a great house in a great little neighborhood, right where we wanted to be. It's not as big or updated or a lot of other things that we were wanting, but it's great for this phase of life. We knew we'd need to make some changes and before we moved in we had the inside walls and kitchen cabinets painted, floors refinished and new carpet in basement. After moving in we added a bedroom and bathroom in the basement. This is way more work than we've ever done on another house. I would still like to do a few more changes but nothing as major as what we've done so far.
There have been some lows with the house. We've had more problems with it than any other house we've lived in, times 5. We've had problems with the heater, we came back home to a freezing house after the holidays. We've had leaking in 3 different spots, one of which has been ongoing and has caused severe damage to the floor. That is still not fully resolved. The other two luckily we caught and solved quickly. We've had lots of pest control problems and currently still dealing with carpenter ants. We live so close to the woods, that we see so much more wildlife than in Avon. Squirrels and chipmunks every day, wild turkey occasionally, foxes and bobcats a few times. We see deer pretty often, but worst of all - bears. We saw a HUGE one tonight twice within an hour. It walked right through our grass, under our slide, past the playground, and eventually back in the woods. This absolutely freaks me out. Bears normally leave people alone but what about little Mason or Kaylee? I'm so scared by that. We never saw a bear in Avon but I have seen bears on 5 or 6 occasions and we know they've been here more than that because they get into our trash.
But there have been some high points too. We love having a large basement with new soft carpet! It stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We have really great neighbors and the kids have friends around. The bus stop is 2 houses away, and drops off the kids in our driveway in the winter! There are some really great people here, the schools are great and small enough that you get to know each other better. Through Jackson and Abbie's school classes and sports, we've met some great people. Kaylee goes to a great preschool and has made a great friend there too. Our ward has so many of our same friends from before, but there have been so many great people move in these past 3 years too! We've traveled a lot - to the Bahamas, Florida, NYC, Boston, Vermont, & Cape Cod. None of which we would have done if we lived out West.
It's been hard but now that it's been almost a year! The house is getting it's problems fixed, and projects mostly done with... Most importantly, the kids are doing great, Mason is so much older than the little 2 month old that left CA! But yeah, wow our movers were terrible and the fact that they lost stuff, broke stuff, and packed everything so slowly and unorganized made the moving in process so much more painful.
I'll do another post soon about how I'm entering a new phase of life now and I'm really excited for the future, but realizing my days with babies (and being pregnant and nursing) are behind. I'll update about the kids at some point too maybe :)
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