at it again..

so, since the newest change with us is becoming very official this weekend, i think it's due time to share what's going on. like the title of this post tells you, we're at it again... and by "it" i mean moving. the wednesday before we were set to go to tom and rachel's really fun wedding outside of chicago, daniel got a call from his current regional manager at hhgregg offering him a manager position for a job that had recently and suddenly opened up in the chicago area. an electronic sales manager positon had become available in a new region being started, and russ (daniel's current regional manager (RM) in raleigh who is moving to become one of the RM's in the new chicago region) thought of daniel to fill the job. he told us there was "no pressure" to take it because there were other people that he could ask to go, but that he knew he could trust daniel to do a great job helping to jump-start the region and wanted to give us a chance to think it over. the catch- we needed to decide within the next few days (so, like he said, no pressure). needless to say, our very fun and "relaxing" trip to chicago turned into one that was also a big time of decision, prayer, advice-asking, and adult/married people discussion (and sometimes disagreement/tears, if i'm honest). we coincidentally providentially were routed to drive right through the town we would potentially be moving to, merrillville, indiana. so, with all of my "this cannot be what He has planned for us" thinking, it was hard for me to deny it when something like that was starting the list of "why it could very likely be what we should do" evidence. anyway, we took time that weekend to talk to some friends/family, seek wise counsel (even from a few older/wiser "strangers" at the wedding), and take a look around the town on our way back home. 

after quite a few conversations with various people that went something like this, "i had the opportunity to do something like that earlier in life and am so glad i did" or "i had the opportunity to do something like that earlier in life and think back wondering what would have come out of it if i'd gone", we started thinking that it might be a good opportunity for daniel and a wise move for our family. daniel talked some more options over with russ in the following week, and found out that he was more than willing to help us move back to the raleigh area in a year and a half or two once the region was established and d had the time to hire and train a replacement for himself. once we got that news, we felt a lot more strongly that this could be a good (and also tough) season for us. we decide the thursday after daniel got the initial job offer that he would accept, and the snowball really started rolling after that. daniel has exchanged a lot of emails and phone calls with a relocation company that hhgregg works with, made arrangements with our landlord and family to plan out what the transition time between our current apartment and the next (in indiana!) will look like, and given some exciting and also hard news to a lot of people who we love. 

so, the logistics of our plan (as they stand right now) look something like this:

..we are spending today through sunday in and around merrillville looking for an apartment or house to rent.

..we will go home and pack everything we own and transfer it into a POD that will be taken and stored up here.

..we will move out of our apartment on june 30th and live in d's parents' house (yay for being roomies with them again!).

..daniel, his brother luke, and oldest sister christine, will drive our two cars up here around the 8th of july, and daniel will start working at building from scratch the new store, along with two other managers, around the 15th of july.

..ruby and i will continue to bunk at the mehaffie house until around the end of august (maybe into september). sidebar: i know that sounds like a long time for our family to be apart, but the more we've talked about it, the more we realize that this way of transitioning for us will work much better than us moving up with him only for him to work pretty much non-stop for the first couple months that we are there leaving us, more or less, to fend for ourselves to settle in. we're planning to feel out when things slow down a bit for him, and then ruby and i will fly up and begin our life with d as indianians (is that what they're called?!). thankfully, hhgregg funds at least one trip for him down to nc (or us up to indy) to visit. i know there will be difficulties that come with being apart for that long, but i think it will also be good for ruby and me to transition out of our raleigh life a bit throughout the summer.. we're loving our family, friends, home group, church, journey group, etc. there, and i think rushing out too quickly could be really hard on us. ok, enough about that part of it.. i feel like i'm talking you guys in to thinking it's a good idea or something. :)

so, as far as i know, that's the plan for now. since this transition came pretty much hand-in-hand with our loss (we accepted the final offer for his job the same day we found out about my miscarriage), i feel like i'm just now starting to even wrap my mind around what's going on in this area of our life. i will not deny that i am sad and i know that it'll hit me hard once we're actually up there, but i also for sure see the favor in this happening.  i think there's a ton to be said of how blessed we are that daniel has found a job that he's both good at and loves, and also that his hard work has paid off and been noticed in the short (almost) two years that he's worked there. i also think that after a period of being completely submerged (in a good way) in family and great friends in raleigh for the past couple years, it will be good for us to go back to our california-esque existence of completely having and relying on each other.

ho. ly. mo. ly. this is long. i'm sure there will be many many posts to come that concern this biiig transition. i can't imagine how exited you must be about that. ;)