A New Chapter

What have we been up to?  Well...a lot, actually!!  I'll get into the big stuff in a minute...

On Sunday evening, we went down to Steve and Andrea's house in Sandy for dinner and FHE and to celebrate my mom's 65th birthday.  Every month, we all get together for FHE, it's been really fun!  We had yummy homemade Cafe Rio pork burritos for dinner, with fresh fruit and Snickerdoodle cake.  Wow, I'm hungry just typing that!!  Cameron played the Wii nonstop with his cousins.  Afterwards, we went for a walk around the neighborhood, since it was gorgeous weather outside.  I got an unexpected treat on our walk....turns out my brother lives one block away from my friend, Annie, who just had a baby last week.  I had no idea!  Annie used to live here in the Village, and I visit-taught her for over a year.  So we got to visit with her and meet beautiful Brielle.  It was so great to see them!  Brielle is so gorgeous, I loved holding such an itty-bitty newborn again!


A picture of the Utah grandkids: Roo, Ella, Drew, Ivy, Cam
Roo looks like she's in pain, it makes me laugh!

 So...there has actually been a lot going on around here.  It never ceases to amaze me how life end up happening. So here it is:  Nate has decided to dis-continue his pursuit of a teaching career and work full-time as a pharmacy tech.  It hasn't been a quick or easy decision....it's been several weeks of struggle, prayer, priesthood blessings, temple attendance, discussion, thought, analyzing, etc etc.  Nate came to the realization that teaching isn't what he wants to do with his career, but he spent several weeks continuing to try and see if it was something that he could overcome.  I'm so proud of him and how he handled this.  So yesterday, together, we attended the temple again and made the really tough and scary and HUGE decision to end his student teaching and just be done with school for now.  He got his Bachelor degree last August, so we don't feel like we've really wasted too much time.

We have learned a lot about how the Lord deals with His children...especially how He lets us work and struggle to make our own decisions in this life.  I think we were both waiting for the answers to come in some big, dramatic way.  So when they weren't, we started getting confused and scared.  So we realized that the Lord isn't going to plaster the answer on a flashing billboard....He wanted US to make a decision...and THEN He'd let us know if that was right.  So yesterday, Nate made the final decision to end student teaching.  It was such a scary thing!  But the moment he made the decision....things fell into place. 

Our plan now is for Nate to work full-time at the pharmacy until they kick us out of student housing.  Nate is still technically employed at the pharmacy, and his boss had promised him part-time hours after his student teaching.  He told me yesterday that he was going to wait until Thurs or Fri to call his boss about working full-time....just to "be sure".  But right then, his dad called him, and said he felt impressed to call his son.  The promptings of the Spirit are very real!  His dad encouraged him to go ahead and call his boss right then.  So he did.  Turns out, the pharmacy had a full-time position open....  So as soon as he heard Nate wanted the hours, he gave them to him on the spot.  He kept saying how happy he is to have Nate back with them full-time.  We just couldn't believe the timing of it all.

The other amazing blessing to us is just the complete love and support we have felt from our families and those around us.  We were obviously a little nervous about what people would say or think....even though we knew it was our decision to make.  But everyone we have talked to has been so supportive and encouraging and non-judgemental.  Having that emotional support has really made this process so much easier on us, so thank you!!

So yeah...we are now officially a regular, working family!  For the first time in 7 years, Nate is not a student.  It's such a weird feeling.  But we feel good.  We feel relaxed.  And poor Nate feels SO much relief and weight lifted off his shoulders.  We feel like we can sit back for the next 6 months, save money, prepare for the baby, enjoy our summer, and take a few month to make our next decisions.  Nate does want to continue on with his Masters in a few years and probably work his way up into pharmacy management or hospital administration or maybe something entirely different.  We are praying that the Lord will open the right doors for us now.  Tennessee is a VERY real option for us now...we can apply for pharm tech jobs and wait for a good opportunity.  We won't go anywhere until after the baby comes, but hopefully we'll have made a decision by then to stay in Utah or go off on an adventure!