Here we are.....2022

 Here we are, let's see, 4 years later from the last time I blogged. Do people even "blog" anymore much less use Blogger? Is that so 2015? Well...let's start. Time has been a thief. We have moved to Missouri (close to 3 years) and now back to Tennessee living in the sweetest little town and the most beautiful part of East Tennessee. Wyatt is 16, a few months shy of 17, Boone 14 and Josie 11. I have more gray hairs to count for and Andy's beard is 99% full of amazing gray. You know men and their salt and pepper. Insert heart emoji's! We just celebrated 20 years of marriage and honestly I love AND like him more than I did 20 years ago. We are in up to our necks in remodeling an 86 year old home on 20 acres and living in a friends camper going on 5 months which was suppose to be just for a month. I told Josie the other day that she could just cremate me when I die and spread my ashes over our land and her response was "Mama your blood, sweat and tears are already in that soil!"

In all seriousness, this has been one of the hardest things we have had to endure. I told Andy, "I know you are going to think I'm crazy but I would put this house situation up there with when my Dad died." Heart ache, pain, grief, anger.... He said, "No, Olivia, I just told someone the other day this is the hardest thing I've gone through besides losing my mom." And on top of this we have been trying to raise three children in this CRAZY world...2 teen boys and a preteen girl. I would give anything to go back to when they were 1, 3 and 6. Raising teenagers...holy cow. I'll talk more on that later. 

I have to use humor to deal with this life I'm living or you are going to find me in a fetal position in the corner of this camper sucking my thumb and asking for my Mama to hold me. So to document this journey we are on here we go, I'm back...well for today. We felt the Lord calling us to Missouri to do Young Life at a little college town on the Mississippi River. Andy would be developing Young Life College and growing YL in this area. Little did we know what we were up against with our family. Our kids would be going into 8th grade, 5th grade and 2nd grade. At 40 years old when you have lived in the same area your entire life, never moved away, have family and dear friends close by, live on 5 acres with a "micro farm" and Christmas Tree business...you know it is not going to be easy. This is all we had ever known for 17 years. Then the Lord started speaking and to make a long story short we said "Yes". I want this story to sound sweet and blissful and we saw so many blessings come from our obedience...but if I'm being honest here, we haven't. This isn't a story of a happy ending...not yet at least and in all honesty it won't until Jesus comes back. The community we lived in was supportive and YL was going GREAT...but our family...not so much. I will say moving away and having no one but each other to rely on really grew our marriage. Our kids though, it was tough. I think had we moved when they were much younger than we could have stayed there forever but the ages they were at was hard on our boys. It wasn't until we had the opportunity to move back to Tennessee did things begin to get better. Doesn't that always happen...things start to get better when you have to make a major decision. We had been approached to interview for a YL area back closer to home. After lots and lots of prayer and seeking wisdom, we interviewed and accepted the job. It went so fast. Interviewed in February, put our house on the market in March and sold our home in 2 days (with 20 showings in one day and 5 offers), moved in April. We pulled our kids from school, hardest thing ever watching your kids have to say goodbye to their friends and doing this twice now in 3 years. And then starting them in a new school with 6 weeks left till summer. This brings tears to my eyes. I haven't been able to sit and process what all we have done. 

In this moving process we couldn't find a home. One, there were hardly any homes for sale and two, nothing we could afford. Even finding a place to rent was impossible. Oh and we have a dog, cat, rabbit and guinea pig so finding anywhere to let us have pets was out of the question. So we find a home to look at and came in to town where I proceeded to tell Andy, "No way...Im not getting out of the car." I'm not buying that house. I don't want that 2 bedroom home with 1.5 bath and is completely overgrown. The next day he went and looked at the inside with our realtor. I did not go. I thought it was out of the question, there's no way. We go back to Missouri and keep desperately looking for a home. And you know what....we bought that house. I had never set foot inside of it but we had to have a place to live. We thought it's ok, we will slap some fresh paint, put some new floors in, make the kitchen another bedroom and move the kitchen to the dining room. Then one day we will add on to the home and have the dream home we have always wanted. HAHAHAHAHA. To be continued.....