So it begins

I guess I'll start with our story, for those of you who sort of fall upon our blog.  I'm Sarah, and I'm 38 yrs old.  I've been married to David for 14 1/2 years. We have 3 boys, Zach, 13, Cannon, 10, and Elliot 7.   We have lived in several places in our marriage, Salt Lake City, Utah, Mesa and Chandler, Arizona, Vernal, Utah, West Jordan Utah (for 6 months) and now, here we are in Anchorage, Alaska. 

Anchorage Alaska.  Yup... that's sort of a big one, right?  How the heck does someone find themselves in Anchorage, Alaska? Well... that is what this is about.  I'm always up for an adventure... and we just landed in one. 

So, David went to school to become a Respiratory Therapist, graduating almost 4 years ago. Finding a job has not come easily for him, and after moving a couple times we were pretty discouraged over it all.  There have been other jobs, and opportunities to work up the ladder, but those were long and lets face it... we aren't getting any younger.  We've kept our eyes on the job market the entire time and looked for jobs in states he was licensed, as well as in states that did not require licensing.  In mid October, 201,4 we were pretty surprised when he found out about a job, in Anchorage, as a respiratory technician (step down from his credentials). When he called he found out that really what the wanted was someone who was a Respiratory Therapist, who had home health experience (check) billing experience (check) was willing to live in Alaska (check - we'd go anywhere at this point).  He basically had an interview right then and they were excited that he had the things they wanted.  They offered him the job.

Yeah.. after one interview. OVER THE PHONE.  I was a bit concerned and skeptical, for about 24 hours.  How desperate were they? We'd already taken one job when we, and the employer, were desperate and that was a HUGE disaster.  I didn't want to go to Alaska and get stuck there.  But the more they talked about goals and such, the more we realized that they were very similar to David's goals as well.  So we talked more, and started getting excited. 

We talked to the kids and they were surprisingly excited about it.  They had just moved 6 months before, so that kind of shocked me.  But, to be honest, when we moved from Vernal, to West Jordan, Utah, we did it for logistical reasons, not because it was RIGHT. David had been working in SLC for almost a year, commuting to Vernal every 2 weeks. (180 miles).  Living apart was hard on the kids, and us, but we were making due.  But I never felt like living in  SLC was "home". I never felt any drive to expand my social situation, make new friends, hang out with old ones, get to know the neighbors.  It was just a place to live together. But I knew, deep down, it was not forever.

I quickly became really excited, dreaming of big, crazy Alaskan adventures with my kids::  Kayaking on crystal clear seas, with glaciers and Orcas around me, or watching the salmon run with super cute bears gobbling up the fish as they jump upstream, or sitting around a campfire with Mt. McKinley behind us.  Staying up to watch the colors of the sky change as we watch the Northern Lights. Picturesque dreams were suddenly becoming a real option. I had to make sure David said yes to this job.

He was dragging his feet.  He saw giant dollar signs stacking up as he started thinking about moving costs, cost of living changes (I mean people make it sound REALLY expensive here). He thought about us living separately.... again.  and how hard that was on our family, on our marriage, on the boys. And he thought about how commuting home every other weekend wouldn't be an option like it was in Utah. He was pretty nervous.

But then, things started just falling into place.  We found a way that all of us could come up together. We found out that getting out of our lease in our apartment wasn't going to be as hard as we thought (we were 5 months in to a 12 months lease).  We found out that getting rid of some of our stuff was going to be a lot easier than we thought and the price to get our stuff shipped to us wasn't going to be as expensive as we imagined. 

SO we jumped. David said yes to the job and we started scurrying to pack, sort, purge, donate and sell our stuff. When we moved to West jordan, we had a 26 ft van, full, plus 2 van loads of STUFF, plus a motorcycle and car. And we left Utah and flew to Anchorage on November 12.... about a month after finding the job with just over 120 boxes, and the luggage we took on the plane.

INSANE!