SoCal to the Hoosier State

You may or may not have already read that we're moving, but either way, here's the story:
Hubby recently accepted an offer for a job transfer to Northeast Indiana.
That's right...
We're moving from Sunny SoCal to the Midwest at the end of June.
Needless to say, we've been extremely busy packing & trying to get our home ready to sell.
You wouldn't happen to know anyone that wants to buy a house in the SoCal desert near Palm Springs, would you?
Didn't think so.
Drats.

We knew that we wanted to move before Little Dudeman started school, but we honestly didn't think it would be this soon, & we were planning on moving somewhere with a comfortable climate all year round...
We didn't want any more 115+ degree convection oven summers, but we weren't looking for bitter cold winters either.
So why Indiana?
Well, the schools in the Midwest are great & everything kept pulling us back that direction.

A few years ago, we found out that the LDS church was building a temple in Indianapolis & we knew we wanted to go to the dedication once it was finished.

We went to Hubby's 10 year high school reunion a couple years ago.
That was my first time visiting Indiana & seeing where he grew up.
I could see us living there,
in the distant future.

He kept seeing job postings for Indiana, but ignored them since we didn't think we would be able to move out there at the time.

This is where it starts to get interesting...
A long-time family friend that he & his mom knew mailed us something out of the blue back in December.
She happens to be a realtor in Indiana.
They hadn't stayed in touch really.
In fact, they hadn't talked in YEARS.
She had no idea we were in California or that Hubby was married with 2 kids.
She just was thinking about Hubby & his mom and decided to try to contact them.
When we got the mail she had sent we were a little confused as to how she found us & why.
It was a cute calendar from the real estate company she works for.

When he heard that they were building a regional office for his work out in Indianapolis we thought to ourselves yet again, "Why have we seen so many things about Indiana lately?"

We received yet another real estate related letter in the mail from our realtor friend in Indiana.
We started thinking either she wants us to call her or she is desperate for business.
Turns out she didn't know if it was really us & was hoping we would contact her so they could catch up.
We still didn't get around to calling her, because things had been a little busy over here.

Then the job post opened up yet again, & we started piecing things together.
Maybe we were supposed to move there...
So we prayed.
Everything felt right even though we were confused.
So we started looking at houses online & got in contact with our realtor friend.
She's wonderful. (:
Then the company decided they wanted us in a different part of Indiana a couple hours away.
It was hard hearing that at first since we wanted to be near people we knew.
We wanted to be in a more familiar area.
But this would be a new adventure for all of us.
Although it was not where we had originally thought we would be,
we started feeling more & more right about where we were going.

Throughout this moving process, we've noticed a lot of hidden blessings:
Our Disneyland annual passes expired at the beginning of May.
We knew we weren't going to renew them because the prices had gone up $170/person
and we would have to pay for Little Dudeman from now on as well.
If Disneyland hadn't raised their prices that much,
we probably would have continued getting our annual passes every year & never moved away from SoCal.
Bittersweet.
So we set aside money to do Legoland, Knotts, & San Diego Zoo passes instead.

When we found out about the move, we already had that money set aside that we could now put towards moving expenses.

We found YNAB back in December.
It has helped us budget better & save more money for moving expenses
rather than going further into credit card debt because of the move.

We received a check from our insurance company out of the blue.
Apparently we paid too much when my wisdom teeth were removed back in 2011...
More money to help with moving expenses.

We have a bunch of wonderful Young Women in our ward at church.
We have been extremely blessed to have the help from a couple of them that are graduating this year.
One of them needed service hours to graduate early,
and both of them needed service hours to receive their Honor Bee charm.
I get their help & get to see their smiling faces multiple times each week,
they get service hours for watching my kids and helping me pack & clean.
Win-win. (:

I won't miss the excruciatingly hot summers or the high gas prices,
but I will miss a lot of things...

Disneyland

the ocean

warm winters
our big kitchen
DHS mineral water
In-N-Out
Costco

Nani
our ward family
the office staff of our pediatrician & other doctors

all the other wonderful people I've met out here

Although I'm super stressed about how little time we have to get everything done,
and how we don't have a buyer for our house yet,
and how we don't know where we will live when we get there,
and so many other stressful little details about the move,
I truly am excited about our new adventure.

I'm looking forward to...

Culvers
grass
seasons
better schools

making new friends
Hubby being less stressed after work

I know it looks like I will miss more than I'm looking forward to,
but that's part of the adventure that comes with moving.

You never know all the great things in store for your future.
You learn them as you go,
enjoy them while they last,
and embrace them once they're past.
xoxo

Update: We moved