Marine Corp Ball

 

 

This year's Ball was at the Oheka Castle.  It was spectacular and it also made us super cool because Taylor Swift recorded her song 'Blank Space' here.

 

Marine Ball

 

 

Just had to document how my hair looked...I put a lot of effort into shopping for a new dress and figuring out a formal hairstyle I could do on my own.  I wasn't able to find a new dress, but thankfully my old one still works just fine.  

 

Our first New York ball and Ben's first time in his new O4 uniform.  

We're learning that NY has venues just for fancy events.  I did appreciate that this venue had appetizers out when we arrived.

Our new friends Jorge and Kayla were there!  I met Kayla at our homeschool group and we've had several fun outings together.  It was fun to have a familiar face there.

 

 

Here's a little clip of the dinner:

Moving in a snow storm

We were watching the weather and knew a snow storm was coming.  We decided to leave Albuquerque and drive as far as we could...we made it to Amarillo, TX.  Maya kept us laughing during the stressful drive.

The roads quickly got very bad and there was a huge truck pile up on the highway and they had to completely close it down.  Unfortunately, I was rear-ended while trying to bypass the pile-up.  Thankfully we were all okay and able to drive to a safe place to stop.

 The snow continued the next day, but we changed our route and slowly made our way up to Kansas.  By this time, we were VERY ready to be at grandma and grandpas.  My mom had soup and a fire waiting for us and Katherine and Maggie were also there to greet us.  I have never been so excited for a council meeting in all my life.

Last Day of school!

We finished our school year July 26th.

When all the work was done and tests finished, we went to get pizza for lunch.

The kids wanted "sit down pizza", so we went to Toppers.  I filed this place away, if there is ever a time that we want to go out as a family but Ben and I want to talk...they were so enthralled with the TV's around that this is what they looked like the whole lunch:

I did get them to tell me some things they wanted to do over our break, but that was about it.  

When Ben got home from work, we had a little party.  He gave each of them a certificate and congratulated them on completing their grade.

6th grade, check.

 3rd grade, check.

 

 1st grade, check.

Our focus for this year was reading and I told the kids at the beginning of the year that we were going to see how many books we could read and then have a big celebration at the end to acknowledge all their work.  I didn't want to set a goal, because I didn't want them to reach a number and then just quit reading.  It was hard keeping track of the boys reading, but Alison did a stellar job.

Alison read 315 books!!!!

The boys read 164!

I am beyond proud of them.  We're going to Sea World in a couple of weeks to celebrate,

but for now, cupcakes and party blowers had to do.

Oh, yes...note to self for next year...buy graduation decorations in MAY...and don't even think about buying summer stuff in summer (I am thoroughly annoyed with stores stocking policies).

 I actually got pretty teary on this day.  I looked at the stack of books that we've finished this year and saw much more.  I saw the times that they worked on those books in a sea of boxes, while saying goodbye to dear friends, while unpacking their world into an unknown place, while being the definition of brave and making new friends and while figuring out a whole new rhythm of life.  I saw this day how many big life changes these kids have gone through all while learning; deployment, a cross-country move, another deployment, survival of the desert and another move.  I may say it a million times, but our kids are strong, amazing and brilliant people.

This year was another unique year and as we ended the year, I wondered "Was it enough?" (I'm pretty sure 100% of homeschool teachers think this at least 3 times a year).  I started to question whether I made the right decision with our time the last 7 months.  To be honest, people were a priority.  If there was an opportunity to make a friend or find a great activity or build fellowship, we were there.  That meant I did a lot of shuffling of schoolwork and shorter work days, but it also meant that they were meeting people and experiencing new things.

It didn't take long for me to realized that it was enough and our priorities are just right. 

I try to be diligent in keeping our schedule light because I believe it's a blessing when you leave space for people. If that's the only lesson they learn this year, I'm okay with that.

Plus a sermonette.

We've been in our new house for two months now and I am reminded almost daily how much of a miracle it is. 

We knew for over a year that we would be moving to California; too long of a time to do anything productive but enough time to gather all the information you can.  We reached out to everyone we knew who had lived in the area and asked all the questions we could think of.  My poor neighbor in Yuma had moved there from California and got the brunt of all my inquiries.  When we were moving to Arizona, all we heard was, "It's going to be hot!" and this time around all we heard was how expensive it was going to be.

During this time, I was also re-reading 'A Praying Life' by Paul Miller.  One of his suggestions is making an index card for each person or category you are praying for, with a list of specific prayers.  He ends with a challenge to make a card with "Hope" written at the top, with big prayers or dreams on it.  I accepted that challenge and the top one said:

An updated house, with a yard, a schoolroom and within walking distance to a park.

That prayer was a big prayer.  The possibility of it actually happening was extremely close to zero.

***

While we had been to California several times, we had never been to Ventura County; the area around the base Ben would be stationed at.  So several months before the move, we planned a weekend trip up to get a lay of the land.

Pretty much the whole trip I was thinking, "I can't believe we get to live here."

We drove around base and neighborhoods to get a feel for areas.  Does everyone get a gut feeling when they're in a neighborhood?  I do and thankfully Ben always has the same feeling.  Base housing was decent but the rest of it was basically abandoned and very run down.  Besides having it's own beach, we didn't feel it would have a high quality of life for our family.  There was another neighborhood for military, but it didn't allow dogs and also gave me the heebie jeebies.  We drove past a few houses posted on Zillow just to get a feel for different towns and neighborhoods around the base. Other than living on base, our town living options were in Oxnard, Camarillo or Thousand Oaks.  We had several people tell us that Oxnard was NOT a place you wanted to live, for many reasons, but safety was a top concern.  Once we drove through, we could see why people told us that. However, we stumbled upon a very nice shopping center there and had lunch at Whole Foods one day, so it has that going for it.  Thousand Oaks is a decent town but Ben would have a sizable commute and we wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

It was time to head home and we didn't have a whole lot of answers, other than we were pretty sure we wanted to try to live in Camarillo.  We decided to find a park to let the kids play for a bit before we made them sit in the car for at least 5 hours, but maybe a lot longer if we hit LA traffic.  Not knowing the area at all, I just typed 'park' into my map app and picked the most convenient one on route to the highway home.  I don't believe going to that park was a coincidence.  We pulled up to the most amazing park, the kids ran out to play and I sat down on a bench to soak up all the ocean air I could before going back to the desert.

It hit me on that bench.

My gut filled with peace and I said to Ben, "This is it."

He looked at me with a puzzled look.

"This is where we should live."

***

I wish it was that easy.

Back in Yuma, we scoured the internet.  I signed up for any and all notifications for new rentals.  I reached out to real estate agents and friends who may know friends in the area.  We knew we had to be open to ALL housing options, as all options are very limited, but we're hoping for:  a single family house with 3-4 bedroom (making sure there was some kind of space for school), 2 bathrooms, minimally 1,700 square feet and some kind of yard.

 I called on a couple of properties and the agent literally laughed at me.

"Oh no, this property will be gone by December." They would tell me.  If I asked if they had any properties coming up for rent that would work for us, they wouldn't answer me.

I felt a panic in my heart and Ben felt peace.  He wasn't worried in the least and wanted to wait until the last minute to really pursue a home to rent.

"More stuff will come up" he would say.

I know there are wives out there who could just say "Okay, dear." and let it be.  I wanted to be that wife.  We have lived in seven homes in 15 years and Ben has pioneered 13 of them.  This is his territory...finding things on the internet for incredible deals is his expertise.  I just couldn't shake the gnawing feeling of finding a house.  It was annoying to be frank.  I thought about it all the time and would remind myself over and over that there was nothing I could do.  I was praying and praying about this "worry" during a run.  I was on the canals, starring into the abyss of fields when I heard an answer.  Maybe it wasn't worry.  Worry is thinking about something you can't control, but I can control this in some way.  Maybe it wasn't worry, but God nudging my heart to DO SOMETHING that I was supposed to do.

Maybe He was using something I perceived as bad, for His good, something I've been learning a lot about since then.

I like to call these runiphanies.  

If you don't run for any other reason, run for the clarity of mind.

When I got home, I decided to do the work that I could.  There was one house that met all our criteria...I made the dreaded phone call...

"Oh no, that house has been rented for months."

That's weird, because it was just posted online a few days ago.

If what the man said was true, that meant that all of my online searching was unreliable.  How was I to know for sure what was actually for rent?  I made a haste decision as a result and just started contacting every single option that was around what we were looking for; literally just scrolling-click, scrolling-click, scrolling-click, like someone who was frantically ordering groceries online...not even looking at what it looked like, just the information.

2 minutes later my phone rang.

"Hi, you just requested information on my rental and I was wondering if you could tell me a little about yourself."

I frantically turned to my computer to try and figure out which random rental we were talking about.   4 bedrooms, 2 bath, ~1,800 square feet...check.  I told her my husband was in the Navy and we were looking to sign a 3 year lease.

"You are just what the owner is looking for."

She asked what kind of dog we had and for my email so she could send me an application.  My jaw was on the floor and I realized that the deal breaker had yet to be discussed.  I told her that we weren't moving until December 3rd (this conversation was mid October) and asked if that was too far away, as I've been told many, many times.  She paused for a minute, but then said,

"I think the owner will hold it for you.  He would rather have a good renter for a long time, than rent it right away."

I could not believe it.  We hung up and within minutes she had sent me an application to fill out.  I called Ben to tell him that I may have just committed to a house that neither of us had looked at!  Ben was the picture of gracious.  When we finally got to analyzing the house that had God had very clearly placed in our path, we were astonished.  We believe it was bought just a few months prior and renovated to be used as a rental; new flooring, new windows and shutters, fresh paint, new countertops and all new appliances were put in.  It has a small yard, room for school and JUST DOWN THE STREET FROM THAT PARK.  

God had answered every single one of my big dream prayers.

Within a week, the owner approved our application and agreed to holding the house for us.  He also agreed to lowering the deposit amount (which would make you vomit if I told you how much we had to put down) and I made arrangements to go to the house in person and finalize everything.

My sermonette is this:  don't ignore God's nudging.  

If I had convinced myself it was just worry and sat and done nothing but waiting, we would not have a house right now.  I have continued to get notifications on rentals (I really should turn it off, but I still find it interesting) and not a single house has come on the market since this house.  

Since moving here, when people ask where we live and we answer "Camarillo", we always get a surprised look and an even more surprised look when we tell them what neighborhood.  I think it's because this is a very established area; people have lived here for generations and renting homes is fairly uncommon.  What's built is what there is, with nothing new going up.  It's not a transient town like we've been used to, so we kind of stick out like a sore thumb.

Downsizing (another post) was a beast, but I am thankful every day for this house and the opportunity to live in this very unique community.