Multitude Mondays - Week Fourteen

I hope I never move again. Really. Since we got married, we have lived... 3 months in Lawton, Oklahoma, 3 months as vagabonds, 16 months in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina, 14 months on base at Camp Lejeune, and 6 weeks with the in-laws in Houston. Both of our college careers show similar lists. Is it too much to ask to just be in one place for more than 2 years? I haven't even lived anywhere more than a year and a half since I was in high school. We did just buy a house, though, so hopefully our record will be broken now for the longest stay. It would be so nice to get in a routine and stay in a routine. The thought!

We have slowly gotten back to some sort of schedule and I have slowly gotten over the decorating bug. Time to get on with our life! I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was starting up Multitude Mondays again. I am so overwhelmed with all I have to be thankful for, so I will just type up a brief overview right now. After that, I will start keeping track daily of all the Lord has blessed me with.

Here we go...

246. Seeing the Lord's hand guide us this year

247. A safe move with little loss of sanity

248. Daniel getting the job that we wanted after being in town only 2 weeks

249. Finding the perfect house for our family the first day out (it was actually the first house we looked at)

250. That the girls have adjusted so well with the move

251. Being closer to family and friends

252. Our experience with the Marine Corps

253. Meeting the most amazing women in NC -- the military wife is, by far, the strongest type of woman I know

254. Experiencing civilization again (even if our checkbook doesn't count this as a blessing)

255. Babysitters close by

256. Living close to 4 adorable little cousins who my girls LOVE

257. Getting plugged into this new city (slowly, but surely)

258. Finding an amazing pediatrician

259. Meeting a sweet woman in my Bible study whose son just deployed with the Marine Corps -- she allows me to stay connected, while I hopefully give her some kind of guidance from my experience

260. Learning how much Houston has to offer for young ones

261. Running into an old friend on a dark street while trick-or-treating (more to come on this story!)

262. A friend in NC linking me up to an inspiring mother in Houston

263. Facebook allowing me to keep in touch with all our military friends with a click of a button

264. The power of connections

265. That people actually still read my blog after my hiatus

Cheese, please

While staying at the in-laws before we closed on our house, Emily discovered she could open their refrigerator with no help...

and help herself to cheese whenever she wanted.

Spider, spider everywhere

One of Emily's favorite songs right now is the itsy bitsy spider. Really, anything that accompanies hand movements or dancing is right up her alley. Between singing the song and reading the itsy bitsy spider book my mom got her, spiders are on her mind. You can imagine her excitement when we pulled up to Hobby Lobby and she spotted a spider hanging out on the roof.

Oh, so close!

A new chapter

Oh my goodness. We are still alive, I promise! A lot has been going on in the Wetzel family since we left North Carolina, and I have so much to share. The Lord has been doing some awesome things in our life since the beginning of the year, really. We didn't know the direction things were going, but He seemed to wrap it all up pretty well in the past couple of weeks. It is so amazing to stand back now, look back at the past 10 months, and stand in awe of His power. The Lord has been way too good to us and we do not deserve everything we have been blessed with. But isn't that always the story?

I am so overwhelmed with everything I want to share. I guess it will just have to come out over time. As to what we are up to now... Soon after getting to Houston, Daniel got a job with BP - Alternative Energy. He was hoping to break into the wind energy industry, so we were both super pumped for him to get this job. We also found a house, closed, and moved in an just about record time. I sort of feel like a blob right now because all I do is think about the house. It is definitely an upgrade (space-wise), so I am trying to figure out how to make everything work in a bigger house. I want to get everything done with the house, so my brain can finally start thinking about other things, but unfortunately we are lacking the funds. I need to learn some patience and just slowly do a little at a time. It is a lot easier said than done, though. There are more important things than decorating a house -- like spending time with the Lord, influencing my children, and finding some friends in this new town. Hopefully I can make some strides in the right the direction these next couple of weeks, including updating this blog.

The girls are changing like crazy. It is amazing how much faster your second child grows up! It doesn't help when she is doing things twice as fast as the oldest. Olivia was sitting up at 4 1/2 months and started crawling before 7 months. Geez. How am I already to this point where we need to baby proof everything? Emily is such a sweet little girl, and we have been having so much fun together. She is such a loving, helpful sister. I could not ask for two girls that love each other more. It is so special to see their relationship grow. I hope they are always best friends. And before you laugh at that last sentence, let me just say, I know it is possible.

A lot more updates to come, including starting up Multitude Mondays again. I got off track when Olivia came and have been meaning to resume my blessing posts ever since. So many blessings have come our way that there is no way I can acknowledge them all, but I will try!

An attempt in dressing ourself

We are busy, busy, busy over at the Wetzel house right now. Although we are attempting to move ourselves, we are paying for movers to load the moving van. Most of our belongings are packed and we are finishing the last few boxes before our help arrives on Thursday. My mom flew in yesterday, and we are so thankful she is here. It is a lot easier to pack and take care of two children now!

I had a lot of posts planned about everything I am going to miss about this place, but as always, I did not get around to writing them. Soon, hopefully. Since I know that my Aunt Charlene checks this thing religiously, and is probably looking for something new, I knew I had to post at least something...

My mom always told me that I started dressing myself at a very young age. Emily definitely got my stubbornness, and in the past month has taken this joy away from me, as well. Like her mother did at the age of two, she picks out what she wants to wear for the day and puts it all on by herself. I finally learned I have to keep her bedroom door shut, or we go through, at least, 5 outfits in a day. I think we are in need of some dress up clothes now because I am tired of not knowing if her clothes are really dirty, or if she got tired of her outfit, put it in the clothes hamper, and picked out a new outfit.

Although she dresses appropriately now (and even matches) for a while it was touch-and-go...

Boxes and wrapping paper... check!

Oh, the headache that is about to ensue as we attempt to make this move on our own! Although the military will pay for movers to pack and transport everything, if you do it yourself, you can pocket a whole bunch of extra cash. We figure this is a good time to save up, and it is extra exciting because a couple of months ago we become 100% debt free. Yeah!!! It's so nice knowing that we don't owe anyone anything, and all this money we will make will cushion our savings account as we start our house hunt.

One of the first big expenses when moving is buying all the boxes, packing paper, etc. One nice thing about the military is that there are always people moving in and out of the area. I stopped a family a couple of days ago as their movers unloaded the van and asked for all their packing supplies. Today, Daniel picked up the first batch of moving materials. They are an older couple with 20+ years in, so I know we will be more than covered. Check this out...

And to think, there is more to come!

T minus 21 days

I went into our marriage knowing what my life would be like in the beginning... moving to a different state away from family and friends, long stretches of time without a husband, and experiencing a lifestyle unlike anything in the real world. Daniel and I would often talk about how we envisioned the future going. I was prepared for possibly giving my husband up for a career of 20 years in the Marines. I was prepared for the numerous moves, the numerous deployments, the numerous friends that would come into our lives, and I could not wait for the numerous memories we were going to make. We went through our first deployment and I believed I was made to be a military wife. I'm extremely flexible, I don't get worked up easily, and I roll with the punches -- all the things that are necessary for a military spouse. Plus, I am very independent and can handle not having a man around the house.

Then the Lord told us he had other plans.

In 21 days we are packing up and moving out of here. We are leaving our little bubble of a neighborhood, we are leaving all of our wonderful friends, we are leaving our cheap grocery store known as the commissary, and we are leaving full coverage healthcare. We are also leaving this humid state of North Carolina, we are leaving a place with dress codes and crazy slow speed limits, and we are leaving the stupid red tape that is involved in everything military.

In 21 days we are packing up and moving out of here.

Bare with me this next month as our life gets flipped upside down. I will be busy squeezing in doctor's appointments, filling prescriptions, and lining everything up for our move that we will be doing ourselves. Here's to getting every last dollar we can out of the government...