The Adventure of us: August 2012

The Short Version:

I got a job as a Resident Director at California Baptist University in Riverside California. I will be the director of about 200 sophomore, junior and senior women living in the apartments with 9 women resident assistants on my staff. Ben and I have moved to California and are now living in a two bedroom apartment on campus! We sold the Ford Focus and got me a Honda AccordJ We have settled into the two-bedroom apartment and it just about looks like home! Ben will continue to do insurance adjusting, unless God brings about something different.

The LOOOONGG Version:

This past month has been a whirlwind and I cannot even believe how far we have come and how much has changed in less than a month!! A few months ago I put my name on a job board with the Christian Universities, not necessarily looking for a job, but just in case something that really sparked either Ben or my interest came up we could take a look at it. A few different positions for Resident Director came up and sounded like something I was very excited about, so I applied to a few different ones not really expecting anything to come from it, but just sort of throwing my name into the bucket. One of those applications happened to be to California Baptist University in Riverside California. About 2 weeks after submitting my application I received a call from Riverside wondering if I would be available to do a skype interview, we set one up for that evening. From there the process flew very quickly! About 30 minutes after my first interview I got a second call asking for another interview for the following day. I had that skype interview with 5 of the other RD’s on campus. About 30 minutes after that interview I received another call saying that they wanted to schedule an interview with the Dean of students over the phone. We scheduled the appointment and I had that interview about a week later. And again… about 30 minutes after that phone interview I received a call saying that I was the final candidate and asking if I wanted to proceed to the next step in the process. I said yes, and they said that I would have to fly out to meet with the President and Vice President for a final interview. Unfortunately the president was out of town so they couldn’t schedule the interview for about 2 weeks! We waited and tried to figure out what to do… Ben’s work schedule is very unpredictable, and we never know when they will send him out to a storm. So he was just finishing up working a storm and we figured that at that point, while we had the chance we should take the opportunity to drive back to Lago Vista to our apartment (from D.C.), pack our stuff up, rent a UHAUL and move our stuff out to California. We realized that this was a bit crazy as I had not “officially” been offered the job and could not be guaranteed the position until after my final meeting with the President and Vice President. But our predicament was that if we didn’t move our stuff right then, while Ben was off of work, he could get called out and then we had no idea when we would have another opportunity to move our stuff from Texas to California. So that is exactly what we did! After prayerfully considering our options, and continuing to ask the Lord to lead us, we believed that he had opened all the doors so far and we both felt good about moving our stuff. We drove from D.C. to Lago Vista, packed our stuff, put the Ford Focus on Craigslist to sell it, (it was getting pretty old, and not as dependable, so we decided to sell it and try to find another car for me to use once we arrived in California. We put it on craiglist and LITERALLY sold it for the asking price less than 24 hours after the post and to the FIRST people who saw it. It was incredible! We were so happy that it worked out so well and so grateful that we wouldn’t have to drive both vehicles PLUS the Uhaul trailer all across the country). And we headed on our 22 hour journey to California. Unfortunately we didn’t share the excitement with very many of our friends and family because we still weren’t positive that I had the job. Though we were confident since they said I was the final candidate, we still weren’t certain until the final step.

So we left on Thursday morning, drove the 22 hours and arrived in California on Friday July 24. We hung out with family and stayed with them until my interview on Thursday. Luckily after I had my interviews I was offered the job and we began to unload our trailer on Friday afternoon into our new 2 bedroom apartment on Campus!

We are so excited for this new opportunity to live around family and to live in a community of students and be surrounded by people! That’s one thing we have definitely missed while doing this adjusting job. We love traveling, but miss being involved in community of people. And I am thrilled about the opportunity to do something that I LOVE! I will the Director of a dorm of about 200 sophomore, junior and senior college women, and there will be 9 women Resident Assistants on my staff. God has given me a passion to work with women and I feel like this is the perfect opportunity for me to do to that. Ben will continue to travel and I will be staying in California working this new job. It will be very hard when he is away at work, but luckily he also has time off to spend here and just hang out when he is not working. It will be quite the change, but we believe that it is the next step in our journey and that God has opened the doors for this opportunity.

This will also mean that Ben’s work load will be more difficult, as well as his travel time since he won’t have another person to travel with and drive. So we would appreciate your prayers as we transition and learn how to navigate through this next step in our journey… it will look completely different from what we have been used to so far, but it will be an exciting new experience. We want to keep you all updated, sorry that we have not shared this with you until now, it has all happened so quickly and we didn’t want to spread the word until we were sure that I had the position. We love you all so much and thank you for supporting us and being a part of our journey. We are diving into this head first and trusting that God will lead us every step of the way!

Also, I don’t know what this will mean as far as how often I will blog… but I will try to continue to keep you updated on what is going on in our life and stay in touch! If you have any questions about the job or anything feel free to shoot me an email or give me a phone call! I would love to talk more about it with youJ

I think that is all for now…until next time!

Here are some photos from before, during and after the big move!

Packing up the apartment in Lago Vista...

Got the Focus all cleaned up and ready to sell

Ben's final drive with the Focus

Our celebration trip to Sonic to get some Hot Fudge milk shakes!

Enjoying our final afternoon with some smoothies out by the pool at our apartment at the Island

Dinner and final goodbyes to Gene and Annie... sad to be leaving them!

We got the Uhaul and were ready to pack it full!

Our final dinner at the Island out by the lake:)

After 23 hours and only 1 hour left until we reached our destination the Uhaul got a flat tire!

Luckily we were able to stop right by a gas station so we could wait in the air conditioning until the repair man came to fix it, it was over 100 degrees!