Flashback Friday ~ five years ago
June 30, 2007
After two months of living with Brent's parents, we closed on our house. But before I get to that story, let me tell you what led us to this little town...
In May 2006, I accepted a big promotion with ISU Extension. I went from being a County Youth Coordinator for Wapello County to a Youth Field Specialist, covering four counties in southeast Iowa. A lot of traveling, juggling evening and weekend events in four counties and supervising county staff. Brent had been an Agronomist for Pioneer at Hedrick for four years. We were happy in our careers.
On August 31, I was at meetings on ISU campus and Brent had been invited to meet with a district sales manager for Pioneer. We planned on meeting up after we were both done and kicking off the tailgate season with family and friends at ISU's first football game of 2006. Arriving in the tailgate lots of Jack Trice stadium, idle chit-chat between Brent and I turned into life changing decisions. Brent had been offered the opportunity to move back to the community he grew up in and be a sales representative for Pioneer. Thankfully, the decision did not need to be made quickly. In fact, it was very much the opposite. We had until February 1st of 2007 to give them an answer. Five months! It didn't take us five months to make the decision, but it was more than five months before we had everything in order to start over in a new, little community. We had lived away from our families (in a town of 30,000 population) since the day after we got married - two hours from Brent's parents and almost three hours from my parents. We had bought, gutted and remodeled our very first home, had successful careers, wonderful friends and very special neighbors. Moving meant starting over for all of this. Remember that promotion I had accepted? I was so sad to leave my coworkers and 4-H families. But at the same time, I knew from our first date that Brent dreamed of going home to farm. While this job was not farming, it was close enough in business-related terms, as well as proximity, that Brent could be more involved in the family farm. We also were very much wanting to have a baby and the thought of being closer to at least some of our family was very appealing.
I can't even begin to estimate the number of decisions we made in the months following that August 31st job offer. There was a lot of uncertainty. We didn't know when we would find a house, sell our old house, find me a job, buy land to build this business, and on and on... all while trying to keep the information that this was all happening on a low profile.
Our first house hunting visit was in February...in a snow storm. It was unsuccessful and so were many more house hunting trips to follow. In late March, Brent moved in with his parents; I was still working and living in Ottumwa. I got a job transfer with ISU in late April and joined Brent with a couple of suitcases. Our old house sold in May and we had no place to go with our stuff. Brent called me at work one day and said he found a storage unit to put our stuff. He needed me to write a deposit check to Rat Hole Rentals. Umm, excuse me?!?! It was actually a decent place - clean, dry, safe. {The name was a play off the owner's last name, but I'm not sure it was good for marketing.}
Finally, at the end of May we found a house that would work for our growing family (I was pregnant with Lucas). We closed on our house on June 30, 2007.
Many trips from Rat Hole Rentals and the barn at Brent's parents...
Painting...
Steve.
Connie.
Karen and Jen.
Aunt Susan, Jenna and Grandma Perry.
Remodeling...
Brian, Jen, Brent.
Leah and Luke.
Putting outdoor furniture together and new appliances...
Uncle Mike and Brian.
Grandpa Lehmeier, Grandpa Perry and Brent.
The first of many BBQs in our backyard.
We were blessed to have such wonderful family and friends help us move and get settled in. Things look A LOT different around here now, thanks to the famous hail storm of 2009 and two babies. A fun flashback to see changes in only five years! While we don't always understand it, God's timing is perfect.
In many, many ways we are very happy to be where we are.
