i'm baaaack & we moved!

can you believe it's been 6 months since i last blogged? wowza.

i didn't take a break on purpose. life just sort of took over. and sometimes when i'm stressed, i choose to watch netflix instead of writing down what's stressing me out.

but writing has also always been therapeutic for me and i love looking back on this online journal of mine because i have about 10 journals filled with only 4 pages of writing in each. typing is just easier for me.

recapping what's happened in the last 6 months just isn't going to happen so i'll highlight the main thing... WE MOVED!

last fall kenneth went through the fun process of applying for grad school. and then we went through the longest process ever of waiting. after visiting some of the campuses and trying to figure out where the best place for him and i would be, we had a few top options. we really loved the campus in st. augustine, florida (which was the first campus we visited) and we also loved the school in charleston, south carolina. we also had our fingers crossed for the university of utah. well, after much prayer and patience and waiting to hear where he would get accepted, st. augustine was it! it was kenneth's first choice and we both felt really great about it. kenneth was accepted for the fall 2015 semester so we started making our plans to move.

st. augustine is a small town (which we love) but doesn't make things easy when you're looking for jobs and trying to find housing. because it's a beach town, it's tough to find housing because it's just a bunch of condos for tourists to rent. we really wanted to live by the beach. i mean REALLY. we would rather live in a dump and close to the beach than live in a mansion far from the beach. after researching, i was really only finding one apartment complex/condo place that was close to the beach and in our price range. however, we were finding nothing. i could explain the long details of how tough it was to find housing but it would probably bore you. basically, we were starting to feel hopeless about it. we just were not having luck. kenneth had a long list of things to do before school started and it felt like everything that could go wrong, was going wrong. and we just didn't understand. we felt so great about moving here, we felt like this was the school for kenneth and the next step in our lives... so why was nothing working out for us?

then towards the end of june we got a tough call that kenneth's mom was not doing well. for those of you that don't know, since it's not something we talk about a lot outside of close family and friends, kenneth's mom has been battling stage 4 cancer for about 3 years now. she has had her ups and downs throughout it all but it had been getting worse the last year. we got a call from my sister-in-law to find out that she had 3 brain tumors on her frontal lobe that was impacting her speech, making her slur her words. there was a possibility that she was going to have immediate brain surgery and the doctors said that we should come out. we got that call around 8pm and kenneth was on a flight the next morning around 10am. all of kenneth's siblings hurried out there to be together which i'm so grateful for. the doctors decided surgery was too risky and instead did 10 days of intensive radiation on her entire brain.

those were stressful times for everyone. i was debating whether or not to fly out, or stay home and work for the both of us and it was hard. kenneth and i had already planned on flying out california to spend time with family in about 3 weeks so we decided that i would stay in georgia and work and then just come out when we already had our flights booked. kenneth, on the other hand, stayed there for the 3 weeks with his mom and family until i met up with them.

there's no doubt that kenneth needed to be there and i'm glad we were able to make it happen. but at the same time, we had our move in the back of our heads. we still had deadlines for deposits and things that needed to be done and it just felt like everything was not working out for us. even though we were across the country from each other, we decided to pray, fast and go to the temple about it.

ultimately, we decided that kenneth was going to defer school for a semester but that we were still going to move down as soon as we could find a place and just get settled in. we felt great about that and as soon as we made that decision, we got really lucky and got the apartment that we wanted! literally, days later we got a call. it was a tender miracle.

things moved fast because of the last minute vacancy with our apartment. but we are finally here and feeling a little bit more settled in. the university was extremely supportive in this decision and helpful in making it happen, which was also another blessing. so kenneth will now be starting in january and until then he is just working to making some extra $$$ and hopefully making a few extra trips to california to see his family.

while i wish i could say that life has been a breeze.. it definitely hasn't. these last few months have been extra stressful. but i'm trying to find the good and appreciate the blessings that come every day.

not going to lie, i definitely cried a lot during the moving process. we worked a ton up until the day before we left. it was overwhelming. we didn't get to say bye to friends we wanted to see or spend extra time with. it was just a whirlwind. my mom came down and helped us move which i'm so grateful for! and i 100% cried like a baby when she left haha. our new home is 6 hours away from atlanta so it's really not bad. i've just been extra emotional this month.

so now for a little bit about our new home!

saint augustine, florida. guys... it's beautiful here. it takes us 5 minutes to walk to the beach or 28 seconds to drive. literally. this place definitely reminds me a lot of hawaii. and that is definitely a good thing. the beach is obviously a lot different looking, but the overall feel is just great. i really don't know much about our new home besides the fun fact that it's the oldest city in america. i've got a lot of exploring to do.

as much as i would love to just live up the beach life with no worries in the world, it's definitely been a hard adjustment. it feels lonely here without any family or friends. being an adult is weird because i'm like... how do i make friends? haha. i'm on a rough job hunt... not going to well which has been really discouraging. so if anyone reading this knows any connections in the st. augustine/jacksonville area, hit a girl up!!!

all i know is that amongst the chaos that has been our lives as of late, i know this is where we are supposed to be. i have no idea what the next few years will entail, but what an adventure to figure it out! moving to hawaii all those years ago was the scariest and toughest thing i ever did. however, it was the absolute greatest decision of my life. so while i know it feels a bit scary moving to this random place, i'm crossing my fingers that the best things are yet to come here.

xx, lo