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This is a long post. So I’ve put in a couple pictures to liven it up. There’s a reward at the bottom for those of you who make it there.

Here’s a pic to start you off. If you don’t know already, “Jadon Rocks!” It’s gone to his head. He walks around sometimes saying, “I rock!”

Thank you so much for everyone who has sent a caring message in the past few days. I am going to try to attempt to explain a little more.

Hallmark announced Tuesday that they will be laying off 6-8% of it’s workers. It was a surprise in the way that Hallmark takes laying off it’s employees very seriously, but not a surprise because of the way the economy is going. They may have already started to lay people off, but we won’t know for sure who is laid off until several weeks, maybe even months have passed.

When we were leaving Atlanta and Josh’s job at Lockheed Martin, I said a couple times that it felt a little crazy that we were leaving a job with solid government contracts for airplanes to work for a retail company that relies on Americans’ holiday spending. But, we decided it was worth it to move closer to family and get Josh into a job that was fulfilling, challenging and exciting to him. We have not regretted the decision. It is incredibly wonderful to be near family and Josh has found his job to be every thing and more than what he dreamed it would be.

When we left Atlanta in October we left with only what we could fit into our pretty small Honda CRV. Our home was left with all of it’s furnishings and most of our comforts with the hope that it would sell better. In October and November the economy made it’s sharpest declines and it became increasingly obvious that we were going to have to take an extreme loss on our home in order to sell it. We said several times in those months that if it wasn’t for Josh’s love of his job, we would move back to Atlanta in a heartbeat. We got a contract, but we did loose a significant amount of money on our sale in December. Side note, we absolutely loved our home. If we had stayed in Atlanta we would have been happy in it for many, many years. But instead we were living in my parents basement and were looking forward to getting our furnishings from our home before our baby was born. At that time our brother-in-law began working on my sister’s unfinished basement in order for us to move into it.

In December, we closed on our home with a loan we had to take out because of our transfer. We moved our stuff to two places. Half went to my parents’ basement and the other half to my sister’s where we’ve been living ever since (see previous post). Our plan was to allow our finances to recover somewhat for 6 months, then move around Hallmark downtown to start our lives here. We’ve been planning on finding a church and a community to serve and live in this summer. We’ve been on two house hunting trips, researched schools, found doctors, applied to preschool programs all in the area we were planning to move.

So, on Tuesday it came as a blow (as I am sure it did to all Hallmark employees) that Josh may loose his job. We feel pretty unsecure because Josh is definitely the last 6-8% to be hired, which we are sure puts him at the top of the list of who to consider to lay off. There are reasons to be hopeful, but certainly reasons to be worried too.

On Wednesday I was pretty down. I think the first year after a move across country always is. When you move you loose all of your “normals” and nothing is comforting. The grocery store is different, the weather is surprising, you get lost all the time, everything is just different. Suddenly friends you only saw once a month or got go on walks with are the only people you want to see in moments of homesickness. When we heard of Hallmark’s layoffs, all I could think of was the home, friends, church and the beauty of Georgia that we left behind.

I do know that if we were still there, I would be incredibly sad that my family wouldn’t have been there for Eliza’s birth, I would miss dearly the deep talks I have with my sister after the kids go to bed, I would miss the way my son anticipates time with his grandparents and cousins he now knows.  But in either decision there are pluses and minuses, ups and downs, things to rejoice in and things to mourn.

Thank you for your prayers. In many, many ways our situation is not that bad. We are blessed with family, health, a roof over our heads, safety, many things that America has recently found we all take for granted. More than prayers that Josh would keep his job, I ask for prayers that we would continue to find contentment. Realizing peace in a situation we don’t want to be in while God being glorified in our hearts is actually the only thing we truly want. Knowing our God in moments of crisis is the only thing we actually need. The world could continue to fall apart, but as long as God continues to reveal himself to us, we will be fulfilled.

Josh would like to keep his job in order for his family to be provided for and in order to continue to do a job he has found that he absolutely LOVES. I would like him to keep his job so my husband continues to be fulfilled and challenged during the day and so that my family can have a space to live and thrive in.

If you are still reading this incredibly long post I thank you for loving us. Thank you for walking beside us by listening, commenting and praying. We are so thankful for everyone we’ve been blessed to live life with. We’ll keep you updated.

Here are the pictures I promised:

About 2 months ago we had our friends over for dinner. If you don’t remember them, check out the end of this post. We met Tony and Sarah in birthing class and discovered we both had sons, 3 months apart from Guatemala. The girls ended up being born 4 days apart (and the day we left the hospital they were randomly put in the same room that we were!) When we got the girls together outside of mine and Sarah’s stomachs, here’s what happened:

We placed our new cuties next to each other on the couch.

We snapped a decent picture.

Then, things quickly made a turn for the worst.

And in the time it took for me to snap 4 pictures while laughing at 2 poor 3 week olds, disaster struck.

Will they ever trust us again?