Last Week in Melbourne

The countdown has begun...we are now into our last week as Floridians. It's so bittersweet. -a little heavy, scratch that, LOT heavy on the bitter side. I'm having a hard time motivating myself to get started on all the "to-do's" on my list of things to do before the end of the week. I think mainly because I'm dreading leaving. It is so hard!! As much as I want to be closer to family, I also don't want to leave our "family" here.

The closer it gets to moving day, the sadder and more depressed I'm getting. I'm really hoping that once we get to AR for the summer, I'll be okay and will feel better and maybe actually be excited about moving to a new place. Right now, so not the case. All I want to do is sit and cry! And doing that makes me feel even worse because in the back of my mind I keep remembering all the prayers that Nathan and I have sent up telling God how much we miss seeing our family and how much we miss AR. How can I go from feeling that way to clinging onto this place? It's gotta be hormonal! I don't know how else to process it.

I just know that the past week or so, I've been trying to savor every minute of this place and take everything in, trying to write every detail of it onto my memory. -Guess that's why I took 116 pictures of us at the beach on Memorial Day. Yes, ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN! -obsessive??

So, this week, I've got to start packing up some things that we're going to need while we're in AR for the summer and also the things that I don't want the moving company to pack and move for us (pictures, scrapbooks, etc...). I get weary just thinking about all of it. My list of to-do's and "Things to Pack" keeps growing and growing. And Nathan flew out to MS this morning and will be working there all week long, naturally, so I'll be doing most of it myself. -Which I'd probably be doing regardless, since I'm anal like that and have to oversee all of the packing anyway to make sure everything I want packed gets packed.

Friday afternoon Mom and Dad will land in Orlando and the girls and I will go pick them up. They are coming down here to help us drive back to AR. We have to take both of our vehicles back and I knew I'd need help driving and taking care of the girls on the 16 hour trip up there. Friday night is the Daddy Daughter Dance at our church so Nathan and the older girls will go to that and Addison will be here with Mom and Dad. I am helping with it too and I'm so glad that I am so that I can watch! :) Yes, I'm going to be the mom that follows her girls on prom night, taking pictures and watching from a far, like the paparazzi! Ha!

Saturday and Sunday Nathan has drill at the base and then on Sunday afternoon after we're all loaded and Nathan gets back from the base, we'll be heading to AR. We're planning on staying with family in AR until our house here in FL sells and we find a house in the Tulsa area. We're praying that everything with our house will go through and be done before August so that we'll be settled in Tulsa by the time school starts. We're (trying) to keep an open mind to the fact that it might not happen that way though and look at the possibility of still being in AR when Taylor has to start the school year. We've not decided exactly what we'll do if that happens. Just say a prayer for us that everything with the house will go smoothly and quickly and we'll be in Tulsa before school starts. To us, that would be the ideal situation.

Nathan will start working in Tulsa full time on the Tuesday after we arrive in AR. We should get to AR some time on Monday and he will have to leave that afternoon and head to Tulsa. (Busy time for him!) He has an apartment rented there and he will be living and working there all week and then come back to see us on the weekends.

So, that pretty much sums up what's going on with us right now. The girls are excited about going to AR for the summer but are sad to leave their friends here as well. Taylor cried at school on her last day as they were lining up to leave. She said that she was just really going to miss her school and her friends there. (Breaks my heart!)Emma has started expressing her sadness about leaving her friends as well, which kind of surprises me. I guess I thought her being only 4, she wouldn't really think or understand too much about any of it. -and because she is so "live in the moment" and "fly by the seat of her pants"...she is generally in her own little Emma paradise all the time.

We have been getting in as much time with our friends here as we can over the past few days. Friday night we hosted our Sunday school class fellowship here at our house. We had a Mexican food potluck. We had so much food! And I think I counted 32 people in all in our house! Wild! -but so much fun!!

Well, that to do list is calling and I've wasted away almost half of the day now so I guess I'd better get started on something! :)

To all our Florida family, we love you and cherish you and are so thankful that God brought you into our lives. We are better people because of you and your impact upon us. We miss you terribly already and we'll never forget you!

To all our Arkansas family, can't wait to see you and spend time with you this summer!! We love you!

To keep in touch with us over the summer: My email address has changed and I will be able to check it wherever we are. (Yay!!) It is hollandgirls2@yahoo.com. I am also on Facebook (WAY TOO MUCH!!) so you can also keep up with us on there. I will try to post another blog once we're in AR and have gotten settled in there.