The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of events! Things have happened so quickly that my head is still spinning! Andrew preached his last Sunday, and I taught my last week of piano lessons. We have moved many times, and saying good bye to people is ALWAYS the most difficult part. This time is different too in that Andrew has already left, but the kids and I will not officially be leaving for quite some time. So we have said goodbye to Andrew, I have already said fare well to my students, and with the pandemic I don’t know if I will see a lot of people before we do leave. I feel like this past year has stolen my time of being with friends and people from our community. It’s so terrible and sad! I will miss everyone here! There have been people from our church community that have been so thoughtful, generous, and shared their friendship with us. Their help in this time of transition for us as a family means so much too! Words cannot express the gratitude we feel!

This is a picture of Andrew preaching at the drive-in service on his last Sunday. I am so proud of him! He has worked so hard this past year. Lately, I have been asking myself if this is the same person I married!? 🙂 In the past year he has made several positive lifestyle changes, such as eating healthier, working out, going through the enrollment process of becoming a military Chaplin, trading in his shirt and ties for camouflage, and getting a much shorter haircut! I mean seriously! In the whole of our married life, I have NEVER seen Andrew wear anything camouflage!! It’s going to take some serious getting used to! He has even influenced me to cook a little healthier, and watch my weight over the last several months! So hey, I might lose a few pounds and get in shape this year too! 🙂

We decided to put our house up for sale a few days before Andrew left. We have moved several times, but I have never had to stage our house for selling. It’s intense! I have never told a bigger lie!! 😂 Our house was absolutely spotless! I had cleaned out corners, closets, and put away anything that made the house look like it was lived in! The kids pictures all came off the walls, and their toys put neatly away! I had to send the kids to a friends house for a few hours to accomplish this task! There is no way our house would have looked like this otherwise. However, God’s hand was surely at work in this process because I have never heard tell of a house selling so fast! We listed our house on a Friday and by Saturday evening we had accepted a generous offer! Praise Jesus! I could not have managed to keep our house in showing order!!! It was way too stressful!!! God knew I couldn’t handle it!😅 We had the house inspection today, and so I am praying all goes well on that front. The good thing is that we get to stay in this house until March 15th! This is wonderful because it gives us some time to live a “normal” life in this house. Moving will also be different this time because the military will come pack up and store our things. I’m not sure how I, as a control freak, will handle that, but it does make it a lot less work! Also, if you where worried about where we will live after March 15, don’t! God has had his hand in that too! I will be sharing more on that in a later post!

I cannot really describe the depth of sadness and emptiness I felt yesterday as we said our goodbyes to Andrew. We have spent some time apart over the years, but never more than a week or two. This is an entirely different realm we have entered, and honestly the days cannot pass quickly enough. I’m usually not one to wish my time away, but in this instance, I’m all for the next few months passing quickly! The kids had been talking about it for a few days, and while I know they felt sad, they handled saying good bye really well. We have been talking to Andrew over facebook portal, and Andrew has read them a bed time story the last couple nights. I’m so thankful for technology! I can’t imagine doing this back in the time of hand written letters, and long distance phone calls!

In the midst of all this craziness, David lost a tooth! 🙂 Bless his heart, he is getting a lot better about not freaking out about it! This one just kind of popped right out, no drama at all! 🙂

Love,

PK