July: Still on the Move

After 2 great weeks we said our final good-byes to friends and family in Cincinnati.  Sunday afternoon June 24th Jennie and the girls took a flight from Columbus, OH to Sioux City, IA and then on to Yankton, SD by car.  John took off with the moving truck the next morning.  He stopped in Indy to pick up our good friend Bill Fisher, who graciously offered to accompany John on the 15 hour drive to South Dakota.  It certainly made those 15 hours fly by and we are so grateful for Bill's willingness to come.  

For the month of July, Yankton was our home and Jennie's parents let us "move in".  We can't thank them enough for making their home our home and helping out with the girls as we took on the task of transitioning our lives back to the US.  Our list was big and at times very overwhelming: house, cars, insurance, cell phones (surprisingly the most stressful decision!) schooling for Ella, etc.  Jennie's parents were pactient with us as we slowly made progress and the Lord was so good in providing for our needs. It was indeed a very special time to live with parents/grandparents.  One that doesn't happen often, but we really had a great time and enjoyed our late evenings of pinochle.

Enjoying the "beach" at Lewis and Clark Lake, Yankton SD

One of the amazing ways the Lord provided for us was in our housing arrangements.  We knew we would have to start out renting, as getting a mortgage without having lived in the US for several years was going to be impossible.  We really wanted to find a house (rather than apartment or condo) to rent since John was going to be working from home and needing an extra bedroom for an office.  We were really struggling to find something in our price range that was in a decent neighborhood.  We discovered that good homes were renting really fast.  So Jennie made several appointments to see a few rentals and we headed up to Sioux Falls one weekend.  The very first home we went through had been foreclosed and stood empty for 2 years.  A couple purchased the home and were in the process of redoing everything...so it was in rough shape.  But the potential was awesome and it was in our price range.  We filled out an application that same day but were bummed to learn that 3 others had filled out an application that same day as well.  The only thing we could do was to sit and wait.  Two days later, we received a phone call from the landlords saying they wanted to rent their home to us!  Just one day of house hunting and 2 days later we were able to cross off a huge item from our list.

Moving day was three weeks later.   We went back to the storage unit in Sioux Falls where we had unloaded all of our things a month earlier.  A big thanks to my family for helping us move in.  (Uncle Dean, Dan-O, Cousin Riley, Uncle Dave, Cousin Matt, Dad and Mom for watching the kiddos!)  We've moved that stuff into and out of storage units quite a few times in the past 2 months, and all the help really made it all seem pretty easy!