This was the last picture we took in front of one of our favorite homes in Henderson. We moved out July 19th. We had only moved in Nov. 30th of the year before- so about 8 months in to our two-year lease we up and left! I loved what this particular house offered us and I was so, so sad to leave my sister and the wonderful friends that I had made there. As usual, the Lord had even better plans for us and now we are slowly settling into life in Chandler, Arizona.
 |
| Good-Bye Henderson! |
 |
| Tyler's first day of 1st Grade! 7.22.13 (and first day in a new home in Chandler, Arizona) He has Miss Falconer at Basha Elementary school. |
We moved in to our new (rental) home on Sunday July 21. Sweet Tyler was a trooper and started (year-round) school on July 22nd! He had only been on Summer break about six weeks most of that was spent packing and cleaning. I didn't even have time to do anything fancy for his first day of school. We were just lucky he had clothes on his back and a lunch in his backpack (we still didn't have a fridge at this point!) The move was horrendous but I will give that it's own blog post sometime.
 |
| Ryan had a few days off work to help move us in so he got to walk Tyler to his first day of school. Tyler was really nervous with all the huge changes going on. Having his big, brave, dad there seemed to help. |
 |
| Getting situated in his seat. |
Did I mention we moved to Arizona in late July?! It was HOT! We were used to heat but it was dry heat. The week we moved had to have been the most humid week of the Summer with over 40% humidity and rain on and off for days. It was disgusting and I may have cried at least a little every day wondering why we moved here (don't worry- it's definitely grown on me after making it through the first month or so)
 |
| After a HOT day at school and work we had to cool off in the dragon pool. Even dad go in on the action. If you look closely you can see the grass and the lake beyond the iron fence. We have a beautiful view right out onto a neighborhood lake and we see Herons and ducks all the time. |
No more than a week or so into living here and we hit another snag. On August 2nd around 5pm Ryan was out mowing the lawn for the second time since moving in and buying a lawn mower. I was upstairs folding laundry and Tyler came in to call to me that dad needed something. There was no urgency in Tyler's voice so I finished my folding and went down to see what Ryan needed. I found him lying on his back holding his leg and having a hard time breathing. Ryan had stepped off the curb wrong (** or got knocked down in the final round of the cage fight...whichever story you prefer**) and broke his ankle. We did the usual rest, ice, compression, elevation- but it was NOT getting any better. Without knowing a single soul to watch the kids we all packed up and went to the closest urgent care we found on google. Thankfully the urgent care center was nice, clean, and empty so we got right in. It was confirmed that Ryan broke his right ankle and most likely tore some ligaments. Weeks later, doctors visits later, crutches, walking boot, MRIs later we found out that he had broken both the tibia and fibula as well as completely severed two of the three main ligaments in his ankle. We ended up scheduling surgery for August 28th and we just finished PT last week (December 17th or so) It has been a HUGE challenge but we have learned a lot along the way. I will have to do an entire post on this opportunity we had to learn and grow and have faith. Thankfully, Ryan can walk again but not like he used to and there is still some residual pain to deal with.
 |
| Daddy getting love from his most concerned little boys. These boys worried about their daddy so much as he was going through the surgery and healing process of this dang broken ankle. I am thankful they had a chance to learn compassion and service. |
 |
| Big man has wanted to play baseball for quite some time. This is right before his first game. His first two at-bats were a grand slam and a home run! The rest of the season was pretty great too. |
This is a very,
very, brief synopsis of what has happened in the past 5 months or so. I wish I would have been better at writing. To be honest, I didn't write for the longest time because I didn't have one single positive thing to say. Only too late have I realized that those challenging times are when we learn what we are truly made of and we are able to look back and see what lessons we learned and what kind of people we are. We have had an abundance of challenges since moving to Arizona, however, we have also been abundantly blessed with amazing people ALL around us. I look forward to documenting our life a LOT better and catching up over the next few weeks.
