Deutschland

Over 2 years since the last post and many happenings in our lives!

J was born 10/24/15 and is about to celebrate being TWO! How do I have a two year old? Last year while Brad was on his short tour, Jordan and I were blessed to be close to family in NC. We lived on a horse farm right next to some dear, sweet friends of ours nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. I worked part time as an English/Math/Science tutor to 3rd-5th grade kiddos and got to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway every day to/from J's most wonderful sitter.

It was difficult being separated as a family of course, but we could not have been in a more ideal spot. We grew family relationships, J grew into a toddler, and we lost some family along the way as well. During the summer of 2016 we lost Brad's Aunt Millie and my maternal Grandmother. Neither easy. Still not easy to this day. I joined a wonderful group of women through Alliance for Bible study and fellowship each week and was blessed by their friendship and support throughout the year.

Brad worked hard and played hard over in Korea! He served as the Readiness and Emergency Management Flight Commander overseeing all CBRN and Emergency Management related readiness for the Southern half of South Korea. He had an amazingly close flight with some superb Airmen, and while he was there he earned Flight Commander of the year for the 8 Fighter Wing nicknamed the "Wolfpack". Fitting, right? It wasn't all work for him though as he also enjoyed Korean BBQ, traveling, and nightly karaoke (I kid on the  nightly, but it was a favorite hobby he picked up!).

While he was there, Brad took the chance to fly home for J's 1st birthday and surprise the family. That was a lot of fun! Later that year, thanks to our families watching J for 21 days (Can't believe this momma left him for that long!), I had the opportunity to fly to Korea and spend some time with Brad. We toured Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and I loved the Korean culture. Brad also planned a 10-day trip to Thailand that was our "second honeymoon" and it was wonderful!

Now, after all of that, we are now in Germany! Wow. We live in Germany. It is still wild for me to wrap my head around the fact that I am living in Europe. I love it.. and the first week we were here I told Brad I didn't want to leave. Still don't. I desperately wish we could pick up and go spend the day with Nana & Papa or Lolly & Pops like we did last year, but aside from being apart from those we love... this side of the pond isn't half bad. Brad works on the staff for US Air Forces in Europe and has been on the road a lot for meetings with the Ministries of Defense for nations including Poland, Norway, Slovakia, and Germany. We look forward to traveling with him to these locations once we are more settled; but even so, we've had many travel/festival opportunities already and continue to start planning the next each time we get back home.

In the next week or so I plan to post about various trips we've done and things we've experienced. I'm making it a goal to keep this up, mostly for family, but I hope you follow along with us while we're here!

New Job!

I think most of our friends/family are already aware of this fact, but yesterday I officially accepted a position at a great school in the Dysart District out here in Arizona. I announced the great news with this super instagram:

Who has two thumbs and a new job as a first grade teacher in AZ?! THIS GIRL!!!!

Ironically, it's name is Mountain View... which is the name of my fantabulous elementary school I attended as a child. I will be teaching first grade and will have four other teachers in my grade to work with! I am very excited to be working in a high achieving school and think I'll fit in quite nicely.

Now reflecting on the job search as a whole...
I was a little shocked at how many interviews/offers I got compared to when we were in North Carolina. Not that it was in the double digits, but when I accepted a position at Southwood it was the only offer I got out of two interviews I had. Kind of a buzz kill, right? Well here... I had four interviews (and a call for another which I declined) and three job offers. Not trying to brag.. it was just a completely different experience!

Anywho, here's to celebrating the fact that I will have a job come August! Now on to finding something for the summer... (grumbles)

Will Work for Food

Let me start this out by saying that Brad and I absolutely love it out here and have really enjoyed meeting so many great people already.

It has been a relief for Brad to fall into his steady job instead of working odd jobs and me bringing in the steady paycheck from my part-time job. However... now I'm the one who is seeking out anything I can get my hands on.

There are a L-O-T of hoops to jump through in switching over my NC Teaching License to AZ.. and a lot of papers to fill out (I think my hand is still a little sore from writing so much). Arizona has this fingerprint clearance thing.. sort of like a background check that they require before you go to work with kiddos because, well.. you don't want a child abuser in the classroom, right?! Well this thing takes 4-8 weeks to process once it has been submitted... stress me out.

One district in the area agreed to interview me.. and then I never heard back from them about the position for which I interviewed. They called a couple days ago and offered me a position. Thing is, they're 30+ minutes away and I was really torn.

Other districts are waiting for this fingerprint thing before they'll interview me. Won-der-ful.

WELL - IT CAME IN THE MAIL TODAYYY! YIPEE!!

Also, I landed another interview at a school 20 minutes away for a position I'd really like to have.

Things are falling into place, no?! If you've been praying for us, thank you. We appreciate it and feel it! Please pray that the Lord will lead me to a wonderful school where I'll fall into the swing of things and have encouraging co-workers.