Why Kansas?

Yeah, we've gotten that question a LOT.

Rusty is starting a new career.  He has been teaching videography for 3 or 4 years now and is really excited to do it professionally.  Michelle is hoping he will get his "fill" at work and spend more time off the computer in the evenings!  (ouch, a low blow...)

We will be twelve hours north of Rusty's twin and his family, and twelve hours east of my sister and her family, and 22 hours away from our current home.  Yikes!  We've never lived so far away from our families, and are nervous about the adjustment.  Hopefully, this blog will help at least a little!!  We love you all so much, and will miss our visits!  We plan to take some pretty long road trips from time to time!

Rusty takes off next week, after we frantically install the new kitchen floor, replace the drywall in the stairwell, do a dozen other repairs, and sort through all of his stuff.  Thank goodness his last day of teaching was last Friday!  Michelle and the kids will move sometime in December.

Michelle just got back from delivering 12 "thank-you" plates of cookies (and returning painting supplies) to all of the wonderful women in our ward that helped with our painting party this last Wednesday.  Wow, we will miss this ward.  They have been amazing friends and are always willing to jump in and help out at any time.  Our bishop and his wife have watched our kids in the middle of the night while we took Nate to the ER.  Nearly everyone has taken a turn with Hyrum and Hannah while we have spent weeks in the hospital.  Half the ward helped us clean out our first rental house in just three hours, with only one hour's notice, when we had only lived here for a few months!  One couple has put in so much work into our current house over the years that we joke that they should get 10% of the sale proceeds!  (Now that we are actually trying to sell it, however, we all agree we will just be glad if it would sell at all.)  Anyway, all of our friends in this ward have encouraged us and carried us through some amazing, and rough, years.

Rusty has already spoken with the branch president in the area we hope to rent a home in Kansas.  They are excited to have a new family coming and are house-hunting for us.  What a blessing... no matter where we go, we will have a new"family" to meet and come to love.