Berg Blogger: February 2011

It's been a while since we've gotten a blog post up. A lot has happened.

On February 1st the moving truck came and took our stuff away. The cars had already been shipped the previous weekend. It was really happening.

As has been true every time that I've moved it was really odd to see the empty house once we were done cleaning up. There is always a sadness for me with a move. I think about all the things that happened in my life at that place. Stuff like Riley learning to walk and talk, and welcoming our sweet little Kendall Girl into the world.

This move is different though, because we're not just moving to a new house. We've moved to a new state 2000 miles away. To say it's been tough is an understatement. I've left the place I considered my permanent home. We've left behind almost all of our closest friends.

As the plane took off from Logan I had tears streaming down my face. The sense of loss is very profound, and the pain of missing people has actually intensified over the last few days. It's the worst on Sunday when we go to church. We miss everyone very much.

I keep coming back to the story of Abram. God said to him, “'Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you...I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others'...So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed." (Genesis 12:1-4, my edit.)

It took a lot of faith for Abram to pick up and go. I feel like our departure has been similar in some ways. We've moved to a place that we've never been to before and I'm starting a job that will be very different from what I've done before. We've left all of our friends and family behind. With the speed that things have progressed at we have no doubt that God's hand is in this. We are taking a leap of faith, trusting that He has a plan at work here for us, and work for us to do.

In many ways we are already feeling his blessing.

The trip started with a one way plane ride to Denver. Riley and Kendall did great on the plane. Riley in particular is an old hand at traveling, since his first trip on a plane was taken before he was three months old and he's been to Alaska twice and Seattle three times.

Riley loves the Jet Blue TV's, but is confused by the fact that they don't have touch screens...

Kendall got some play time on the floor preflight

Since we're not the type of people who like to wallow in our sadness we've been throwing ourselves into our new environment. We registered the cars, got new drivers licenses and finally signed a lease on a house. Riley has started school. We've even gotten library cards.

Our new home

We're working very hard at finding the things that we like (or love) about living here. It really helps to make the transition easier, especially since neither Shelby or I had any real desire to leave Boston. The snow out there helped to give us a shove out of town, and we're really enjoying how much less snow there is here in the Springs.

We've explored a little. We had a fun date night Friday at a theater in downtown that sells beer, wine and all kinds of coffees to go along with popcorn. I love watching a movie with a beer instead of a soda. There was a nice coffee shop down the street too that was a perfect post movie stop.

Yesterday we did our first bit of exploring in the outdoors and outside of the Springs. We went to Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs. Here's a slide show:

It was great to get out and see a bit of the natural beauty, as well as explore a little of the local culture. We also finally realized that we have acclimated to the altitude...bring on the bikes!

I want to mention that this entire move and the last week and a half here in Colorado would have been very different if we had not had the blessing of some very special people in our lives. Shelby has friends from when she was a teen who live here in Colorado Springs. Phil and Margene have opened up their house to us, allowing us to stay in their very nice finished basement for a time that has become much longer than was originally thought. A roof over our heads has been a very great blessing, but their friendship has been a gift that has been priceless. It has given us a sense of normalcy in day to day life that would have been extremely difficult to do without. I feel less of a "stranger in a strange land" because of them and I thank God for the great blessing of their friendship.

So I want to end for now with some pictures of the kids. They've adapted quite well...

Kendall and Margene have become fast friends