Houston

Houston is a topic I have tried to avoid for a long time.  However, the word, "Houston" has become almost a daily conversation in our home and as much as I want to hide from it, I think I better at least write down some of our thoughts about it here as it is now a chapter in our family history, though hopefully only a brief footnote.

When we decided to sell our home in Rigby, a large part of the reason was because Zac's office was located in Blackfoot, ID.  The commute was close to an hour, thus eating almost 2 hours of his day in drive time.  We decided that we would like to live closer and have Zac's time spent with his family rather than on the road.  After 3 long years of trying to sell the house, we finally got 'er done and moved on down the road.  We prayed and we searched and we found 5 acres in the beautiful countryside outside of Blackfoot.  We put our hearts and souls, blood, sweat, and tears into making our home.  We persevered and we moved in in March 2012.  We were happy... almost too happy... we knew something would happen soon to shake up our Utopian lives.

Months later, Zac's work decided that they would do better to move their office location to Houston, TX.  And we were being pressured to make the move with them.  For a while we questioned whether we would still have a job if we didn't make the move to Houston.  We debated whether or not we wanted to give up our new home and make the kids move again, this time across country away from family and friends.  The kids were panicked.  They had already had to move schools in the middle of a school year 2 times during the past year.  They love their new friends and adore our ward and neighborhood.  They prayed and fasted and told their parents not to worry because they know that Heavenly Father answers their prayers.  It was very comforting.

We told Zac's work that we weren't planning on making a move to Houston and we started to look for other job options.  And our prayers were answered because Zac's work decided to keep the Blackfoot office open (at least for now) because there are certain employees that they don't want to lose over this move (Zac especially).  Zac has figured out how to master Skype and interacts with the Houston office daily making it seem like a viable solution to keep both offices open.  And for now we are feeling relatively safe again.

During the first week of December, Zac's bosses invited about 15 couples to come down to Houston to get to know the area and see what Texas has to offer.  We got to go!  Though I don't want to live there, it was fun to have a vacation with Zac, something we haven't done since I was pregnant with Ian 7 years ago.

They put us up in a very nice resort.  Here is a view of the pools from the balcony of our room.  We were situated right on a lake.  One of the biggest selling points for moving to Texas has been the weather... unfortunately it was extremely cold and rainy for the entire 4 days we were there!

Plane rides are a lot more enjoyable when one isn't six months pregnant... 

And suffering from a sinus infection!  I thought my ears were going to explode. 

But I am always still in awe whenever I fly.  Zac is always so nice to give me the window seat.  The pictures below are flying into Phoenix where we laid over on our way to Texas. 

While in Houston Zac was treated to a day of shooting skeet at a local shooting resort.  He had a lot of fun. 

It was a little bit of a tough "vacation" as Zac was in meetings the whole time and I was pretty much on my own.  But I know how to treat myself right and I braved the Houston traffic and drove two hours south to Galvaston, which is right on the Gulf of Mexico.  It was so worth the drive.  I am kicking myself for not having a camera with me.  I also went shopping and was treated to a massage.  It was all wonderful... but of course nothing compares to good old Idaho.  I am happy to be HOME.