Happily Ever After

As with so many other things in life, my time in California didn't turn out as I intended. What is that quote by John Lennon? "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." Ain't that the truth. The good news is, things turned out BETTER than I had anticipated, because I'm writing this from home in Washington, where I have been back for almost three weeks. =)

The plan was to be in CA for a few months (we estimated six) to help with the cleanup of my grandparent's property after the passing of my grandpa at the end of last year and to finish my A.A. while I was there to make sure my time away from home was spent as productively as possible. I never even got a chance to take the math class I intended to take from Merced JC, because after I had been gone for a month my hubby and I decided that we had been away from each other more than long enough and I needed to come home. We had already bought tickets for me to visit him for ten days around Valentine's Day, so we decided we would go ahead with that (since all we could do with the ticket was use it some other time, not get the money back), then the girls and I would head back two weeks after that.

I can't tell you how torn in two I felt both when leaving here in the first place to go to CA, and then leaving CA to come back home. Where my husband is, where we've made our home together, is where I belong - after spending two months back at my parent's house over a year into my marriage, I feel that more than ever - but it was hard to leave my family again, not knowing when I might see them again (but knowing it would be a long time for sure). After living away from them for a year, it was great to see my parents, my brother, his kids, everyone there of course - but I'm so glad to be home with Vernon. =)

The trip back here wasn't so great, though - we were about 20 miles south of Klamath Falls, Oregon (still a good eight hours from home), in the middle of nowhere when the car started making a funny noise. God was looking out for us for sure, because even though we were literally in the middle of nowhere, this happened to occur right near a gas station thankfully placed in that nothingness. A good Samaritan, a guy who said he normally eats lunch at school but didn't like what they were serving that day, took the time to look at the car and figure out that the problem was the radiator hose, which needed to be replaced. He taped it up so I could make it to K-Falls, where we got the hose replaced - and then ran out of gas right afterwards. This also happened in a very handy place, right next to an auto parts store where the girls and I walked to buy gas cans, and a gas station where we walked to put gas in the gas cans. Luckily the trip was uneventful after that, and the girls were great troopers, but it was a miserably long drive. It literally took from 4:45 am Friday morning to 12:45 am Friday night/Saturday morning.

At least that's over now though, and especially after spending all that time apart, life is better and we are happier than ever. =)Being a newlywed, never mind a newlywed trying to blend five children from two families, can be difficult - but when you find the right person like I know I did, it's all worth it. We just hit the 16-month mark on the 26th - hard to believe it's almost been a year and a half already, but no matter how slowly or quickly the rest of our life together passes, I'm just glad I get to spend it with him. =)