Packing up and moving on

I think most of our blog readers have heard our job and moving news by now. If you haven't heard all the details and you count yourself among our personal friends, please drop us an e-mail and we'll fill you in.

Early last week Eric accepted a job in Minnesota. It's not the perfect job but it is a great job and we're grateful for it. Eric has been job-hunting almost without a break for eighteen months straight and the strain of always wondering about the next step was a bit much for our family. When we finally realized that Eric did have a job and we did know where we were going it was hard to believe.

We are quite sad about leaving DC. We've lived here a couple of years longer than the average DC resident and our time here has included our entire marriage and the births of two children. We have come to love urban living and we've made some wonderful friends. We'll really miss all of the (free!) cultural opportunities, our pedestrian lifestyle, lots of choices for churches and coffee shops, the East Coast and our relative proximity to family and friends here. I doubt we'll return to DC but we do plan to try to get back to the East Coast as soon as possible.

Fortunately, there is much to look forward to. It's pure coincidence that Eric got a job in Minnesota but it is a happy coincidence. Our landlord is selling our condo and we needed to leave by June 30th, anyway. Our plan was to put all our stuff in a POD and take our regular trip to the Midwest to visit family and friends. We'd save July rent and, we hoped, have a job lined up by the time Eric's mom got sick of us. Its worked out so that we can pretty much just keep to our plan but now we don't have the stress of wondering where we're headed after Minnesota. Our stuff will be stored for us while we look for a rental house in our new town and we can stay with Eric's mom until we get settled. Eric starts work as soon as we arrive in Minnesota.

We'll be living just thirty minutes outside the Twin Cities in a town where we have a few friends already. We're really looking forward to seeing more of Eric's family. His little brother, Ben, will be a senior in high school this year and we'll finally get to participate in all his school things that we usually miss. Both of the kids' godparents are in the Twin Cities and they'll all get to know each other better. I'm looking forward to becoming more familiar with Eric's "homeland." We'll be able to make easy trips to Madison to see more of Eric's family. And we hope to take a couple opportunities to indulge our love of road trips by venturing further west to sightsee.

I apologize for the infrequent posts but life, as you can imagine, is pretty crazy. Boxes piled everywhere and everything in disarray. Joseph hates change and is decidedly ambivalent about this move but Margaret can't get enough of packing.


We just have to be careful about what she's putting into those boxes:


I'll be back with more frequent updates once we're settled in Minnesota. I can't promise to post much before the beginning of August but I will try if I have the opportunity.