Taking the Plunge!!!

Do you remember the last time you climbed up to the high dive at the swimming pool? Maybe you had to wait in the line for a while before climbing, and you felt the pit in your stomach. Then, climbing the ladder the pit got tighter, until you were standing in front of the diving board, looking out over the pool far below you...and the longer you stood and looked the harder it was to jump. That's what this last week was like. Five days left...then four...then three. And each day it gets a little scarier to think about.

But now, we have jumped!

We are sailing through the air, no turning around, no climbing back down the ladder. I'm trying to tell myself even if we belly flop, at least we'll be among family, who will be understanding and loving, and help us to smile and swim away the sting.

It will be hard to be away from our friends though, so many good people helped make our move possible. Friends came Saturday and helped us all morning with getting rid of the last few things (few things, more like a truck load of junk), cleaning, and dropping things off at the Haven. I'm so glad we had those helpers, this job would not only have taken me forever, it would've been tear filled and depressing. But with their company it was fun and filled with laughter. I'm so grateful not only for those who came but also those who wanted to come and who had helped me during the week so I could be ready to go on Saturday.

Now we are in Utah until Wednesday, then Wednesday we get on a plane...and fly home!

How are the kids feeling about this...?

That's another typical question I get asked in some form or another, when I tell people about our upcoming move. So, let's do an update/introduction of my favorite children!

Dante: Dante has finally gotten over his bad cough that he had through December and January (probably got it from me, sorry son), even made it past the crabby phase and I only wanted to strangle him a few times! That was pretty rough for a couple of week, but now he's up and ready every day and frequently introduces himself as fictional creatures. The dragon "Toothless," a cat, a lion, a spider, the turtle "Tiny Tim," and other imaginative animals are all around me lately (incidentally, his sister has picked up on this game and now also snarls like a dragon by way of good morning almost every day. It's really cute.)  He's gotten better at sitting still in Primary (still tells me he wants to be in nursery though, even though his primary teacher is awesome), and it's really fun for me to teach sharing time when he's sitting in the front row with his arms folded. He's become more proficient with sounding out words but it still takes some encouraging from me since his first response to any question I ask is "I don't know." (Oh that reminds me of Bill Cosby). He's excited to be moving to Ghana because we told him that after we move to Ghana we'll go to the Zoo. He likes that idea a lot. I've tried to kind of teach him what moving means, the cutest response I had was when I told him all the people will be black like Daddy and he said "Daddy isn't black, he's chocolate!" Oh what a sweet boy.


Iris: Iris is a busy busy girl and lots of fun to have around. She has a big smile, determined yell, and makes a duck face when she gets made at me. Her favorite words are lately "Me too!" "Yup!" (so glad we can finally compliment her stubborn "No" with a cheerful yes), "walk" and "More" (especially if you sing her a song or play music). She's getting really good at communicating, the other day her shoe fell off and when I tried to take it out of her hands to put it on her foot she yelled "My shoe!" I loved it! I think, that's her first two word combination, other than "Me too," which is used whenever I say we are doing ANYTHING. I have to reassure her we won't leave her out (kind of funny, I remember having a book called "Me Too" when I was a little girl...) She's started bringing me books to read and usually insists we sit down and read right now! (I'm using a lot of strong verbs, can you tell she's a bit of a fireball?) She's still a champion nurser, as well as a good table eater and is probably going to pass Dante up in size soon. We got Dante a bigger car seat so we could move Iris out of the infant seat and she still doesn't really fit comfortably in the bigger one! Oh well. I'm so glad she's still nursing so well since she's too young for the typhoid vaccine we tried to give her last week. When the public health nurse told me she couldn't have it she said "Breastmilk Breastmilk Breastmilk!" I wanted to record that moment so I can play it back for all the people who think I'm a little crazy for continuing to nurse her. Iris has no idea what moving to Ghana means, but as long as she's with the family, she's ok with pretty much anything...so far.

Us at the Zoo in Idaho Falls, we took Dante for his 3rd birthday and he talked about it for months afterwards. 

I'm excited to be taking them overseas at the age they are at right now. Iris I think will go with the flow (as long as I'm holding her a lot), whereas Dante will notice some of the differences between America and Ghana. This will definitely be a good time to develop our observation skills so we can use our words to describe the differences he see. I'm also working on phasing certain words out of our vocabulary that are different there like napkin, pants, silly...they use British English there, so napkin means diaper, pants means underpants, and silly is a terrible insult.

One silly thing (oops, there I go again) I'm a little worried about is that they won't eat anything! Dante's already pretty set in his ways about what he likes, and if it's fufu and light soup...he might lose a little weight there, especially with no grilled cheese sandwiches to make up for it!  Hopefully we also won't insult anyone with his non-interest in trying octopus, cat, and different kinds of fish. At least there will be plenty of rice!

Moving Day!

Most of the people I talk to lately think I'm really busy right now. I think they imagine that the house is full of boxes, packing tape, and a big calendar with a date circled in red ink. But really, that day was a month ago, that stress is past, and now we're coasting, just waiting for the house to sell (and trying feverishly to keep it clean in the meantime). December though...that was the month. Looking back I'm still kind of surprised we survived it.  We kept planning it and planning it, looking at different ways we could do things to try and save money, work, or stress. In the end, we made the best choices we could and swallowed the bitter pill. And now! My house is empty! And clean! And did I mention we are selling it?!

Isn't it beautiful? I love that it snowed that day!

So the reason all the packing was done a month early is because everything has to be shipped across several oceans. (Really,  it could just be shipped across one, but then all that stuff would have to be driven across the country) That's right, it'll be put on a barge of some kind sail to Ghana. I'm a little curious to know if they go through the panama canal, or go around South America. Either way, it's probably a long trip. We're estimating 6 weeks before it arrives at the port overseas. We found (while weighing options) that you can have the shipping company come and pick your things up, or you can drive it over to the port yourself. Guess which one is cheaper...? That's right, the Do-It-Yourself Option! And since our family was going to be driving to Seattle for a family reunion over Christmas, we figured it'd be easy (well...easier...ok, maybe not easy, but do-able) to drive a U-haul and drop it all off. This plan also involves dropping off our car at the end of the vacation so that our car can be shipped over as well, leaving us without one for the rest of January. But! We'll manage.

This plan worked pretty well, I have some amazing friends and visiting teachers who came over and helped me box everything up (No kidding, they were awesome! I was so used to trying to encourage my kids to help...that doesn't work so well), weigh each box, mark it with our information, and of course organize and get rid of the junk left over. With their help, and some other guardian angels helping me, we somehow got almost everything packed into a box (I only say almost because I'm still finding things I wish we had packed). We weren't taking furniture...cooking supplies...winter clothes...Other things we either wouldn't need, or could easily get in Ghana (shipping prices are atrocious), so really there wasn't a ton to pack. Then that night we loaded it into the U-haul and tried to get the house clean so we could put the house on the market the next day.

"Moving Day" dawned beautiful and we tried to make sure we had everything ready for a long road trip/ moving trip/life changing transition point. This trip was so much more than a long road trip, but lets not forget it was still a long road trip, with two little kids, ages three and under. Somehow we scrambled long enough until we figured it was all we could do and had better just leave. We got a late start, but soon I was driving, with our two kids and exchange student Max (wonderful helper, he was the one responsible for keeping the little ones happy) ahead of Emmanuel up north through Idaho, Montana, back through Idaho, and finally into Washington.

The drive itself wasn't so bad. For me. Beautiful scenery, clear weather, I got to listen to a couple of books...we did pretty good. Emmanuel however, had no radio, or tape player, or even someone to keep him company. I'm not sure how  he survived as we (very slowly) made our way over the mountains.

Eventually...15 hours after starting out..we drove into the port near Seattle. We were elated and exhausted, and so ready to get to the calm, relaxing part of the trip. Fortunately, there were real people at the port (not annoying phone customer service types we'd been working with on the phone) and they had pity on us poor bedraggled people. We must've looked pretty awful, they offered us water, food, a bathroom, and couches to sleep on, but we were happy to just drop off our things and get going. We still had to find a place for the U-Haul, plus two more hours up to Discovery Bay where my family was staying, and it was getting dark. 

Really, this trip was so long and crazy, if I were to tell you every traumatizing part of it, you'd be at the computer for a while. But truly, we were watched over and blessed on the way. We didn't slip on the roads, we didn't fall asleep at the wheel, no one even threw up (on the way there). I can't really describe how we felt when we got to Discovery Bay. We were exhausted. Not just from the drive but from the month of packing and coordinating and planning and trying to make this trip work. Now, we could relax. We could let the kids play happily with cousins and grandparents. We could get 8 hours of sleep (all in one night!). We could shake the cough and flu bugs that had been dogging our steps (we didn't really finish doing that...but we're working on it).

The other day at the library I checked out some books on moving, trying to explain to the kids what we are doing at the end of the month (they still can't quite wrap their brains around it). A lot of the books involve packing things in boxes and long drives. We already did that part...I need a better children's book, more suited for our situation. I guess we're kind of a minority, people who pack up and move across the globe. I'm just glad the packing part is over.

By the way! We leave February 1st! I don't think I mentioned that.

You're moving WHERE??

*shocked silence*
"Oh my gosh!"
"Where is that?"
"Why are you moving there??"
"I'd be terrified!!"

Not all of these responses are given every time I tell people where we're moving to, but they usually give me at least one of the above. It's starting to feel like when you are obviously pregnant, and everyone is asking you the same questions: "How far along are you? Boy or Girl? Are you excited?" I kind of wish I could print out all the particular details onto a business card so I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself. Or maybe I could make a moving announcement! Like a wedding announcement, only instead of Emmanuel and I kissing we'd have pictures of moving boxes and our soon-to-be location on the globe. Instead of the little registration card that would fall out of the envelope I could include an appointment card for when you could invite us over for dinner or offer to lend me your vacuum...I like that idea!

Joking aside, here's the formal announcement: Emmanuel, our children Dante, Iris, and I will soon be moving out of America, to a wonderful country in West Africa: Ghana. Here's a few basic facts about Ghana (garnered from my husband's favorite research place, Wikipedia):

Population: 24,233,431
Government type: Republic, declared independence from the British in 1957 ( and very politically stable)
Climate: Tropical, just a little bit north of the equator
Language: English, with many native languages mixed in
Motto: "Freedom and Justice!"
Capital: Accra
Geographical size of country: About the size of Oregon

And to answer the why question, which is had from almost all people (except anyone who's met my husband), Ghana is my husband's home. More than just his birth place, more than the place he grew up in, Ghana is where he belongs, and so it is where we belong. I haven't been there yet, but I feel a great desire to go. Maybe it's the adventurous Alaskan in me, searching for a new frontier. Maybe it's the rose colored pictures my husband has crooned in my ear describing it. Maybe it's because that's where my husband was always supposed to be, and so I need to be there too.

What will we do there? My in-laws are amazing people, they truly are. They have built several family businesses, including schools, a consulting firm, restaurant, bakery, and more. Now they are getting ready to rest. They want to serve missions, visit grandchildren, and really they deserve a break. Emmanuel has been in the states for 10 years now, and although he's been imparting knowledge over email and Skype, they are ready for him to take his place in the family. And He's so excited to do it! We both feel like this is where he is meant to be, using his business experience, education, and instincts for real world work. His dreams for what we will do are so limitless, they inspire me to want to join in!

As we've gotten ready for this exodus, I can't help feeling like it is a journey to the promised land. Leaving behind most of our earthly possessions, traveling on a long journey, to a place we've always dreamed we'd go. Really, I couldn't be more excited. I'm glad we don't have to dwell in tents on this trip, build a boat, or kill anyone. Really, this exodus could be a lot harder. Maybe the hard part is yet to come.


Future posts: Moving day, Selling our home, and History of a dream