Seven Years

We moved into our house seven years ago today. Texas had never even been on my radar for a potential place to live. I remember in California hating Texas drivers when you would encounter them. Sure enough, our first few weeks here were quite scary getting used to the way people drove. Now, we're probably just as scary. But, as some of you know, we had just bought our house in CA, when the news came that Greg's company was shutting down the CA location. Greg was one of the few lucky ones who was offered a transfer. He actually interviewed in Phoenix first, but I always had the feeling it would be Texas, and sure enough that is where we ended up. We flew out here in May 2002 for a weekend house hunting trip. We looked all day Friday, and felt very discouraged. Saturday our realtor brought us to a new construction house in Plano, and we decided it was our best bet. We were able to pick our tile, carpet, back splash for the kitchen, and the wall paper borders for the kitchen and master bath. Our California house sold in less than a week, so we were set (we got to live in that house exactly one year). Greg's company moved us, what a blessing, and we packed up our two cats, our Chihuahua, and our 18 month old Matthew, and drove to Texas in June. What a trip. Greg and I thought we would die if we had to listen to Sesame St. one more time. Our house wasn't ready, so we actually lived in corporate housing for about two weeks. Then it was move in time. We closed on the 21st, and moved in on the 22nd. I'll never forget unpacking and finding Matthew's little white wagon, and he was so happy to see it. It was probably reassuring to him to see something he actually knew. I always feel like it hurt him moving to Texas, I know he was very young, but we left behind everyone he ever knew. He had always spent one day a week with my parents, and he always saw my sister, and suddenly we were in a strange place and knew no one. That first summer was so hard. We were homesick and I got pregnant with Justin right after we moved, and I was so sick with him. It was such a struggle to try and take care of Matthew and I had no one to help me. But here we are seven years later. We are in a very good neighborhood, and we couldn't have a better school district, but we still haven't found places to replace those in San Diego, such as the museums, Balboa Park, Sea Port Village, the Zoo and Wild Animal Park. Everything here seems so old and run down. The Dallas Zoo could fit in the front entrance of the San Diego Zoo. Of course the worst part is Greg's company just went through another shut down, so here we go again, but this time there are no transfers, they took everything over seas. He, of course, is hard at work on making a career change into computer programming industry, but it is very nerve racking for us with the economy the way it is. I feel the strain wearing us down, and it makes me sad. Maybe year seven is our lucky year though.