Yes, we moved! It’s kind of a crazy story. You know what’s craziest? Exactly one year ago, we were living the life in Provo (in that cute little house we still love), Josh was a week away from graduation, and we were preparing for our move and first job in Denver. Who would have thought that now, one year later, we would have moved to Denver, celebrated Carson’s first birthday, started and ended a pregnancy, moved to Houston, and welcomed a new baby? A pretty action-packed year, huh?

So our life in Denver was great and happy and we were enjoying it. The first we heard of the upcoming move, it was a Thursday night not too long before Thanksgiving. Josh had stayed at work late for a third-quarter results call and I was at home. I was thinking about going to see a play with my visiting teaching companion (the sister we taught had a daughter in a school play) and called Josh to see if he’d be home in time for me to go.

“Um, maybe tonight isn’t the best night,” Josh said.

“Why not?”

“Well, we just might want to stay home and…talk about stuff,” Josh said.

“What stuff?” Immediately I was suspicious. Josh didn’t tell me anything (I think he hadn’t wanted to disclose anything until he got home), but I could tell that something was up. I waited anxiously (I was so anxious) for him to get home.

When Josh came home it all came out. He had just found out during the call that his company, Pariveda Solutions, would be closing their Denver office. The office was a smaller and a newer one, and it just wasn’t working out for the company, so they would be officially shutting it down by the end of 2013.

Wow, that was unexpected. It left us with several options. The company, thankfully and a huge huge blessing, was very kind and would pay for any of their Denver employees to transfer to (almost) any of the other Pariveda offices across the country (including Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, a couple in California…maybe a few others I’m forgetting). Or, the Denver employees who wanted to stay in Denver would actually be starting their own company doing essentially the exact same thing for the exact same clients, and they would have been more than happy to have Josh working for them. There were a few other totally new employment options we were looking at, too.

In the end it was a really hard decision and took a whole lot of thought, talking things through together, and especially prayer. Josh and I had chose to go to Denver because we felt like the Lord told us we should. Were we supposed to stay in Denver, then? Or would the Lord bring us there just to have us move somewhere else? Yes, it was a hard decision and it took several weeks to figure it out. During the process, I think both Josh and I went through all the stages of grief (denial, depression, acceptance…whatever they are). There were lots and lots of roller coaster emotions involved.

I think we decided, first, to stay with Pariveda. It is a very good company and Josh enjoys working for them. After that it was a pretty easy choice to come to Houston: my family is here, it’s a good office, the manager is Mormon :). The next choice was when to move: before or after the baby came? If it was before, it meant things had to happen fast: the sooner we could go, the better, I thought. If it was after, it meant staying in Denver and hoping that the Pariveda office there stayed open long enough to keep Josh employed – if not, it meant him traveling to other offices to be staffed. That made both of us uncomfortable. And then, as I thought about moving with either a big pregnant belly or a newborn… I thought the pregnant belly would be easier. So we decided to move before the baby came, meaning ASAP.

In the end, I guess it all did happen pretty fast: we first found out right before Thanksgiving, we made an official decision sometime mid-December, and Carson and I officially flew to Houston, leaving our Colorado life behind, on January 4 (Josh came, too, but would go back later, after a week of house-hunting, to oversee the movers packing up our house and finish his work projects in Denver).

Here’s the moving van loaded up with our life:

The whole thing wasn’t for us, we promise; we don’t have that much stuff yet. (Actually, Josh and I decided that moving every 8 months is a great way to keep your stuff parred down: we went through two major deep-cleanings and stuff-sortings in a year, and we’re feeling pretty good about our lack of junk accumulation.)

So now, of course, we’ve been settled into our new house for quite a while (and we’re loving loving loving welcoming our new baby girl Annelise into it). I’ve got more to say about our house and finding it, though, and what we all did in the meantime. So stay tuned!