Where'd 2015 go??

So apparently I haven't blogged in over a year.  Sorry about that.  For the 5 people who actually read my blog, they must have thought I died.  Alas, I did not.  We moved.  That's what happened in 2015.  And I changed jobs.  That happened too. 


After over a decade in Ankeny, we decided to move back to the west side of Des Moines.  Joel works over there and the commute was about killing him.  Some days it would take over an hour to get home because of the traffic.  For a small-ish town like DSM, that's a ridiculously long commute.  The school year had already started when we made this decision and we didn't really want to yank the kids out mid-year, so we thought we'd wait until the spring to sell.  Our realtor had other plans.  He strongly urged us to sell in the fall 2014 because the market was so hot and "everyone sells in the spring".  So we did it.  We listed our house.  2 weeks later it sold.  Holy crap nuggets.  I was not prepared for that.  So now what?  We decided to get an apartment in Ankeny for the winter so the kids could finish out the school year, and we could take our sweet time looking for a house. 


6 months in an apartment with 2 kids was...well, interesting.  The apartment itself was fine.  It was a two bdrms/two bath so the kids had to share a room.  Luckily it was a large second bedroom so they kinda had their own wing of the room.  And we had a first floor apartment, which I didn't know if I'd like, but after moving all our stuff in and then our again 6 months later, I was glad for no stairs. 


So we found a house in Waukee that we loved and moved in around Memorial Day.  It needed a little work, but it was in the location we wanted and priced well enough for us to do all the work it needed.  We closed on the house but stayed in our apartment for a few more weeks in order to get the work done.  The house needed painted all throughout, new carpet, a deep clean, and cabinet painting/staining.  (My next post will be about the staining I did).


So we moved in and love it.  Our neighborhood is fabulous.  There are tons of kids about our kids' ages so they made friends really quickly.  The kids love their new school.  So all in all, it was a great decision to move to Waukee.


As far as my job goes, in March I made the tough decision to leave The Iowa Clinic and take a job with the VA Hospital in DSM.  My new job allows me to be home with the kids before and after school.  I work part-time, just 10-2.  I'm learning new things and getting a great respect for the men and women who have served our country.  It truly takes a great person to fight for our freedom and potentially give their life for our country.  Most of the patients I see are from the Vietnam War era.  We do still have a few WWII vets, and we're getting more younger guys from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. 


So that's what's been happening for the past year.  The kids are great.  They're growing like weeds.