Hello Blogging Friends! Yes, we know it’s been FAR TOO LONG in between posts! But, with a couple hours to spare I’ve sat down to try and recap the most recent move from Alaska to Michigan. We sold our house to a lovely couple who had wanted the house since August but needed to 1) get engaged 2) move the wife up from California and 3) sell their home in Soldotna … a lot to do before making an offer on the home. But as God’s timing was perfect it all played out, and we ended up closing on May 7th. The month leading up to our departure was filled with fun moments with friends and family mixed in with the normal work of packing up a house, selling almost everything we owned, and preparing the house for this couple to move in. Pictures say it best, so here are some of our memories from those final weeks…
These pictures were taken at our farewell service at Kenai NewLife Assembly of God. A HUGE thank you goes out to Ray and Tami Schemanski and Steve and JoLynn Brown for putting on such a memorable evening! And thank you to everyone who attended, we were blessed to have a room full of loved ones from our childhood, friends from Soldotna Nazarene, and of course our precious family of believers at NewLife! Thank you to Chad Bradford who snapped this shot of the lyrics from the song Niki wrote “Stepping Out” as a reminder of why we’re doing what we’re doing.
One of the things on my “bucket list before leaving Alaska” was to see JoJean brought back into Glenn and Tracy’s custody, but we had to leave Alaska without seeing this come to pass. However, we are still believing for a mighty miracle of God to bring her back to them and pray for her often! We love you Godfrey family! This photo was on our last Sunday at Newlife with Tracy (top left) who led the most amazing worship service I’ve ever been in on that final Sunday ~ how I will miss her anointed leadership
.
Having one last lunch with Mr. Steve and Ms. Betty ~ what treasured people in our lives!
Spending one last evening with my mom, Craig, Hunter, and Craig Jr…. my mom had the girls help make calzones and they had a blast!
Then it was a tea party in the living room… such sweet memories, thanks Mom!
One last trip to the library for Miss Mary’s reading time with Auntie Tera, Sadie, and Ruby!
!!
We celebrated our last family dinner at Mom and Dad Schemanski’s house with some of our favorite things ~ mexican food, dress up, dancing, and well… the guys had to shoot off a rocket… boys.
(Does it get any cuter than this!)
I’ve lost count of how many trips we’ve made to the Moose’s Loose with “our Jolie” over the last few years, but this picture is at our final one a few days before leaving Alaska. Memories from these last hours together are very sweet (not just because of the doughnuts), filled with fun talk of decorating and silly moments with the girls!
Ty and his dad left early Saturday morning after a long night of packing and drove all the way to Whitehorse by Saturday night!
After the boys were off it was cleaning time for us girls ~ and who else but family would clean the dirtiest parts of your house with such big smiles??? Tami and Tera worked so hard in our last two days helping to clean, paint, and take care of the girls ~ they are incredible!
Our final hours were spent hanging out at Tera’s house just visiting, playing, and having dinner together before heading off to the Kenai airport. Being together felt so wonderful. The departure was one of the most difficult moments of all of our lives I think. It just was. The closeness we share is unique and saying goodbye is all the more difficult because of it. Our bond in Christ makes seasons like this doable though ~ we trust His sovereign plans are higher than our own and that makes all the difference! Our family is amazing and their willingness to support and love us through this has been incredible, not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but by God’s grace they have lovingly laid aside their own desires to trust God in this.
Our next blog post will be on the first couple weeks in Michigan… stay tuned 🙂 … we promise it will come very soon!