Ch-ch-ch-Changes!

My boys learning how to float sticks down the irrigation canal near our
home in Iona, Idaho on an ideal afternoon several years ago. . 

I never intended to live a decade in Idaho, it just happened. First, I'm getting my college degree at BYU-Idaho, next my husband lands his first post-masters job there and several years later we can't seem to find a job anywhere else.

While my husband and I identify ourselves as west coast kids, both my children are Idaho boys. In the summer they happily jumped irrigation canals and ran wild with the neighbor boys, shooting spud guns, water guns and doing flips off trampolines. In the winter they wore snowsuits to school and eagerly watched the snow plow make their sledding hill bigger and bigger.

If only their parents could have been as happy!

I suffered with seasonal effective depressive disorder, which was magnified by a sense of isolation. I missed my family and felt trapped. Our house also had black mold issues and I always questioned if it was truly cleaned up properly. I had horrible allergies, a poor immune system and started getting weird infections.

My husband struggled to find work in his field and also felt very isolated.

The last year in Idaho my seasonal depression had just barely lifted when the weather turned cold again. I couldn't do it anymore. We started making plans for that to be our last winter.

Scott and the boys on their new mountain bikes at my parents home. Before the rains, we tried to get everyone enjoying the beauty of our new home. 

We took a leap of faith. We are now living with my parents in my hometown. Scott is doing an online web design program to update his education, hoping to open more job opportunities. The kids are in a new school. I am about to start working part-time as a substitute teacher.

We gave up our own home, friends and a study job, but gained family support, better mental and physical health and our hope in the future.

At least Scott and I did. The kids are having a rough time with the transition, especially my first grader. My third grade won the friend lottery in his new class and has transitioned well. He still misses Idaho and his friends there, but is excited about having new friends.

He was the one I expected to have a hard time, not my first grader. Its hard to know our family needed to move for the sanity of us parents, but that the move has caused stress for our sweet children. More on this next time.