January brought a new year and and lot of other changes for the Brown family. We knew these changes were coming, but at least for me, it hit me like a ton of bricks when the final decisions were made and things started happening. John had been unhappy at Dell for awhile and all fall he had been putting our feelers for a new job. We love Austin, so we weren't opposed to staying there, but we also wanted to be closer to more family, which meant either moving closer to mine in the east or John's in the west. Before John really started searching for a job, he was contacted by Whirlpool about their Global Leadership Development program. It is a rotational program that puts you on a fast track to becoming an executive. While the job was very tempting, it would mean moving to a small town in Michigan and pulling our kids out of their Spanish immersion program and moving them somewhere with nothing like it. Michigan is closer to my parents, which is a definite plus, but I just could not wrap my head around leaving the Spanish program and moving somewhere without an Old Navy. Dell was going through a lot of changes and layoffs at the time and flooding the job market in Austin, so nothing there worked out. We had one job opportunity in California near some of John's siblings and in a school district with an immersion program, but in the end it wasn't right for us and we decided we were Michigan bound. I think poor John knew from the beginning that Whirlpool was the way to go, but I just couldn't accept it until we had fully researched all our options. Luckily, there is the chance that we could do one of John's rotations abroad, so our kids can have another kind of immersion experience. Our fingers are crossed for Brazil!
Once we were committed to moving forward Heavenly Father blessed our lives in many ways. I was stressed about selling our home and buying a new one, but we were able to sell our home in 6 days and some awesome friends watched our kids for us so John and I could house hunt together in Michigan and we found an amazing home that we absolutely love. Also, I was worried about cancelling my BYU-I teaching contract last minute. For some reason you can't live in Michigan and teach for BYU-I and I had to tell them I was moving 3 days before the semester started. I felt guilty doing that, but it just so happened that they were able to take my students and distribute them throughout the other sections, so I didn't leave anybody hanging.
We also had some fun things happen in January that weren't nearly so serious. John loves the TV show Archer and the cast came and did a live reading of scenes from some of the episodes. I would not have chosen to go on my own but John loved it and I will admit I laughed as well.
Once we knew we were moving we had to hit up all our favorite restaurants. We loved the burger joint Freddy's and then they made themselves even better by starting to serve fry sauce. The kids and I ate their one last time and Conrad used the same fry to dip in the fry sauce and suck it off over and over again. That's my boy.
EZ competed in a Spanish creative writing competition at his school and he came in first place for 2nd grade! That allowed him to compete at the district level. He didn't win any prizes that day, but we joke that he won the whitest kid award. He was honestly the only non-Hispanic kid in the entire competition. We were so stinking proud of him and this may have added to my sadness over leaving this program, but I promise I am ok now.
We also had to squeeze in all the cousin time we could get with Lincoln. Sarah and Casey are not in love with Austin and are very open to Casey finding another job and them moving, so hopefully they will be able to head our direction soon.
Conrad had 2 milestones this month. First, he FINALLY started walking. I still can't believe he was 16 months old before he took his first steps and really 17 months old before he was walking more than crawling. I was so sure that since he is the runt of the family he would walk the earliest, but nope he walked the latest. He also got his first hair cut. His cute little duck tail was turning into more of a rat tail so it had to go. (Leaving my hair stylist Melanie was also a cause of stress for me. It's so hard to find one you love as much as we loved her!)
