The Last Best Place

So, here it is......we are moving all the way across the country. 2,332 miles to be exact.

"The Last Best Place" has called us, so we have heeded the call to completely uproot our family and move to the Big Sky Country of Montana.

Many have wondered what has brought us to this place where we would consider such a move. We're certainly not wealthy, we have no specific jobs waiting for us. But we do have family there. And the fact that it is a beautiful part of the country helps, too.

The bottom line is we want a different lifestyle for us and our 2 girls. We want to be able to do more activities outdoors. And yes, we are aware that the winters in Montana are "slightly different" than the winters of coastal Alabama. But we find that living in the south, we are so hot and miserable for 5 months, the girls are eaten alive by mosquitoes, we don't go to the beach very often, and we find that we don't get outdoors much. We want to experience 4 seasons instead of 1.5. We want to hike (5 minutes away), learn how to flyfish, snowboard, ski, iceskate and sled. We want to learn how to shovel snow. Well, maybe not that, but I guess it is good exercise :-) We want to have our children grow up in a more highly educated city. And we want to share our lives with our family.

I had an epiphany last summer after we visited Montana. I have had a couple of other "epiphanies" in my life. One resulted in our adoption of Natalie. And the next one lasted years and told us to wait on our desired adoption of a second child....I had signed two adoption contracts, started several homestudies.....but "something" kept telling me to stop. I finally made the conscious decision to put everything on hold with a second adoption until the reason revealed itself to me. And it did. In the Fall of 2005, I kept having this nagging dream....it said our next daughter was between 2 and 4 years old, with a heart condition. Well, it kept nagging at me, although we had never considered a toddler adoption, much less one with a heart condition! Finally a few months later I'd had enough of the nagging sensation....so I started researching the SN adoptions. And voila! There she was! The instant I saw Anna's picture, I KNEW she was the reason I had been holding back. So I fought for her and we were able to bring her into our lives in 2006. She was almost 2 1/2 when we adopted her. And she had a mild heart condition. Check.

What was the Montana epiphany? It was again, a recurring, nagging, loud voice in my dreams.

"Leap and the net will appear"

That's it.....it was under the surface for weeks until finally it was clear one morning (like someone had yelled the phrase to me). Duh! Well alrighty then. So here we are. We have leapt.

I sure hope that net appears!