Herndon, the story

OK so this is for journal purposes. If you have no desire to read how we ended up here, it is long and could be boring story with lost of my emotions mixed in.
 Back in July I went to DC by myself to look for a place to live. It had to be one of the hardest things I think I have ever done. Here is why. I hate big cities, Des Moines is the perfect size in my mind. I hate going place alone that I have never been. I am not one who has an adventurous spirit. I will go places but hate to go alone. So I go and leave the kids with wonderful people as Chris is studying for the bar. I get there late at night. I find my rental car find my hotel thanks to the GPS. I have planned to go to the Housing Authority in the morning, and have a few other appointments set up from calling before I left to finding some on craigslist. I head to the housing Authority ( we had just been accepted to section 8 in Iowa, and thankfully it transferred because paying for housing here is CRAZY!!!! we are thankful for the extra help they provide) The lady kindly talks to me without an appointment and lets me know that we cannot even start any paperwork with them until Aug 15 (the date we told Iowa we wanted to transfer). Dealing with Government agencies takes time. . . and more time.
 After this information I am already starting to stress thinking there is no way we be able to afford anything for a month or 2 until we have help, mainly because we don't get Student Loans until September and we got our last check in Jan. Needless to say we know our funds are running very low. I find out that most 3 bedrooms in the area we are looking are 2000+ a month. Then on top of that they want you to make $90,000 a year to qualify ti rent from them. It was needless to say a very very bad day.
 I went back to the hotel room, after some cafe rio :), and read a book and drank a liter of black cherry pop. I got a phone call from a kind friend with helpful advice etc. The night was seeming a bit better. Saturday comes and I drive past an LDS church and there are cars there. I decide to stop and save the church on the GPS for tomorrow. I see an older man grilling at the church. I walk up and asked what time services were etc. It was a stepping point for me. 1 because I got out of my car and 2 because I asked a man I didn't know questions. I am not so good at that. I left feeling pretty good. Well after a canceled appointment, a shady place that was way to expensive, and another home with high qualify income I felt just as bad as I did the previous day. I decided to head back to the hotel change and go to the temple.
 I have always loved the DC temple even though I have only been in once. Being raised in the east and it was the only temple on this side of the country for a while it earns a special place in your heart. Besides it is beautiful! I was excited to go to the temple and feel the spirit and hopefully get some council. I pull up and guess what. The lot is empty. Come to find out the Temple is closed. I started crying and thought this is how everything has been. I decided to walk around the grounds. I am so glad I did. The most amazing feeling of peace entered into my heart. And it reassured me that I was doing what I needed to be doing and things would work out. I went home with this moment being the grain of mustard seed I would hold onto for more than a month.
 After I returned home we decided to see if we could transfer our move date to Aug 1st so we could possibly be set to move in when we needed to Aug 15th was still our hopeful date. Thankfully we could and we kept looking, although nothing seemed to be turning up. I started looking on craigslist back in April/May and every time I would look and would always feel so overwhelmed. After my last trip there i decided that we needed a Realtor. Another kind friend decided that Chris and I needed to go together and she would watch our kids. We got a Realtor and set up a date to meet with the Housing Authority.
 Chris took the Bar the last 2 days of August. We took the kids out to dinner (our yearly one and it might just become less frequent after this trip), then took them to our friends house. Chris and I woke early Thursday morning (2:30 am) and drove to DC. We got to our hotel and started the process all over again.  We looked at a home first thing Friday morning. We were OK with it but had concerns it would pass inspection (this house we will call Tucker), and concerns the landlord would be willing to make the changes necessary to pass. - Section 8 (housing authority) does inspections on all homes and must deem them good enough to live in. On to our meeting. We were given a list of probably 40 homes/town-home 3-4 bedrooms that were willing to take section 8. we called all that had a move in date before our close to when we wanted to move in. We talked to or got responses from 4. We went and looked at one I had looked at previous, Chris loved it. We filled out an application and were 2nd on the list. This was our choice #1. Choice #2 was the Tucker home (doing rentals with a Realtor is way harder there is a ton of paperwork).
 We got back to the hotel and looked on craigslist again. Chris found the one that looked to be in the boonies (it wasn't). The photos were not so promising but the price was about right. We called and set up an appointment. We drove and looked at the place. Oh my it was small. It looked like no one had lived there for a while. The Landlord was 20 min late. We were about to leave. Then he showed, we looked at the house and Chris and I decided we better not leave DC with nothing so we said we wanted to rent it but had some concerns. He said he would get his guys on it. We decided to meet with him at 12:30. we met with the Realtor at 11:30 filled out way too much paper work for choice #2. then called the landlord for choice #3. we said we would be late and he said 1:30 worked better for him as well. We got Cafe Rio (nothing makes the day better than good food), then headed to the office for choice #3
 Guess what happened? He was late. This is a big them with this house. We are about to leave as he is 25 min late and has not called. The moment we decide to leave he shows up. We go in fill out paperwork etc. He tells us he will send it into Section 8 on Monday. Chris and I leave to drive home to Iowa at about 3 pm. With nothing certain as to where we will be living. Chris went through the same emotions I did when I went for the first time this trip. On the way home we talked lots and read scriptures, the Sunday school lesson, and some other stuff. I was still clinging to that answer I received about a month ago that we were doing what was right.
 Nothing is worse that going somewhere then returning home and people asking so did you find a house? where are you going? Then your answer is we are not sure. aren't you moving in 2 weeks? yep. yeah no stress here at all. Monday we found out that choice 1 was off the table. I cried. Then We found out choice 3 had all the paperwork in so that was the path we were taking. We could cancel it at anytime but with time being a huge issue we decided to go with it.
 While packing people would ask where we were going. I would say we were waiting on inspections etc. People kept asking why Chris just wasn't going on his own (it would be much cheaper that way). Trust me, at this point in our move had we not received the answer in the temple that we needed to go as a family I would have just sent Chris. Lets just say that we were going through a bit of a trying time in our house hold. There were often tears and arguments. But I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I could feel the prayers of others. I know this because I wasn't freaking out that we had no place to live. A huge tender Mercy of the Lord.
 We decided that we would not move as planned since we didn't want to come out and have no place to live. Me moved back out move and were going to now leave Tuesday the 20th. We had heard that choice 3 passed inspection, but they told the landlord he needed to fix 3 or 4 things. When they were fixed we could move in. This was a relief because now the whole process didn't need to be started over again. The section 8 people wanted to warn us that they really didn't like this home. It is old, the windows were originals, the yard was large, and the driveway is long and not paved. This sent a wave of fear through me. Chris talked to them and said yes we are prepared etc.
 We figured this was the last of our stress. We had a week before the plan to move in everything should be ready. We started the drive on Tuesday. Went to Columbus. Chris had some issues with the truck. Because he called and talked to them we now had the truck until Friday morning. A whole extra day. Wednesday at 5 we pulled into the hotel 6 miles from our home. We had not heard from our landlord or section 8. Needless to say we started to panic. When moving I do not prescribe to the philosophy that no news is good news. We felt homeless. I cannot tell you how terrible the feelings were for us at that moment. The feeling of oh my, we are here and have no place to live. If we didn't have kids it would not have been so bad but. You cannot do this to kids. Chris found some house in a neighboring county (we would have to pay full rent etc for a few months until everything transfer again) and we looked We liked it and found out we could move in Friday. Thursday we went to the park, tried to not stress. I email our section 8 lady and told her if we had no news but 5pm tonight we would be moving else where.
 We let the kids look at the house we saw (the new one) they all loved it. It had more space was kept nicer, and had a fenced yard. Chris and I kept going back and forth as to which house was right for us. We decided to show the kids choice #3. The boys LOVED it. They wanted to start planing in the yard right then (we just walked to property). We were so conflicted. So what do conflicted people do? We walk around IKEA with hopes that answers will come. At one point Chris and I were talking and I said "Do you think a walk around IKEA will solve all our problems?" Well thankfully it did. As we go into the car to go get a hotel room for the night (about 2:30) I checked my email and found out Choice #3 was ready to move in. Chris got 3 text messages saying it was ready, when did we want to meet, when did we want to move in. Right then we said a family prayer, we gave thanks that we had a place to live.
 Chris called the bishop at about 5 and said any help would be great. Chris's cousin's husband (who lives 30 min away) was our only help. He was a life savor!!! Without him we would have had to stay up all night unloading the truck. Everything was last min, we were about to walk away, but Heavenly Father came through. We moved into a small ward where 100 people have moved out of in the last year. We had been praying to find a ward where we could be useful. Our kids are working on the "farm" as they call it. They have to help mow (which another miracle we got a free mower from a friend in Iowa before we moved), rake, pick up sticks and rocks. They are covered in bug bites, but think they live in the best house ever.
 Yes the house is 1100 sq feet and is old and will probably not keep warm air in it very well in the winter, but my kids love this place. They love playing baseball, soccer, and Quidditch (Jed often can be found alone playing his version of this game; I love it!!!) We are happy to be here, happy that today my kids get to meet their new teachers, and happy that we are here as a family.
 The Lord has been very very kind to us in this process. We have had his spirit with us, we have prayed more that I think possible. Hopefully my kids have felt the spirit during this process. We have been blessed and cannot express thanks enough to our Heavenly Father for his Tender mercies through this process. I cannot express thanks enough to our friends and family for their love and support.

Here are a few things

this morman message

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?cid=HP000017&lang=eng#mountains-to-climb

and this one
http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?cid=HP000017&lang=eng#good-things-to-come

have been wonderful for me to hear the past months.

That is Jed in the middle of our front yard.

Annmarie's room, small but she still manages to get it messy with in 2 days of moving in

Chris instructing the kids on how to mow.

Hopefully next Tuesday I will be back to my 10 on Tuesday. Sorry for being a slacker over the summer but life was a tad bit crazy.