When God Says Yes

During our cross country road trip in 2020, James and I talked a lot about life, especially the future. When we talked about looking for new jobs, he was very specific in what he wanted for himself. He wanted his future employer to pay enough to cover our living expenses, for us to be able to afford health insurance (or have them provide it), have the opportunity to become BMW certified and for them to help with our moving expenses. I raised my eyebrow at these stipulations and wondered if he was asking for too much. But we continued to pray, and I shouldn't have been shocked when God gave him every single thing he asked for.

Lunch after the much-anticipated interview

The ball got rolling full-speed in January of 2021, when the dealership here paid to fly James out for a brief 36 hour Oklahoma visit.

Turned out his interview was basically them shmoozing him. Which was a relief...but I think he was slightly disappointed since he was VERY prepared for his first interview in basically a couple decades. Lol. I mean, he even bought the snazzy black leather holder for his resume. After some basic Q & A, they talked for 20 minutes about lunch venue recommendations (obviously our kind of people ;)) and then set him up with a gorgeously sleek BMW to ride around town in. The only part that wasn't worked out at the meeting was his actual pay...

The amazing Chris and Sandra (and cutie pie Wendy of course) had driven me up from Texas to meet James, and so after I toured one of the local high schools we all had lunch together and James spilled about the interview. The five of us then met up with a realtor and ran around town trying to learn as much about the area as we could in a few hours. It was a bit odd looking at homes, not knowing how much income we were going to have…but there wasn't any harm in looking, right? James and I have very different tastes so we figured the odds of us even finding a place we could agree on was slim.

As we finished up our touring and arrived back at the hotel with our agent, we got the call from the dealership and James was elated that the pay numbers were what he'd hoped for. We hopped excitedly out of our agent's truck, did a bit more research in our hotel room, said some last-minute prayers, and then put an offer in on our favorite property. What a whirlwind day! We were pinching ourselves the next morning as we flew back to Cali on an early flight.

Less than two months later we drove the 1,341 miles and pulled into the driveway of our new home on March 9th, 2021. So began this new chapter for our McCrory gang...

James's job opportunity has had its ups and downs, but God fulfilled all his prior requests through it. They pursued him, helped pay for our moving expenses and have followed through with the continuing education that he wanted to take part in, for becoming BMW certified. We are able to pay our mortgage, cover health insurance, two college tuitions and all other expenses with his income here. Which is pretty darn amazing considering we couldn't even afford a two bedroom apartment in California with two incomes. Yes, the cost of living is substantially more affordable here, but truly this has been God's provision for our family. I have no doubt that He could have sent us anywhere and provided exactly what we needed. I will forever be proud of my husband for stepping out in faith to see how God would provide for us. He left a great, dependable job where he'd worked almost 20 years to try a completely new work environment, in a new community, over a thousand miles away from everyone and everything we knew. I think the reality of that set in when he'd have to use his GPS just to find his way back to the shop when he'd take a car on a test drive. Lol.

Mr. Incredible working on one of his many home projects

In the last 18 months I have had the absolute pleasure of watching him fix and install about a gazillion things on our house, construct countless pieces of furniture, dig trenches for drainage projects in pouring rain and crazy heat, and of course, the pinnacle-him putting up Christmas lights for me. (I know the lights are essentially for the Light of the world, but my hubby knew that moment was one I'd waited for for a long time :D.) There is nothing more attractive than a God-fearing man who works hard for his family. Throw out the diamonds and give me sexy sacrificial sweat any day!

My amazing man

February-March 2021 Story in Pictures
-packing-traveling-unpacking-

Our left-behind belongings, waiting for a moving company that would actually show up...

thank you SO much friends and family that packed the truck for us!!!

Amazing cookies our neighbors brought us
(second best only to my own mother's)

Moving trip buddy #1
(James was in his car with Dax)

Moving trip buddy #2

Moving trip buddy #3
(Jade's planty)

Road trip stop for essential items

Important moment: Maverick's first pee in the new house

Let's just say the Wal-Mart cashier wasn't excited at the sight of all this

Soooo the thing about getting rid of 80% of your belongings when you move into someone else's house is...you have quite a few items you have to collect again if you ever move out.
(And yes, you should buy yourself flowers every time you move.)

Meet Phatty, our glorious hot water heater that was installed after the old one died a few days after we moved in and we had to wait a couple weeks for it...Lord help me to never take hot water for granted!

Zeeta our wondrous dryer and Zorro, our dashing dryer
(Thinks he's Zeeta's better half ;))
I was extremely excited to get them a month after we moved in-yay for clean laundry!!!

We bought a lot of blankets...it's chilly in early March in Oklahoma!
(At least for us southern Californians)
This swivel loveseat was I think our first furniture purchase...pretty popular since it was the only seat in the house for a few weeks. Lol

Assembling our first bedframe we've ever had in 18 years of marriage.
Apparently it came with a kid ;)

More assembling...

And more assembling...



Our stuff finally made it!
I was so happy to see my bed :D

Phoenix was happy that her 10,000 stuffies and 6 foot tall bear from Uncle Danny
made it through the trip safe and sound.

We couldn't have done all the unloading and moving-in work without Dax's help.

Even the littlest had to do some assembling

Unpacking...

believe it or not, this was AFTER we'd purged most of her belongings before moving :o

It always gets worse before it gets better, right?

Next time I want to move, remind me how much work it is...

It was definitely a lot of work for the four of us that first month, but it was a lot of fun too. We couldn't wait to show Cyrus and Jade everything when they followed us out in April, 

after their cross country season in California ended.

Okay so it's only about 1/3 of an acre but I can call it whatever I want. Lol