Ohio --> Arizona

Planning our move was not easy. The timing was difficult to work out, and a lot of decisions had to be made at the last minute. We were really excited to sell our house in less than 2 weeks. It was a huge blessing, it really was. But we ended up with 10 days between the closing date and the date that we would start renting our house in Phoenix. And William would have to continue working for 3 more weeks after leaving the house. So we hired a moving company to load our truck and drive it to Phoenix. But it wasn't until 2 days before the truck came that we figured out when it would deliver our belongings. So we all stayed in a hotel for a week (William for 3). I planned to leave on a Saturday morning. Surprise, surprise: Tuesday evening, I got a text from Jody telling me she needed to talk to me over the phone. I sensed something was wrong, but not at all. She was worried about me driving 27 hours alone with the kids, and felt she needed to come out with me. I started bawling! Who does that? Who puts their life on hold to help someone in need? Especially someone who has a full time job, a husband, and 2 kids. But she felt strongly that she needed to do this. Her husband wasn't exactly on board with the idea, but she couldn't shake the feeling. So Saturday morning, I picked up Jody and we started our 27 hour long journey across the United States, though Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and finally Arizona. We drove 10 hours Saturday, 10 hours Sunday, and 7 hours Monday. Then I took her to our home (we peeked in through the windows), to our hotel in Scottsdale (where we stayed for 2 nights until we got the key to the house), to Café Rio (my favorite TexMex restaurant), and then to the airport, where we cried and held each other for 30 minutes. It was hard! We didn't want to let go. We didn't want to say goodbye.

Jody is the most selfless person I know. She is truly in touch with the Spirit. In fact, we had a really crazy experience on the first night. We were driving through Kansas, and it was getting late, and dark, and all the hotels in the city were booked, so we continued driving, when all of a sudden it started pouring. It was coming down so hard that Jody had a really tough time seeing through the windshield. I told her I would say a prayer. I prayed that the rain would slow down and that we would find a hotel. As soon as I said Amen, the rain came to just a sprinkle. And not 5 minutes later, we saw a hotel off the highway. I called and they had a room, which they gave me a discount on because of the crazy storm outside. And it was a storm, because around midnight we received an alert on our phones saying that there was a flash flood warning in our area. I am glad we decided to pray when we did. And I am glad the Lord not only listened, but also answered our prayer.

What a great friend to share this experience with. And what a great friend to do this roadtrip with. It was awesome to share the driving with someone, have someone with talk to, and someone to help out with the kids' needs. This drive could have been horrible, but thanks to Jody it was actually really fun. And the kids did awesome. It was usually just the last hour of the day that they would get a little crazy and loud, which is actually really admirable. They are great travelers, thank goodness.