Strange turn of events

Well it's been a bizarre week. We were so saddened to hear of the passing of our niece Alyssa last week at age 21 from complications of diabetes, Addison's disease and hypothyroidism. After praying for answers about a job for weeks without feeling much inspiration, I finally felt strongly about one thing - I wanted us to all go to the funeral together. So we used miles and I got our one-way tickets to Utah booked for the next day.

In looking at return flights, I had the idea - hey, what if we just go back through Colorado Springs on the way home. Then hopefully having had our whole family together in Utah and then in Colorado Springs we would feel better about making a decision. So we booked our tickets. Ryan would leave Sunday to get back in time for work, and I would bring the kids back on Monday so I could stay and check out the church here (to make sure I could have some friends to make up for not being by family).

When one of the doctors heard we were coming, he was super nice and offered to put us up in the Broadmoor hotel- the nicest place on Colorado Springs. It was beautiful. We got to take paddle boats out on the lake, made s'mores out on the patio over the fire, and of course drove and drive and drove around to get a good feel for the area and see if we could get a good picture of our life here. We visited Garden of the Gods, saw the most gorgeous fall leaves (I was super excited to be in fall for the first time in 4 years!) and we visited with some lovely families in the area and our kids were so excited to make new friends.

(Ok but what's up with this? We told Cash we would move to Utah or Colorado instead of Iowa because there weren't tornadoes in those states - he is deathly afraid of tornadoes - and as soon as we step foot in the Denver airport, every 5 feet there's a sign telling you where the nearest tornado shelter is! What's up with that? I've never seen anything like it! Didn't take long for him to pick up on that and ensured a good night full of bad dreams.)

Well, Sunday night we talked as I left the area. It was still a tough decision. But we decided, and we were going to go for it. Just as Ryan was going to call the Colorado practice to tell them yes, they called him.

And pulled back the offer.

So folks, in a totally stunning turn of events, I guess we are not going to Colorado after all.

While we were super bugged and I had a rough time trying to sleep last night, I also can't help waking up this morning and thinking - we finally made our decision and it could may as well been God himself calling to tell us that He had let us put in a lot of work and effort to get ourselves to that decision - but no, it was the wrong one.