Day: December 31, 2016

2016 was a strange and wondrous year for Lorena and I. A semi-chronological list of what happened does not do justice to a year fraught with emotion and challenges, but that is all I have in me today (forgive the selfies, I am indulging myself today):

• After returning to Oregon from North Carolina in 2015 to spend a year in a beautiful fourth floor studio apartment within walking distance of two grocery stores, my work, a plethora of restaurants, Lorena’s beloved Anytime Fitness and two grocery stores so we could be closer to my aging parents (Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah), we felt we needed to move to Texas to be closer to Grandma Conchita across the border in Monterrey, Mexico.
• I was offered a position with a company in Lewisville, Texas that has a wonderful product that literally saves lives in hospitals. I had worked with them previously and liked the people, so I took the job and we moved into a small, one bedroom house close to my work. Since we now had only one car, Lorena drove me to work and picked me up every day. It turns out we loved doing it that way.
• Lorena was able to visit her mother (Grandma Conchita) more and Grandma Conchita was able to come to Texas, too.
• By happenstance, our apartment was within walking distance of an excellent Anytime Fitness facility and Lorena, with a little more free time on her hands, was able to up her game to the point where she is on the verge of passing the 12K meters mark for an hour on a Concept II rowing machine–an amazing feat. She is hoping to hit that goal early next year.
• Lorena visited Kelly several times, but only once since we moved to Texas and that was for a house buying trip in Washington (more about that later).
• I (Dad) went to visit Kelly in Seattle once since we moved to Texas, too. The trip was for a job interview in Seattle because we realized Grandma Conchita was in good hands and in good shape, but my parents were heading down hill. Two very good things happened on that trip:
  • It turned out to be the last time I would see my mother (Grandma Sarah) alive. Kelly and I had a wonderful long visit with her where, even though she could only say a word or two, we talked, held her hand an stroked her forehead, read her the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7, Psalm 23 and the epistles of John all in her beloved King James Version bible, sang hymns with the help of Grandpa Milo and prayed together. We cried quite a lot, but it was all good and a fond, fond memory I will always cherish.
  • I interviewed with a start-up company in Seattle made up of Microsoft, Amazon and Google people. I learned, definitively, that I want to do something else with the rest of my career than work at a start-up company in Seattle.
• Grandma Sarah died in November. For a number of reasons, we postponed her funeral until January, but have now put that on hold due to Grandpa Milo’s current condition and will wait to see how he responds in his current condition (he suffered a stroke and caught a bad infection, but is out of immediate danger, though very weak and in rehab for now) before we plan to reschedule it so he can attend or not based on his capabilities.
• I received a great job offer from a company in Vancouver, British Columbia who would allow me to work from my home anywhere on the west coast, but I would have to fly to China and Europe on a regular basis. Fortunately, my current company here in Texas offered me the same flexibility, so it has put us in the position where we can move back out west and still have cause to fly to Texas regularly. I will do it regularly for my work and Lorena will mostly fly through Texas on her way to visit Grandma Conchita in Mexico.
• We wanted to buy a fixer-upper house somewhere in Washington (more tax friendly than Oregon for the likes of us) so we could be close to both Kelly, Grandpa Milo and a decent sized airport. We settled on Centralia where Lorena went to look for houses, but found one with a great view of Mt. Rainier so we decided to do that instead. We made an offer, it was accepted and now we have found a bunch of stuff that needs to be fixed before we can buy the house. If we can get that worked out we will have a new (to us) house sometime in February. If not we are back to apartment living until we can find something.

That brings up to where we are now. Life is still in upheaval, there are lots of challenges and opportunities ahead, all of course, depending on the will of God.