Since I last posted, it has been 7 years! We now have 6 kids, we've had 3 new cars, we've moved into 2 new houses, and moved to a new state - Arizona. That's honestly what motivated me enough to jump back on and get the blog back up to date. I want to offer a way for family and friends to keep up with us in some way besides social media.
Our Lydia (who was a newborn last time I posted) is now 7!! We also have Brigham Levi Brown (4), Clara Mei (May) Brown (2), and Colton Jack Brown (4 months). I would love to post about each one, but I mostly want to post the here and now to start with.
I remember posting about our big red minivan, Clifford, at some point (unless that was on facebook). But, we got rear-ended in 2015 which totalled the car. We bought another Grand Caravan but in black. Since Colton made us a family of 8 we outgrew the minivan and upgraded to a Ford Transit which gives us plenty of space to grow :D And for our last new car, we just bought a Chevy Spark (an electric car) 5 days ago for Preston to take to work! The AC in our honda fit went out on our drive down to AZ and it would cost more to replace that than the whole car is worth, so we decided to move on and get a new one instead. It's a nice one!
We did move into our Riverton house, which we kept improving over the 6 1/2 years we were there. We loved our time there! We made lifelong friends, enjoyed being near grandparents, and loved having he elementary school in walking distance. Southland elementary turned out to have Chinese immersion, which has been awesome! We found a school down here where they can continue that.
Our most recent update is our move to Arizona! I love looking back and seeing how perfectly it all went. Preston had been ready to move for a couple of years as we had more kids and could use more space, but I wasn't feeling it yet so we just stayed until we knew where we wanted to go. In the fall of 2020 I finally felt like it was time. We had found out we were expecting baby #6 and it did seem too crowded to fit him in as is. So, we started house hunting. Mind you, I was morning sick, we had decided to participate in A Christmas Carol again and were starting those rehearsals, along with the normal busy-ness of starting school for Preston and the kids. BUT, there was still no tab choir practice due to Covid, so that was a tender mercy. Anyway, as we fit in house hunting, it became clear to me that I didn't want to move right now and that Spring is when I thought we'd find the house for us. It felt right overall. We planned to take a break from looking and start up again in February to find something in the Spring. The housing market was crazy and people were bidding 50K over asking price in the fall when we looked, so it was a little nerve wracking thinking that we may be shopping in an even higher market later, but it still felt right. The first week back at school, Preston caught Covid, I got sick a day later, and the kids were a couple days after that. Preston had it the worst and it was a full blown flu for a few days and several weeks of coughing. I felt super low energy for a couple days with a runny nose, but I perked back up really fast, The kids had some sniffles and headaches, but were mostly fine. Preston and I lost our taste and smell completely which was very strange. All the Christmas candy was not even tempting. Anyway, at the end of Preston's quarantine period, we got a phone call asking us to move to AZ for Preston to direct the institute choir at ASU and teach some institute classes. It felt so right. But, we wanted to fast and pray and invovle the kids in the decision so we invited the older 3 fast with us and share their thoughts on moving. Preston said if even 1 person was not on board and supportive then it wouldn't be worth it to go. I will openly admit that I was so scared that Zander or Lydia would say they didn't want to just to see if Preston would live up to his word. But, something really cool happened - they all felt it was right. Zander openly had said he didn't want to move, and Lydia always wants to be like her big brother, so I honestly expected at least one of them to say they didn't want to. But, Lydia said she thought we should. Zander said he woke up and started his fast with the intent to say no to moving, but that the spirit told him he needed to say yes (proud mom moment!), Brayden said it just made sense that we should take the job change and voted yes and of course Preston and I also felt it was right. Although, I will share that only 2 weeks prior, we were talking about Arizona for some random reason I can't recall and Preston said "I could never live in Arizona." Heavenly Father must have been laughing at that one.
From the time we accepted the assignment, things started coming together so perfectly. All the kids were getting excited. Zander started telling his friends he wanted to go and he was getting himself excited about the good things to come. We made plans of everything that needed to happen before moving in June:
buy a bigger car
sell our house
buy a house
have a baby
move
Every single one of those big checklist items went so smoothly. We found the car that we loved and felt right about on the first day we looked. We were able to list our house on a Thursday, went on a staycation to a cousin's house and my moms then came back Sunday evening and accepted a contract on Monday. We had 5 days to be in AZ for buying a house in an equally crazy market and somehow found a dreamhouse waiting here for us while we were here. Of course, I do have to say that the first time we saw it we ruled it out because it's a commute to the kids Chinese immersion school and to ASU. But, after making offers on what we thought we wanted then realizing we couldn't afford those houses because people were offering 100K more than asking, we looked at smaller houses that would be the same as what we were moving out of, but none of them felt right either, so we came back to our current home to look one more time. It was the biggest and newest home we had seen and was somehow not under contract yet! It was seriously waiting for us. So, while we do have to live with a commute, we do it happily knowing this is exactly where the Lord wanted us. And then it was time to have a baby and he waited and waited until Mother's Day to make his Debut (a week late!). He's gonna be another little momma's boy, which I'm totally ok with. I had some health issues this time around (higher blood pressure that lasted longer, excess blood loss that left me weak and tired, and a prolapse which was also disconcerting). I am not always the best at taking care of myself in certain ways. I focus my time and energy on others. But, I have been enticed to face my own health and see how I need to take even better care of my body so I can be the mom and wife I want to be. I am learning that taking care of my own needs doesn't always take away from others. I've been going through a lot more personal growth than I've had in a long time. In fact, since moving, there has been an overall feeling of being in a refiners fire, both individually for me and also as a family. I feel strongly that there is a reason (besides just the choir) that we are here. I can't believe how hard Satan has tried to get into our hearts and our home in the last few months. It's exhausting. But, we are fighting a good fight and we are getting stronger and more aware for it. I look forward to discovering why he cares so much.
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