San Diego

It came to me one night, the same day we heard that Kyle was on a waiting list for a job I thought was a sure thing, and we had to re-think the next step for our family.

"Kyle, what do you think about staying here? [long pause] And buying a house?"

"Staying in Maple Valley? And raising our family here? And having our kids grow up with Kimball's kids? Yes! Wait, are you serious?!"

"Yeah, I'm serious!" [kissing and laughing]

How the Garvin cousins do BYU football.

So we downloaded all of the real estate apps and started daydreaming about settling down happily in the Northwest. And then, the bombshell. Two days later, out of the clear blue, Kyle got a job offer in SAN DIEGO. San Diego. You know, the place where my family lives, where I could have so much help with my four littles, where I was born and raised, where me and Kyle met seven summers ago, THAT place.

Elle and my friend Shannon

We were at a loss. Maple Valley was our home. We were part of the best church congregation on the planet. We could go to the grocery store and see five people we knew. My kids' cousins lived less than a mile away, and our lives were completely intertwined. We lived on a community lake in the middle of the forest. I was part of two book clubs that I absolutely adored. Friends had become family. How could we leave it all and start over again?


For the next two weeks, we prayed a lot. A lot a lot. And went to the temple. And then, we knew.

The entire month of December was spent packing up our lives. At first, I filled all the closets with boxes. And then, it overflowed into the dining room. Boxes were stacked to the ceiling. We sold or donated most of our furniture. Each night, after we put the kids to bed, Kyle and I packed boxes and wrapped furniture until we literally fell asleep. Three days before the move, I told Kyle, "This is not possible. There is no way we are going to finish."

Melissa, Kayla, and Kennedy with their hair all curled :)

The night we packed our moving POD, our dear friends came to help. They helped me pack up our last boxes, carried everything we own down three flights of stairs, and took care of the twins. When it was all done, my friends and I said tearful goodbyes, while Kyle's friends just said, "So, man, you're not really moving, right?"---because that's what men who are actually really sad say. The saddest, hardest part was leaving Kyle's family: my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and their five angelic children. I cried, big, ugly tears.

How Henry road-trips.

And then we drove to San Diego, with a rest-stop in San Francisco to visit family. For the first few months, we are living with my mother and four of my siblings, who help with my kids every minute of the day. Kyle is four days in to his new job at Gemmell Energy. I have finally figured out that being a grown-up means doing a lot of really hard things that you don't think you are capable of doing, but God helps you do them anyway--- and then, at some point in the future, when you look back and see how far you've come and all the remarkable things you have learned, you realize that He knew what He was doing all along.