A New Adventure Begins

It's been three or four blogs back that I introduced our "miracle baby", Jon. Every new baby is truly a miracle, but Jon was a special gift that I never expected. We were happy for another boy so that Jim would now have a brother to play "boy" things with, even if he was five years younger. Sisters are great, but four of them (three of them older) can be a little uncooperative when a guy wants to play cars, or cowboys, or guns. And they can be a little unforgiving when teased with lizard, or spider, or snake. When Jon got older, the two boys became "buds".

That summer after Jon was born my hubby was transferred back to Hughes Company home base in Los Angeles. He was still in the field engineering department but now he was made the technical advisor for all field engineers. If any of them had technical problems or questions, Jim was the contact to solve them. The move meant we would have to sell the house and make a trip to L.A. to find a new place to live. Even though Jon was still nursing, we decided to say a prayer, take a one-day flight to Huntington Beach, the city we had decided would be a good place to live even though it meant a 35 mile commute for Jim to his office near the Los Angeles Airport. At that time Huntington Beach was a developing beach community away from the busy, congested city ... a nice place to relocate our family.

We divided our six children, including baby Jon, among willing friends and headed for L.A.

We knew we had only one day to find a place to live, and thanks to answered prayers, we did.

It was a three bedroom house on a quiet cul-de-sac, a rock's through from both the elementary and middle schools, and only five miles from the beach. PERFECT!!! We headed back to Novato late that same afternoon, arriving home that evening. Having been gone all day, I was miserable. Any of you that have nursed a baby know what I mean. But we had accomplished what we set out to do, and now for the jobs of selling the house and packing up.

We were unable to sell the house, so we had to rent it out ... not something that we really wanted to do. We had heard horror stories of what renters can do to a home, and in our case those stories became our personal experience. We made the mistake of renting to a couple who had a dog, a big dog. They assured us that he was an "outside" dog only and I was naive enough to believe them. I have always been a very trusting person, and even though I have been bitten a few times I still prefer to think the best of people. And more times than not, I'm not disappointed. More about this later.

It was hard to leave Novato. We, as well as the children, had made lots of good friends and had felt so at home. This was where most of our older children began school. This was where we had purchased our first home, this was where we had established some important family practices ... Family Home Evening, Advent, and taking time to appreciate nature. This was where Prince became a part of our family, where we helped build a new temple and expand a meetinghouse, and this was where our miracle son was born. But we knew that more valuable experiences lay ahead of us. It really doesn't matter where you live in this life. It's a matter of living a good life, and doing whatever the Lord has in mind for you at the time. I knew what the Lord expected of me, "to raise and exemplary family", and I could work at that no matter where we lived.