On Friday, it marked 6 months of us closing on our house here in Grand Island. In some ways it seems like a long, long time ago. In other ways it seems like just yesterday.
Moving is always a scary thing. Our last big move was over eight years ago from Omaha to outside of Lincoln. It wasn't the end of the world. One hour from church and where I have grown up my entire life (except for during college). We just had 6 month old Jocelyn at the time, so she didn't have any "real" friends yet. It took Jocelyn and I quiet a while to make a single friend.
I started her in Kindermusik. That was fun, but hard to really get to know and talk to people when you are focusing on your child in class. A year and a half went by since our move and I still didn't have any new friends to speak of. Katelyn was born during that time and I guess you could say I was in "desperation mode". There has got to be at least one person that I would be able to connect with...that I could be friends with. We joined MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and the rest was history. That is where 90% of my local Lincoln friends were from. Not sure how I would have made it the rest of the years at our old stomping grounds without them.
Once some of my MOPS friend's kiddos moved onto public school it became harder and harder to connect since most of our running around with friends is during the day. I then started a homeschool friends meet-up group in the Spring of 2012. We made so many new homeschool friends from this group and had so much fun on our monthly field trips.
When my husband accepted the job to move here, I was a bit nervous. The kids were as well. Were we going to go another year without making friends? Everyone that I came across, did not have very good things to say about Grand Island. I didn't know how the kids would handle it and how would I handle starting all over...with now four kids in tow. I assured my girls especially that we would do our best to make friends, but it might be a while, so let's just pray about it.
Well I guess I was wrong. Before we moved, we started attending things closer to our new home. We went to homeschool Science classes and started our co-op. I also attended a few homeschool mom's meetings. I reconnected with a friend who used to be in my old MOPS group that moved to a nearby town. I could already tell that everything was going to be o.k.
The kids and I have made quiet a few new friends. It has definetly made this transistion extremely easy when you have a people that you can call. Friends that you can get together with. People to go and do things with. Sean has friends that he can hunting, shooting, and fishing with.
It doesn't matter what a town has to offer, it matters who you surround yourself with. Yes there is quiet a bit to keep the kids and I busy with 30 minutes from here, however without our new friends, the transition would have been a bit more difficult. It feels like home.
We still get many of the same questions since we moved such as:
Oh my goodness you still drive to Omaha for church? Yes, 2 hours and 15 minutes each way makes for a long drive. I agree. It is our entire day. We leave at 7AM and get home around 4pm or so. We have realized it is difficult to make the trip every weekend, but we try our best to go when we can. We never regret when we go, it just isn't going to be possible every weekend.
Do you like it here? Yes...as you can probably tell from my blog post, I do really like it here. I love living close to stores. If I need to run really quick to a friends house, I can. Sean works 1 mile away, so it is easy for him to come home during lunch when he can.
There is so much to do here...lots of museums and fun indoor pools. I can not wait until the summer so we can check out the surrounding communities waterparks. There is also the Stuhr Museum and the State Fair that we are all looking forward to!
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