Category: Family

Como puedo expresar los sentimientos que tengo en este momento? Ahora la unica cosa en mi Corazon es la memoria de estes ultimos tres dias… That’s the funny thing about it… I started to think of what to write about and it came to me in Spanish. For the last day I’ve begun once again to think in Spanish. It’s been so long since I’ve had that feeling, and it overwhelms me to think that the Spanish that I had been losing over time back in Arizona had begun to come back to me. I had started to think like the Spanish version of myself, but at the same time was at a loss for words. During the trip I struggled to express how I truly felt, and I hope that they were able to understand me while I fumbled around with the Spanish that had become far from me.
The trip to Atlanta started a little bumpy, but we made it to the valley the evening of the 10th, and had time to take Clancey to dinner before we slept at his new Townhouse. The following morning it was off to the airport about 630 to make my flight. The flight was completely full and my middle seat was oh so fun. Rush Hour 3 played on the fuzzy screen in front of me that had a problem with its V-Hold. Never thought I’d see that as a problem again. Upon arriving in Atlanta I made the walk from the terminal to the baggage claim area where Devin was waiting for me in the Dodge Avenger that he’d rented. We drove through Lilburn and into Conyers to make some stops on our way to getting to the Rendons. The Gonzales had become inactive, but we were able to visit with one of the girls for a few minutes before she needed to leave.
From there we made our way to the Wallace’s to see Grant, and I found him with long hair and punked out. After a quick visit with him we headed to the Facer’s home for a bit. We found them there, and I was greeted with hugs and warm conversation for the better part of two hours. They remind me so much of my parents that it was good to see that they were well.
The Rendons started calling us and we headed over there to have dinner. The missionaries were there as well and we saw the Elder Martinez that John trained in Athens. He is going home in two weeks, and that only put things into perspective for me on how long I actually have been home. We talked the majority of the night except when Devin dressed up in Gabriel’s clothes and learned how to dance from Maria. He ended up with a new pair of boots that fit him pretty good. They insisted that we stay with them, and had a great night of sleep. I was pretty out of it from the flight and short night of sleep.
Gabriel and Maria had to work in the morning so they left us a set of keys and told us to make ourselves at home, leave whenever we wanted, and we’d see them at the Temple. I took a shower and then made breakfast for us. Mostly leftovers from the night before, but with some eggs added in too. We headed for Lilburn where we met Tamara at the Stake basketball games. On the way to the Temple we found a Sonny’s and had the bestest lunch in a long time! (Probably since I’d taken Brad and Brian to the Mississippi one this last summer) We changed into our Church clothes in their bathroom and headed out.
When we arrived at the Temple we found President and Sister Browning who were just coming out of a Sealing with Patti (Sister Patterson) so we got to talk with all of them for a little while. They are finishing up their mission this year, and I’d love to get Amanda back out there before they go home. As we finished up our conversations with President and Sister Browning the Rendons arrived and I started getting a little nervous and very excited at the same time. We helped them get the children ready for everything and situated in the Nursery. After we found that there were no Spanish people to escort them and help them through the process so as we waited for them to get back from the Nursery a Hispanic woman showed up and offered to help out with the escorting. Is that a blessing or the Lord taking care of His children that are trying to do what’s right or what? I went with Gabriel and helped them both get all their paperwork straight, and then with him alone to get him all decked out in his clothes. They asked Elder Garner and me to be the witnesses, and that was just the Icing on the cake for me. I don’t know if someone can describe the feelings that I had as they went through, but I pondered about my own Sealing and was overwhelmed with emotion when they brought the children in to be sealed to their parents.
Totally out of nowhere we saw a member that we had taught together also in the Sealing… Yeah, she was taking out her Endowment that day right before the sealing. I guess that would be the Strawberries on the Icing on the cake.
We got back to Conyers and the Rendons wanted to take us out to Golden Corral for dinner. We ended up taking Diana, the neighbor girl that is about Karla’s age, and had a very good time just talking and enjoying each other’s presence. The night rolled about the same as the previous one, and we got to bed a little after midnight.
The next morning about 5 minutes before my alarm was to go off Gabriel came in and told us that Breakfast was ready, because they wanted us to get to spend just a little more time with them. The drive back with Devin was good, and he had a bunch of other stops to make before his flight home in the morning. The flight went smoothly, and I got home to my beautiful wife! We met Clancey for lunch, and are now on our way home. Such a blessing life is. To have friends like the Rendons is a unique and special opportunity that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It makes me even more excited to begin the journey into my own family.

Dear family,This is our first entry in the Family News and boy do we have some news to share. The month of December started off good. We decided to move to a bigger apartment, so we did that just after Thanksgiving. Wes had applied for a job at a power plant up in Eagar a few month prior and we heard that they offered the job to someone else. They told him that he needed to finish getting his BA and try again next year. So that was our plan. Much to our surprise on the 5th the plant called and offered him the position. It is the opportunity of a lifetime and we just couldn’t turn it down. So 5 days into our new lease we decided that we were moving up to Eagar and going to start our life up here. We spent the next two weeks planning and getting organized for the move. Wes’s parents came down the weekend before Christmas for the temple lights and turned it into a moving party. We got all of our belongings packed and headed up the mountain that weekend. We are now living with Wes’s Great Aunt Gwen, and enjoying it. Christmas was wonderful. Wes’s family made me feel so comfortable and loved. We are glad to be living so close to them. We spent the day with family and didn’t slow down at all that week. New Years came and we had a great time sledding up near Alpine. Amanda’s parents made a trip from Denver down to see our new casa, stayed for a night and headed down to the valley. On their way back to Colorado they stopped again and stayed for a couple of days this time. We toured them around Round Valley, which didn’t take much time, but then took a drive up to Sunrise and back through Greer. We made our way back into town and went and looked through an antique store. To kill time before dinner we came back to the house and played ping pong. It was good to see Dad and Mom Dare having so much fun. All in all it was a great month.

We would love to have visitors, anyone is welcome to come and stay with us.
Until next month

Love, The McBrides

a little catch up blog action…

here i am sitting in my office jotting a little action down in notepad to pass the next hour so i can head home..or to the valley i guess. after this first week of work i’m heading to the valley to hop on a plane to fly into Atlanta. The Rendon family is getting sealed this Saturday, and somehow we’ve been able to make it happen that i’m going to meet Garner there for the weekend. This is something that i had dreamed about since the day i met that family.. I just got off track thinking of the first night we met them, and i wrote in my journal about seeing them in the Temple. In two days that dream will become a reality and that family will be together forever.

On a more boring note the first week of work here has been eventful. It’s weird being back, but it has been a warm welcome and people are excited to see me back out here. The salary is kinda scary, and the thought of a standard income with less stress is almost a weird feeling. I feel very inadequate right now, but i’m sure it’s just going to take a little time to adjust to the setting of new servers, new people, and a new way of doing things. Pretty much i think it is going to be just fine, and i think that Amanda is happy with the move.

We have been trying to sleep on the bed that was in the room we moved into, but after two weeks of fighting it Amanda and my mom got our bed out of storage and back into our bedroom. Last night was such a difference of sleep that i can’t believe we went so long without it.

My supervisor just came by, and i’ve got to say he’s pretty much the nicest boss that i’ve ever worked with. He likes to tell stories and talk to you so it’s not an intimidating experience to talk to him. Looks like the first week of the rest of my professional career went rather well. With so many things and possibilities in our near future as a family it only excites me to know of the stability that i have here in this company. The other stuff is more possible now, and less of a burden to me. I only hope that i can keep up with school and make work, school, and lofe balance once again as i did in the valley.

Life with Gwen has been pretty fun and eventful up to this point, and hopefully it will continue to be that for the future. If not then i hope that we are prepared and able to make the changes necessary for us to find our home, and settle there to build a family. For some reason i don’t think that Christmas will be near as lonely this year…

New Years brought tubing. I only mention it as i post the picture of Amanda. Fun was definitely had, and i hope that we can make it up there again with more snow.

McB

Relaxing at The McBrides Christmas Eve was just great! Mylea got a call from Santa Clause, she was on cloud 9 the rest of the night and had a hard time going to sleep. Marcy, the cat, was having fun too. She is such a sweet cat. Wes opened this hoodie pocket and she crawled right in. She stayed there the rest of the evening until it was time for all of us to go to bed.
Santa came and was good to all. There will be pictures soon I’m sure.

Our bed was covered with all of our clothes and everything else you can imagine. We are happy to be able to be living with Aunt Gwen. We hope that we can get settled in and start our new life here.

What a weekend. That is all I can say!! Mom and Dad McBride came down to the valley to help us pack up and move up to Round Valley. That night Wes and Dickie went up to north Phoenix to pick up our new 18 foot trailer. They didn’t get back to the apartment until like 11:30 that night. We all crashed just to wake up the next morning and get crazy packing and loading the trailer. We were done by about 1:30ish, after which Wes and I went and helped Clancey move also. After all of the moving was done it was time to relax a bit. Clancey and Mylea went and watched a movie, while Wes and I took his parents to Ichiban for dinner. It is a hibachi grill and we thought they would enjoy the entertainment. We made it though that day, but all of the work was just beginning. We made the trip up to Round Valley, which wasn’t bad. We went to our new storage unit and unloaded all of the stuff we wouldn’t be needing for a while and took the rest to Aunt Gwen’s. This is when the real work began. We had to clean out the room we were going to stay in and the guest bedroom as well. With the whole family this didn’t take to much time but it was a lot of work thats for sure. Everyone went home for the evening to leave Wes and I to unpack and get organized. Now the adventure begins!!!

I just wanted to update our blog. These past two weeks have probably been the longest two weeks of our marriage. A couple of postings ago we mentioned that Wes didn’t get that job at TEP and we were pretty bummed out about. We had moved on in our life, registering for another semester for school, we even signed a year lease on a 2 bedroom apartment. We had set goals for this next year and we were going to kick butt!! Last Wednesday, December 5th, I was working as a CNA at the hospital. It was a very busy day and Wes showed up. He seemed like he really wanted to talk but I was to busy to just sit for a moment and talk to him. I had him sit down and wait, but before I left he said, “TEP called… and offered me that job.” What the heck!! I had to go and do something before I could talk. My mind was spinning, as was his. This is what we had wanted and now it is here for us to take or say maybe next time… Ya right.. we totally took the job and are very excited to be moving to Springerville. We have spent most of our time trying to get out of our lease and figuring out where we are going to be living and all that jazz. We are now a week away from moving from our life here in Mesa. We are sad to have to leave all of our great friends that we have made, and the great jobs that we are a part of. We know that there is something great for us in Round Valley and are looking forward to starting our life and family there.

Until next time…hopefully with pictures:)
Moo