CHICAGO and BEYOND!

Sorry if I confused anyone with taking down my prior post about changes happening in our family. I wrote the post, and posted it, and then Austin asked me to take it down because it was not a for sure thing yet. So... without further adieu....

AUSTIN GOT A JOB! I am SO excited for him. It is for UOP, a division of Honeywell and he starts in mid-June. They are based in Des Plaines, IL which is a suburb of Chicago just north of the airport. He will eventually be helping groups around the world start oil refineries by taking them through the planning process, building process, and finally handing the working refinery off to the crew who will be permanently working there. First, though, we are moving to Chicago, where Austin will undergo 2 years of training in order to do this job. After that, we will put all of our belongings (except a few suitcases) in storage, and the company pays for our family to travel to random places all over the world. Assignments are anywhere from a couple weeks to 8 months, and are scattered across the globe. They did comment that we will be traveling to India, China, Russia, and Brazil, but other than that, we have no idea! We are crossing our fingers that we will get some assignments in Europe, but the gigs are little more scarce there. We are going to be doing this traveling thing for about 5 years, maybe a little longer, maybe a little shorter, depending on how we like it.

We have decided we may want to live in Arlington Heights

To clarify, this was not even on our radar of life plans ever. In my mind, the perfect job would be one with good salary, where we can save up, buy a little condo (stay there a long time), and start our family and give them some stability. I truly believe, though, that we have both been prepared for this dramatic change in our life plan by our Heavenly Father. For example, I am a big fan of the Mormon channel podcasts. I listen to them while I run, or make dinner, or whatever. One program is on church service around the world, and many of the people they interview talked about humanitarian missions that they completed in the countries we will be going to. In many of these countries, the church is still small, and the members are placed in leadership positions with very little training. I hope that by being able to move around in these countries, I can provide music and we can help out as much as we can just being with members of the church all over the world. Also, my training in physical therapy could come in handy (at least as a volunteer) as I helped with the humanitarian wheelchair program. I also have thought about helping with medical service groups that come and do surgeries on children and adults with disabilities. If I was living in a place where a group came, I could  follow up with physical therapy for these kids, which would perhaps be a service they would not receive otherwise.

Chicago Temple won't be too far away!

There are many things that I am a little afraid of with this job. Austin will be traveling to the middle east during his time in the field. In this case, the company will fly me wherever I want to go. I fear for his safety in some of his assignments, but I know that as long as we are doing what we are supposed to in this life, he will be protected. I am also concerned about starting a family with this daunting amount of moving before us. I know that Heavenly Father wants us to have a family, and I know that we will get REALLY good at moving from place to place. I just hope beyond hope that our children are mellow like Austin and not crazy kids like I was. I am sad that we will not be able to see our families as much as I would like to. But in actuality, I may be able to see them more often if I decide not to go to one of Austin's assignments. So, I have to choose between seeing family and taking care of husband. During our traveling years, I think it will be pretty hard to be employed as a physical therapist. This is kind of a good/bad thing, because while I want to continue to get better in my profession and hone my skills, it gives me a really good excuse to be a full-time mommy (which is really what I want anyway.)

I also know that Heavenly Father knows me. Why? Because I was worrying and worrying about where we would be in 6 months. He took me almost to my breaking point, and then Austin got 2 interviews and 2 job offers within 2 weeks of that time. I'm not exactly sure what we have been doing to receive such amazing blessings at his hand, but we will continue to do our best to live the gospel and take them when we can get them!