Wow, it’s been a minute since I updated, but there’s a reason I held off. First, Joel’s one year heartiversary came and went with no bumps and only a few bruises! He had his one year mark cardiac angiogram and it came back just like we expected, continuing his streak of zero rejection! He is now averaging about 6,000 steps a day and I’m proud of him for growing in strength after such an ordeal we now refer to as “that time when you almost died.” There are still things that trigger us both, but overall, we are very happy with where things are at. Now, this is all very exciting, but here’s where we break the big news! Two years ago, well before Joel got sick, we made a plan to head east and see where our life led. This dream came to a screeching halt when our life turned upside down and consisted solely of COVID protocols keeping us apart with long hospital stays, an eternal list of medical procedures and tests, and becoming a transplant survivor because of our hero’s special gift. Following changes in Joel’s job and upcoming changes in mine, and because his health has stayed on the miraculous side of things, we decided back in March to dream a little again and see what might become of it. That little dream led to a myriad of job applications, research on towns and cities, and ultimately landed us with our finger on the map in a little town called Lake Alfred in Central Florida. Still, we knew all the pieces would have to fall into place, and there are MANY pieces, indeed. We both needed jobs, hoped for the perfect timeline, and in the largest growing community in the United States, a place to live. Most people know the housing market here in Seattle is untouchable in both price and availability, so that option was never going to happen. I added myself to a few local Facebook groups and tried not to get discouraged by the number of people stressed over not finding a place to land or being forced to purchase a house sight unseen over a FaceTime call. I was offered a 3rd or 4th grade teaching position in April, but that only got us part of the way there. Joel still needed a job and we didn’t have a place to land even if we both had a place to work. We can’t exactly count on sleeping in the teachers’ lounge or taking cold showers in the school gymnasium, so we started exploring options for apartments and spending countless hours surfing the web for homes on Zillow. During this process, Joel was submitting applications on Indeed and LinkedIn, with a few bites but nothing super serious, or the pay was so low, it just wouldn’t work for our family. One night, as we were stressing over how we could force this to work, a little light popped on in Joel’s head, reminding him that he already had a personal contact in Tampa and sent an email to their hiring director. Fast forward just 12 hours later, and Joel had a request for an interview for a position they hadn’t even posted yet! Say what?!? A couple weeks went by and Joel found himself on a plane to Tampa to meet the team. It certainly felt like things might be falling into place, but we would still need a place to land when we got there. My current school contract doesn’t end until mid-June, and timing would be everything. Joel met with the VP and Manager over his prospective job, and made a plan to spend the day with our realtor the following day looking at homes. At the end of the day, there wasn’t anything that stuck out as a possibility that didn’t also require a lot of fixes or a new roof, but I was searching Redfin listings from home for one last potential option before his time was up. This final house was our last opportunity for him to see a home in person, and we still might walk away with FaceTime house showings in our near and frequent future. The first impression of this little house was that it ticked off our boxes with number of rooms, a fenced yard for our crazy dog, and didn’t need any work. The price had just been lowered, and had zero offers on it. We knew that we probably wouldn’t win any competition if pitted against someone with an extra fifty grand to slap on the table compared to our plan to go in at asking price and hope for the best. This has been our stressful journey over the last two months, and we are so excited to announce that the McLachlan Family is under contract for the most very perfect house just 3 minutes away from my new school, Joel accepted a position with the company, I passed my required Reading Endorsement Exam, and we are Florida-bound in a mere 45 days. They say that when something is right, things just fall into place, and this is exactly how we would describe this journey. Surely God’s hand is on our lives and we are ready for the next adventure. We joke that it will be hard to trade gloomy days for sunny beaches, and most certainly, we will miss the amazing people we have grown to love and have loved us. You have all been on our team since this all began just over a year ago and most of you for far longer than that. This will probably be my last post on this page. I hear they have a way to make it into a book to keep. We just may do that so if we ever face another really difficult time, we can look back and remember how well we are loved by all of you.