Where will Life take us?

I know I made a post recently about enjoying the stage of life that I'm in right now instead of wishing away my days in search for better ones. I am not saying life is horrible right now. I am enjoying things, but I can't help but wonder what lies ahead for our little family. We are on this adventure called life, living in this town, in this apartment, driving our car that we drive. And it is all fine and happy. But I know that we will eventually move on. I know that because I don't think I will raise my family in an upstairs 3 bedroom 1 bath, 800 square foot apartment for the rest of my life. We will move on from here. But to what? We most likely will have another child. We will most definitely need new car in the next year or so. We want to own a house someday. It is a little nerve wracking not knowing what lies ahead 1 year from now. But that has been the story during most of my married life. I wonder what it feels like to be "settled". To know you will be in one place forever, or at least for a long time. To look around and think, this is my permanent location, my permanent neighborhood and my neighbors. Picking up and moving-- whether it be yourself, or you and your spouse, or the two of you and your kids-- is a huge deal. It is hard. It's exciting. I've done it 8 times in my 8 years of marriage. I don't know what it is like for my friends who married right after graduation and built a new house in our hometown and have lived there happily ever after since. I am kind of jealous; I guess the grass seems greener on the other side of the fence. But at the same time, those people never got to live in another city or state. They never got to meet all the people or see all the places that go with it. They never got to move somewhere and feel so lonely that it almost hurts and therefore, they will never know how important it is to welcome the new person that moves in to their neighborhood. I feel like I've had an adventurous married life so far. I have lived in St. George and Logan - two completely opposite ends of Utah. I have lived in Harrison, ID. No one knows where that is because the population is 212. I graduated with over 600 people in my class, just to give a refrence to how few 212 is. The closest town is 30 minutes away and the nearest major city- Coeur d' Alene is 1 hour away. We moved there when Preslie was 4 months old. We had no TV and no phone in our house. The icing on the cake is that we lived with a single girl that we'd never met until we arrived there.

I've also lived in a 28 foot camp trailer that smelled like cigarette smoke, cats, and Fabreze while Preslie was 18 months old and I was huge pregnant with Hunter. It was in Kanab, UT at the Crazy Horse RV park. FOUR long, hot months, people. In a trailer. In KANAB.

In all the adventures we've had together as a couple, Dax and I have learned a lot about life and relying on each other. We've seen places and met people that we will always love and remember. Life right now is just another step in our journey. All these experiences add something to us and give us more perspective. I wonder what we are gaining right now that we'll look back on later and say, "So that's why we went there." I guess it doesn't really matter where you live, what job you have, what car you drive, or how long it takes you to finally get "settled". It just matters that you are with the people you love, doing the best you can, keeping the end in mind, but enjoying the time along the way while you get there. Wherever "there" is.