We made it to Texas safe and sound...

Thank you so much dear Abba for the move going so smoothly. It seemed like everytime something came up or we started to get worried everything just fell into place and you take care of our worries by letting us know that You were there.

Deidra and I left for Texas the day after Easter. I was worried about how she was going to do in the car since it was just me and her. I needn't have worried...she was totally an absolute gem. She never fussed once about being in the car. We left at 6am and drove all the way to Bryant, Arkansas before stopping for the night. I totally could have driven the rest of the way as we only had about 6 hours to go, but I really had to go to the bathroom and Deidra wanted to swim in the pool. So, we stopped at a Holiday Inn and got us signed in for the night. Downer was that they only had an outside pool and it wasn't open yet. :-( I told her that we'd go walk over to the Cracker Barrel that was next door and we'd have a nice dinner together and enjoy the time out of the car. That was fun and I let her get a small something for being so good that day out of the gift shop. We went back to the room about 8pm and watched a little tv and then crashed for the night.

We got up that next morning and were on the road again early and were at my Mom's in Texas by about 2pm.

I sat and thought a lot while I was driving about if we were making the right decision and asked God to show me a sign if at all possible...no sooner did I turn the corner of the highway and there was a big huge cross and I laughed and told God that "boy, I couldn't have missed that one even had I wanted to." That cross will come back later in the story as it was a sign to Andy later in our drive down with the moving truck...but more about that later. Then, Mom told me about the house that had come to them. She works at a Chevy dealership as the parts manager. She was talking to the friends that she has there about how she was going around looking for houses that we had found and all and one of her regular customers told her that he had a house that we could rent if she wanted to take a look. She had no idea where it was or anything, but agreed to take a look at it after she talked to us. The house is on Bethel and is literally 3 houses back behind the church that we go to. I've always loved her church and I wanted to be more active in church again. I told Mom that God was giving more signs...not only was He born in Bethlehem, but He wanted me back in his church again too and that's why He's putting us here. We of course took the house. :-) Thanks Abba so much for finding our little house for us and for answering our prayer there.

We spent a nice couple of weeks with Mom and Zach and Jimmie and explored our new surroundings, went for walks, went to the park, and just enjoyed the down time. When it came time for me to fly back, Mom didn't want to let me go. That was hard for her, but I told her that we'd be back in just a couple of days and she said that she was going to hold Deidra ransom to make sure we came back. I had to laugh, but we both teared up when I headed off to the airport. The flight was bumpy (flying over lots of storms) and I was a little nervous, but thankfully the flight went well and I was back on the ground very soon. Thanks Abba, for getting me there safely. I found Andy and my FIL and we were on our way back to MI. We stopped for lunch at Applebee's and got home way later than what we planned. Packed up the truck some that night and then got up early Saturday morning to finish packing up so that we could take off.

We got on the road later than what I had wanted to and we hit storms in IL and it was really windy and majorly slowed us down. We had given the cats sedatives as well and that was making them feisty with each other. We'd hit a bump in the road and it would cause a cat fight. It was a little annoying at times and a little comical at others. We wound up stopping in MO for the night and I was majorly disappointed that we didn't get farther in our trip. The power kept going out in the hotel and then we thought we lost 3 of our cats....that got Andy and I fighting as I didn't want to leave any of them behind. I wound up calling my Mom and she said some prayers with me and got me calmed back down and we called on St. Frances and St. Anthony to help us find them and she told me all would be ok. Less than a half an hour later, one of the lost cats came out from her hiding spot which gave us an idea that the other 2 had to be down there too. They had managed to find a hollow area behind the back of the dresser that wasn't visible from the front of the dresser. I had pulled all those drawers out and everything too and we tore the matress off the bed multiple times as well. And we had walked up and down the halls with flashlights and everything trying to find them. Thankfully, all were found. Thanks Abba, for helping us find them and thanks St. Frances and St. Anthony too for your help. We've called on you a lot, St. Anthony, to help us find things over the past few weeks...I'm going to try and call on you more than just to ask for your help in the future.

Anyway, we got back on the road on Sunday and we were driving down the road and again I started to pray to myself about a job for Andy and that we were making the right decision and that everything was going to work out and I wasn't really paying attention to where we were driving or anything and Andy said "wow, that is certainly a sign if I've ever seen one...is that the cross that you were talking about?" I look up and yup, that was my cross, but I had totally forgotten what highway it was on or even in what state and I really couldn't even tell you now, but it definitely spoke to the both of us. It's nice to be reminded that your here for us and that you listen and that you know what we need at any given moment. It gave us a lot of peace.

We made it down to Texas around 5pm and my brothers came over to help us unload the truck. The move was long, but all came together so nicely. After all our concerns too from people telling us their catastophes with making long moves with U-Haul we were apprehensive about it shortly before the move and had prayed about it. A few days before we were supposed to move, they called Andy and asked him if he wanted to move from a 24' truck to the 26' truck as they had a brand new truck with only 500+ miles on it that we could use for the same cost as what we booked our reservation with. We took it and never had one problem. Thank you so much for looking out for us. Everything with this move came together so nicely. The cats did wonderful in the car and never even had one accident. Deidra never fussed at all. We never broke down. We never had any accidents or problems...everything went so smoothly and I know that You are looking down at us. Thank you so much, dear Abba.