small town life

Dan and I just returned on a red-eye flight from La Grande, OR. The flight wasn't too bad, but Dan said that while exiting the plane I looked like I was going fall over. At home I slept from 10 am - 1 pm. I guess my body is not as resilliant as it once was. Poor, though tough, Dan went to work today. That makes me feel like a slug. I have been trying to be productive today and get the children's passports application work in order and do bills.

La Grande is a tough market in which to find housing. Only less than 50 houses sold in the past year over $125 K. Over forty houses were for sell in the county while we were there and folks said they had never seen so many homes for sell at one time. People thought it was crazy that we looked at twenty - one houses in three days. What? I've done over twenty in a day before. The rental market is a land lord's dream with occupancy rates always full. People take out adds in the paper trying to find a place to rent. We even heard that there are people living in barns waiting to find a rental. Maybe we should buy some rentals. After not finding anything that we felt comfortable purchasing and stalking rental adds without finding anything, we were very discouraged to find ourselves without any shelter for our family for our July 1st move in date and only two hours left in town. After some mighty pleading with Lord we thought to check a website one last time before leaving town. There was actually a place available. Someone had just given their 30 day notice the day before. Halelujah! We called, drove by the place and filed out an application. What a relief. I could feel the stress trickling out of my body. We were actually considering having Dan commute from Utah or living in an RV in the mountains until we could find something. The RV in the mountains sounded andventerous but the reality of having four house dogs, two kids and two adults in one small RV for an uncertain amount of time wasn't the perfered option over a comfortable house with plumbing and space. We are so grateful the Lord listened to our earnest prayers.

After living in the D.C. area, Denver felt small, and Richmond felt small to Denver. Small town life in La Grande will certainly be a different lifestyle. Many shops close between 3pm - 5 pm. After just four days I was tired of most of the restaurants. Shopping consists of a small JcPenny and Walmart. This is a different, slower lifestyle that I am looking forward to embracing and I am interested to see my reaction to it all. Dan and I both have romantisized and dreamed about small town life for years. Now we'll see if we really will like it when the dream becomes realtity.

The valley and mountains around La Grande are incredible. We are excited because of the proximity to skiing, mountain biking and other outdoor sports. It is also nice that the Eastern Oregeon University is there with its culture and other events.

La Grande's residents are very friendly. Strangers waved to us as we drove around town, though one little old lady did honk at us as we crossed the road not fast enough for her liking. Saturday, Dan and I stepped inside a bakery on the main drag to check out the yummy possibilities. The clerk immediatley began chatting with us as we were life long friends. After awhile she said, "You folks aren't normal." That meant that we were not locals. I laughed out loud. We explained that we were there looking for housing. She said, "You must be one of the new doctors coming to town. We read about it in the newspaper." Ah, small town life.