Trading It All In

What's been cookin' friends? 

I feel like the last 2 years have been a dream. One of those dreams that while you're dreaming it feels like a nightmare, but as soon as you tell someone about it you start to laugh because it sounds so ridiculous. I find myself waking up in a groggy state thinking, "whoa, I'm glad that was just a dream". Then the fog clears and real life is there. 

The same one as the day before. Don't get me wrong, as you'll soon read, life is great. Life is good. Life is...different. 

This morning when I woke up, before the fog lifted, my kids were preparing for their various ball practices of the week.

 Kooper was gearing up for 2 a days after passing his health physical with flying colors and Case and Kenna Mae were arguing about who ran faster and who was better at basketball. 

We weren't aware of how much water anyone had drank or what anyone's heart rate was. 

We were living in my favorite house and my sewing room was filled with sunlight. Oh, I shouldn't forget that Jason was already at work and had been there for 16 hours the day before.

 And then, the fog lifted...

When the fog lifts and the sun fills my small, but sweet, new bedroom, I vaguely hear the sounds of birds chirping and cows beginning their day outside my window. The coffee has filled the ranch house with the best smell on earth. Fresh ground coffee beans. It doesn't take long for the smell to drift through the entire house. 

It's small. Really small. 

But it was built with love almost 80 years ago and love and laughter has filled it full over those years.  The Bar A is our new home and Jason's new career path. We are officially a ranching family. Jason grew up working this ranch, but we never dreamed we'd end up working it. We've dreamed of living on it, but working on it was just a "someday maybe when we retire" dream. 

We wake up feeling like we've been given a gift every morning.

 My day begins with prayer that we can make it at least 6 more months before we need defibrillators implanted inside my kid's sweet little bodies.

 BUT, they're stable and doing well for the most part, so I take a deep breath and keep on truckin'.  My week begins with Cardiologist appointment in Lubbock and lots of school registrations. 

I will never again be able to attend a JH registration without flashing back to the day I was being a good "bobkitten booster" and helping with 

registration. 

That was the day we rushed Case to Plainview with Pneumonia and our lives turned upside down. 

Our evenings usually end with wine or coffee on our front porch. Our 4 babies sitting with us chatting about life, or if Case is around, the Texas Rangers. 

Half the time there are horses trying to get into the cattle's cake that's in the back of Jason's work truck. 

Things have changed so much, but mostly,

 WE'VE changed. 

In March, in the most random and unexplained, crazy weird, shocking turn of events, Jason lost his job. We were faced with the dreaded "what now". After a few weeks of prayer and petition and tears and hand holding, we decided to bite the bullet and jump in with both feet. We didn't fill out a single job application. He was ready to move on from his field full of 15-18 hour days, 6 days a week, and make life about our family again. 

God took control.

We wanted life to be about US. 

About relationships and character. 

We put the house on the market and moved to the ranch so we could start ranching and take the kids back to their roots. 

Our ranch, the Bar A is over 100 years old. We've been here a loooong time. 

We're taking this family back.

 We're learning who we are and learning from where we've been. 

We've decided that you seriously can't buy happiness. 

Or love. 

We are making sacrifices and rerouting the course of our future, 

and have never been more happy.  

We made a choice for our family. 

We've traded "stuff" for STUFF. Get it? 

So, this ol blog is going thru some changes. I'm rerouting things around here, too! I plan to blog more often and about things that matter to me! 

So, be expecting a new look, 

a few stories of our dirt road adventures, 

the kid's growing hearts (in more ways than one lol), 

and thoughts from my front porch!! 

See y'all!!