Here’s the scoop..

I wrote the last post in the midst of contemplation. We are processing, attempting to figure out how to transport our belongings, wondering how we will say goodbye and what life and these relationships will look like when we do. I completely overlooked the fact that I didn’t leave you with the slightest inkling (unless you already knew, of course) of where we were going or why we were going.

(Let me interject.. THANK YOU for your wonderful comments and emails of support and common understanding after my last post. We appreciated it so much, and I was far more emotional in reading and being reminded of all the wonderful friends and loved ones that we have than I was when I actually wrote that post! Thank you, thank you.)

So, here are those details.

First of all, it’s no big secret that overseas tuition is kind of absurd. Add to that a wonderfully horrible (though better than it was) exchange rate, and you get very poor graduate students. This was a pricey endeavor, and we knew that it would be. Coming into this year, some things changed for us financially that we hadn’t anticipated, so we started considering the possibility of moving back to the States sooner than we had originally planned.

Then, after three years of labor pains, Ian gave birth to this..

Taken on the evening after the first compete draft was printed. You can bet a celebration ensued. 

A completed thesis! Woohoo! When Ian took stock of his work for the coming year over this last summer, it started to look like he’d be submitting much earlier than we had anticipated. So we started considering the possibility of moving back to the States sooner than we had originally planned. (Seeing a trend?)

The next hurdle was (is) finding a job. It seemed a bit defeating to move back to the States with nothing to show for these last 4+ years of education (aside from the new title of Dr.! Hello! But, try telling that to the one who earned it..), but arguments were still strong that moving would be the wisest option for our family and our afflicted bank account.

In the end, we decided to cut 6-7 months off of our stay in St Andrews regardless of Ian’s employment status because the numbers just had a really good argument. They can be very persuasive. So despite the loss of physical presence at his school, Ian will still be applying for jobs and preparing for his defense in the spring. He will be back here at least twice - to defend and then graduate (if all goes as planned :) next summer.

We had such a hard time committing to this change. We had planned on finishing this school year and enjoying another summer before we moved on. It was a really difficult shift in thinking to start to consider our time here ending so soon.

So we will be taking up residence in a comfy little number in rural Indiana with wide open spaces and lots of bedrooms. We will be living with my parents through the spring and probably a good chunk of summer, until hopefully, we move on to a job for Dr. Church.

We are really looking forward to sharing our boys with their family who have missed them so. We are looking forward to a time of rest (well.. at least a little bit) after some very stretching and busy years. We are looking forward to sweet corn and watermelon (ok, maybe that’s mostly me :). We are heading back to where we came from. One step at a time.