Reason # 3 to love Missouri:

Family!

I am having a lot of fun being so close to family and being able to get together with them all the time. With our 4th of July celebration, Sunday pasta dinners, and then having Jared & Jen and their two kiddos here to play all weekend, we have really enjoyed spending time with the family!

(Naomi & her Nanny on the 4th of July)

Reason to Love Missouri # 2:

Steak 'n Shake!

If you don't know what that is, you are missing out. Oh man, it is scrumptious. We may or may not have gone three times within our first week in the state.

Their fresco melt and double chocolate fudge shake are to die for!

Reasons to love Missouri...

This move has been really hard for me for numerous reasons, the latest of these being that we gave up the two-bedroom townhouse that we were going to rent in Columbia to move in with Jacob's family in a tiny, middle-of-nowhere town called Marshall so that we could save money. Luckily, I have amazing in-laws who are completely normal and wonderful, but it is still hard not having our own place. I didn't blog for two weeks after we moved mostly because I was really depressed about life and our situation, but in the past few days I have shaped up and am feeling more optimistic!

As part of my new, optimistic outlook on our life here in Missouri, I am going to find a new reason to love Missouri every day for the next week. So, reason # 1 that I am going to LOVE Missouri is... (drum roll, please...)

No Traffic!!

Traffic in the Provo and Salt Lake City area totally SUCKS, and I have been loving these empty roads!

What a beautiful sight!

To sum up our life...

After celebrating our fake anniversary, we went to the Macey's grocery store beside our apartment complex to get a yummy cake, and Jacob saw that sign. He bought it for me because he thought it adequately summed up our life since we got married.

We got married in June of 2009, shortly after Jacob was put on academic suspension from BYU, which also meant that he could no longer work at his job because he would no longer be attending BYU (he worked in the bookstore on campus).

Within a month from the day we got married, we got pregnant... still while Jacob was unemployed.

In March of 2010, we had our little Naomi-girl, and we decided that I would not be returning to teach next year so that I could raise her and be a stay-at-home mom. Jacob's current job didn't pay nearly enough for us to live on--we needed both of our incomes to survive--but we felt that it was the right decision despite the fact that we had no idea how it was going to work out.

In the beginning of June, Jacob lost his job, and we made a quick decision to move to Missouri at the end of the month. We had been planning on moving to Missouri anyway by the end of the year so Jacob could attend Mizzou (they have the program that he wants, and BYU does not), but since we had nothing holding us to Utah anymore, it made sense to move now. So we packed up everything we owned and drove across a few states to our new home... without having any money, a new job or a definite place to live. But again, we felt it was right, so we did it.

And now we are living with his family (more on that later), still penniless and job-searching... and still confident that somehow, everything will work out.

We couldn't wait for success, so we went ahead without it!