Starting to feel grounded

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted..not alot has been going on but at the same time we've made some decisions that we've been needing to make. The past two weeks have been really rough on Andy as he has had to work an extra shift and had a training day that same week as well. So, his normal schedule of working 3 -12 hour shifts and then having 4 days off turned into working 4-12 hour shifts, having almost 2 days off, had 10 hour training day, then started his "normal" work week the next day. I'm sure he is going to crash soon!

We had another placement call last week. YEAH! That was call number 3..we are averaging a call every two weeks. The call was for a little boy who had quite a few medical issues that were more than what we felt we would be able to handle so we decided to say no on the placement. I am hoping that we get the right placement soon!

As some of you know, we have been hoping to move closer to our families and Andy has been applying to police depts close to our families over the past couple of years. At this point, he has been through 3 hiring processes and has made it really far in each of the processes but hasn't made the hiring list. I am really proud of him as making it as far as he has in each process is amazing!!! Right now not many departments are hiring so he doesn't have any leads right now. We had said that if he didn't make the hiring list of the last place he applied to, that we needed to have a serious conversation and decide what to do next.

So this past weekend and the past few days, we have been talking alot about where do we go from here...do we keep trying to move back or do we stay where we are for a few more years and then try again? We have been really torn as we really want to be closer to both of our parents but we also really like Denver, have great jobs, great friends, and are really excited about the agency we are working with to do foster to adopt. We have always said that if we stay here, it would be good for Andy to try to go to patrol with the department he is working for now or try to get on with another department so he can get to patrol.

On Monday, I looked up one of the departments that is a great police dept and is much closer to where we live. They had posted on their website that they are taking applications for a lateral academy! They don't do this very often so I was really surprised. Basically, if Andy applied and got hired, he wouldn't have to go through their full academy..it would just be a short one for them to train the lateral entries to their dept procedures and other stuff. Also, he would start out at a higher pay rate than those who don't have any experience. We were a little worried that he wouldn't meet some of the requirements but we found out that he did meet all the requirements! YEAH!!!

When we found this out, we realized we need to make a firm decision as to what we were going to do...we decided at this point that the best decision for us is to stay in Denver for next 3-5 years. Andy is going to apply for the lateral academy and I am going to look into possibly starting to work towards getting a Masters Degree in Social Work. Of course, if we get a placement soon, the Masters Degree will probably be put off for awhile longer. We also may starting looking at houses towards the end of the year. For the first time in a long time, it feels like we're grounded..not just living in limbo like we have been for the past few years. We also made a commitment to ourselves that we have to make sure to visit family more often so that we don't go 6 months- a year without seeing our families. Over the past 3-4 weeks it seemed like everything was pointing us towards staying here and I really felt at peace with us staying here. I'm sure we'll still have our moments when we'll wish family was closer but I think that is only natural.

We are looking forward to seeing where this path may lead us!