Just thoughts and recaps

Where to start? I feel truly blessed. Jason and I have been through a lot over the course of our nearly 10 years together. Wow, 10 years, where has the time gone. Lets see, maybe starting at the beginning would be the best.

Jason and I started dating in March of 2002. We got engaged in July of 2002. In October 2002 Jason had the first issue with work. He was informed that his plant was closing and that he would have to transfer. At that point they started having crazy work schedules. He would work two weeks and be laid off two weeks. Than he would be laid off a week and work a week and laid off a week and work another week. There was no consistency to it at all. Needless to say, keeping our finances in order was very difficult.

We got married in June of 2003. He was still at his first plant in Chesterfield at that time. The week before our wedding my car died. Needless to say, we had to buy me a new car on our honeymoon. August of 2003 we had that strange blackout. I was still working in St. Charles at that time, which was 2 hours away from our home in Chesterfield. We did not lose power in St. Charles, but we did experience a brown out. The day after the black out I was supposed to have an interview with NTA. I obviously could not make the interview and had to wait until Monday to make the call since their phones were out with the power. September 2003 I started working at NTA, that was such a blessing to get that job because it reduced my drive to work from 2 hours to only 1 hour. We would eventually fix that drive time. November of 2003 we found out we were pregnant. What a blessing that was for us.

In March of 2004 we moved from Chesterfield to Walled Lake. Mid March Jason transferred to the Dearborn Assembly Plant. He was at the plant for 8 days and than sent back to Chesterfield on his birthday. Dearborn decided that Jason had too many work related injuries at his first plant, so they did not want his. There were quite a few other people who had the same thing happen. A law suit was filled because they were trying to prevent them from working. The times Jason had injuries were caused by supervisors not using their heads. Jason had asthma and they kept putting in the building that had the foam was being formed into seats, which means that there is fine particles of foam floating in the air. People with asthma should never be in that building. Everyone in that building should have had mask as well, but that was not a priority. Jason started to panic because he thought all the plants would treat him the same way.

In May of 2004 Jason finally was notified that he would transfer to AAI. June of 2004 he was finally at AAI. What a blessing that was since our baby was due in July. Jason is enjoying the new plant and finally calms down. July 16, 2004 Jacoba is born. Jason had been on shutdown for almost two weeks when she was finally born. She was born on Friday of his second week of shutdown. Me being a first time mom was a little concerned that he would only be home with me for one night and than I was going to be alone when he went back to work. Thankfully Ford has a form of maternity leave for men too, so he did not need to go back to work until Wednesday. I was off for 7 weeks so that we did not have to pay for daycare for one week.

Things went on as normal for the next few years. Kids growing up and life as usual.

In January of 2006 we decide to try and buy a house. Beginning of February we find a home and put an offer on it. March 9, 2006 we close on our home. We are so excited and look forward to being home owners. We start a 4 week process of painting and prepping for our move. We were shooting for Easter weekend, but we started the move a week earlier because Jason was in a car accident. The accident totaled the Grand Marquis. The accident occurred on a day when it was raining so no ambulance showed up. Needless to say I rushed to pick Jason up and took him to the emergency room. The airbag went off and he had burns on his face and hand. It was also the first and last night I ever plugged my phone in downstairs. From that point forward it has always been on my bedside. That afternoon we started our move to the new house so that we could share the truck and have less distance to travel for work for both of us. We finalized the move the next weekend. We spent the next year or so just working on the house and living life.

March of 2007 we decided to try and have another baby. Mother's day weekend I started having complications. I contacted my doctor and they said I was fine. I had multiple ultrasounds and they could not figure out what was going on. They figured out that things were going wrong so they decided to do a D&C. I had the procedure on Thursday and the following Thursday I received a call that scared me to death. They said I needed to come in for yet another ultrasound and left it at that. That Friday I went in for the ultrasound and by that afternoon it was decided that I needed emergency surgery the next day. I had the surgery, which besides scaring me, scared my husband. Had we not done the surgery, my uterus would have burst and I could have died. The scary part of it all was that I was not having any pain, so I could have started to bleed internally and would have not know. After the surgery I was told I could not have anymore children. Jason was a wonderful husband and decided to have surgery so that we would never get pregnant again.

September 2008 came and the housing market crashed. The law firm I worked for had a client that was big into the housing market and work from them reduced significantly. January 2009 I was informed that I was losing my job. The day before my birthday was my last day. Not sure what to do at that time I started taking cake decorating classes. I did a few cakes over that summer and love the skills that I have now. Jacoba started school in September 2009. Her first day of school I actually had an interview. I was supposed to be interviewing for a part time job, just happened to work out to be a full time job. In October of 2009 our house went into foreclosure. We tried to work with the mortgage company, they just didn't want to work with us. Ultimately God had a plan for us. So in October of 2009 we moved from our home in Brownstown to Southgate.

In February of 2010 Jason was notified that his plant would be eliminating a shift. He unfortunately fell within the numbers that would have to transfer or lose their job. At that time we started to pray hard and working through our options. We knew that we could possibly be moving to the Chicago area or the Louisville area. We started to look at housing options and schools. We wanted to way all of our options before we made the final decision. The next couple months we had no new information. April of 2010 we found out that Kentucky was off the list. Jason finally had the opportunity to put in for the transfer to the Chicago plant. The waiting game started all over again. Finally in July of 2010 Jason was told when he was to report. We had very little time to move. We made the move over a weekend and Jason reported that Monday.

We have now been in Indiana since July of 2010 and know that we are where God wants us. I have enjoyed the past year and half being home for my family. It was always something that I wanted to do, but we never had that opportunity for me to be home. God has blessed us so much and we look forward to seeing him work through us. We have been blessed with a wonderful church home and a new home as of June 2011.

Jason and I and our family have gone through a lot in the last 10 years, but God has had a plan for us all along and he has taken us by His hand and walked us through all of our trials and tribulations. We did not understand why we had to go through those trials, but each trial made us stronger. We struggled at times trying to figure out why we had to go through some of those trials, but looking back we understood why we had to go through some of those trials. If we had not lost our home in 2009, we would have had to try and sell our home to make the move to Indiana in 2010. God has plans for us all and there will be times that we struggle with his plan, but in the long run we have to understand that he knows best and that he will get us through all of our trials. It may not be in our time, but he will get us through it all!