I can't believe it...

Hello World!

Well, life sure is funny sometimes.  Just when you think everything is cruising along, the unpredictable smacks you in the face!

So I have been traveling this "consular hopeful" road for some while now...I think it started in November 2009.  After the passing the OA I though, "This might really happen."  Then things just seemed more and more impossible.  I started to realize that the FS thing just wasn't in the cards for me.  My family also moved on.  This past winter/spring was an incredibly busy time for us.  I got a new job/promotion (one that I love) and my wife took a leap in her career and landed a dream job of hers.  We also decided to add a 5th child to our crazy family and started an international adoption.  In the middle of all this, we found a dream house (107 years old and needs a major facelift...but unbelievable!).  We bought it and played the housing market game to sell our current home.  Life was crazy, but fun.  We were starting to get a little nervous as we took possession of the new home, but our old one wasn't selling.  We had lots of interest, but no bites.  We were buckling down and preparing for   two house payments.  We also had some fees due on the adoption and everything felt extremely tight (like I-think-I-am-going-to-suffocate tight!).

In the middle of all this...I got an offer for A-100.  It's okay...I fell out of my chair too!  I couldn't believe it.  My head was spinning.  I felt like I worked so hard to get to this point, but now we had moved on from the FS dream.  Life was moving in a different direction and we were okay with that.  The A-100 offer brought back all of those dreams and lead to some very difficult days of decision making.  In the end, I had to turn down the offer.  To say I was devastated was an understatement.  The timing just couldn't have been worse--two new jobs (one a dream job for my wife), a pending adoption, two mortgages--one of which is a money pit and couldn't be flipped without a major loss of funds!

I know it was the right decision for us and we are happy.  Now that a few months has passed...and I am officially off the register (boo!), I am finally able to talk about it.  We have sold the old house and are working slowing to fix up our new home.  The adoption is moving along well.  There are times though that I can't help but feel like I made a mistake, yet knowing it was the only decision we could make given the circumstances.

It has given me re-newed belief that I may one day join the FS ranks.  Life just needs to calm down a bit for us!  Once our adoption is completed I think I will start the process over again (yuck!) and see what happens.  Until then, we are happy.  The kids are healthy and life is awesome.

I just laugh at how things work out sometimes!