Surprises...they keep coming

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote this phrase on my first blog post ever - "Alex got the call!"

The call, just over two years ago, began an incredible journey of ours in lovely Luxembourg.  Two years of traveling all over Europe, making friends from all over the world and doing life in a place we didn't know existed until we got "the call."

Last week it happened again - Alex got the call.  We'd been expecting a move back sometime this year with no idea of the timing or the location.  I thought we could even end up back in Nashville, which is still home to me, but God (and Caterpillar) had different plans.

This April, Alex and I will find ourself on the West Coast.  We'll still be a long way away from the South but at least we'll be on the same continent (and I won't have to worry about bad Skype connections :)  Our new adventure will begin in San Francisco.

My one and only memory of San Francisco took place several years ago with my dear friend, Mary.  We were single and twenty-something on a grand adventure.  Mary and I drove down the California Coast on Highway 1 from the Golden Gate Bridge down to San Diego, making lots of pitstops along the way.  The one and a half days in San Francisco completes my history there.  Alex has never been.

Because our Luxembourg visas expire on April 1, our transition is going to be fast!  The checklist of to-do's is enormous and overwhelming.  The San Francisco / Bay Area real estate market is the exact opposite of to our advantage with homes selling for OVER list price in the desireable areas.   I'll be 7 months pregnant when we arrive with no doctor to deliver this baby girl.  Let's hope she doesn't arrive early!  Since she's half Alex, I'd say early is very doubtful :)

The good news is that I do have a friend or two who will be nearby.  A high school friend, a few years older, who I always greatly admired was a part of a church plant with her husband in the very Bay Area neighborhood we're interested in living in.  Katie has already been a tremendous amount of help to me and most of all, given me the comfort that I will be known in a big, new and unfamiliar place.  For this, I am thankful!

With all the excitement of this relocation news, my heart hasn't had a chance to grieve what we're leaving behind in Luxembourg.  I've met friends here who are like sisters and will be in my life forever.  I can't fathom not seeing them regularly and watching their families grow.  This is the part they don't tell you when you agree to be an expat.  This is the 'bitter' in the bittersweet part of heading home.

The next few weeks will be full of ups and downs - the bitter and the sweet.  Soaking up friends who I will soon have to say goodbye to, checking off a massive to-do list, visiting special places in Luxembourg for what could be the last time.  The sweet will follow the bitter in this case.  There will be so much joy in hearing the words "welcome home" as we are cleared through customs when we land on US soil.  There will also be joy in starting another chapter of my live with the one I love, buying our first home together and becoming parents for the first time.  Life is full of sweet surprises...and they keep on coming.

Love from Luxembourg...
Melanie