Rexburg, Explained

No, we're not going back to school. In case you don't know, this is both Geoff's and my "Alma Mater" where he earned his B.S. in Business Finance, and I earned my B.S. in Health Science.

I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but we're resident apartment managers at an apartment complex in a somewhat shady part of Seattle. At least, it's much shadier than my sweet home town of Edmonds, Washington. We found this job/residence just before my husband's second year of graduate school. He was blessed to be able to manage a health clinic in Wallingford (area of Seattle) through his second year of school, on an interim basis, while taking some of his classes through the executive program for the MHA degree to make up his MHA program's daytime courses that he was missing while at work. His professors were very supportive of the idea of him managing, and we were so fortunate that they worked with him. It not only brought income our way, but a year of work experience in health care.

So our first year of this grad-school thing was no income and with rent, our second year was no rent and some good income.

Graduate school has been over for one year now. He earned his MHA at University of Washington in June of 2008.

I've been so over this job, for much longer than one year. But free rent, just out of school: Martha would say, "it's a good thing" and I quite agree. It's a bit of a trap, really. The job is not fun, but if you aren't ready to by a house (since we've no idea where we'll end up in the next few years at this point in career) and don't want to waste money on rent, it's a good solution. But a trap.

I've been really wanting to stop this insanity of managing, and start thinking about having another baby soon (if you couldn't tell). I couldn't see the two going together. Not only that, but this neighborhood...not so good! (Maybe I'll blog about it...maybe not.) We want to raise our girls in a nicer area, and hopefully purchase a home soon, as well; I don't know if you've watched the prices in the Seattle area, we just don't want to agree to $400,000 for a small starter home.

So all those things were one big catalyst for Geoff to start a job search. We prayed in our couple prayer every night specifically for a job that would meet all of those needs. Geoff was on the Internet almost every night looking for a job. He kept his search open to most areas in the country. The health administrator field is healthy, but not immune to the economy's sad state. Geoff has been competing with seasoned executives in his field for jobs.

Out of all those applications, one response came strongly through (though there were some others) that met our needs perfectly, and one in which our hearts were close to: Rexburg, Idaho.

We giggled like little school-girls when he was contacted for that job. The job is managing a specialty group of doctors. Also, the company he is contracted with have helped finance a health management program at ISU, and have suggested to Geoff that he may be able to teach a course through that program. It is an hour away, but a good opportunity to learn.

He had a few phone interviews, one in-person interview with the president of the corporation a few weekends ago, and then this past weekend he flew there (came back Monday night) to meet the good folks in Rexburg.

He was contacted yesterday morning with the official go-ahead and we are now making our plans. It isn't set in stone (it may be sooner than this) but our tentative date for departure is the 24th of September. Annalise will be missing a little bit of school, but I think she won't get far behind. She's a smart girl and will catch up quickly.

I've been anxiety ridden for the past month about this. Now it's changed to a need to gather boxes and pack, sell what we don't want to take with us, arrange for movers, and soak up as much time as possible with my parents. It breaks my heart to leave them again. (I'm tearing up typing about it--must stop typing about it!)

Geoff found the house we want to rent (until maybe finding a home to buy there) and we'll be securing it with a deposit soon. It will be nice to live in a house. We've been students so long we keep referring to the house as "the apartment": a habit I will be thrilled to break! It has a back yard, is twice the size of our current space, and even has a basketball hoop in the driveway so I can kick Geoff's trash on the court...that's right Geoff, the trash-talk starts now!