A New Chapter Begins

Well...we did it. The Shields are back in College Station! What a change, what an adventure...had a baby and moved all within a matter of 6 weeks. Who says God does not have a sense of humor. Ours has a good one. What a testimony of God's control over all things. Here is how it came to be...


Josh was looking on the Texas A&M University System website in mid-Februaryish and found a posting for a Senior Financial Analyst position in the Department of Treasury Services. He officially applied for the job March 2nd. He had a marathon phone interview on March 24th. They invited him down for a "day trip to Houston" as we called it, but really it was an interview in College Station on April 4th. He was then offered the position on Tax Day...April 15th. Josh accepted and the whirlwind began on April 17th.

Ainsley, our new sweet baby girl, was born on April 24th. I was induced, once again, a weekish late. Before going in, I was already dilated to a 2 to 3 and was 50% effaced. We got to the hospital and check-in at 7:00 am, got hooked all up and they started my Pitocin at 8:00ish. My contracts started coming pretty good and I began to progress much faster that I did with Andrew. We did the same thing with him and he did not come until after midnight. Nobody, including Josh and I, expected things to go so quickly. I got an epidural around noon and was at a 10 by 1:30. I started pushing shortly thereafter and she came at 2:24 pm. Whoa baby...



Our pediatrician came to check on Ainsley that evening. She came to inform us that Ainsley had a BIG heart murmur and the doctor had ordered an echo-cardiogram for in the morning. Much to everyone's kindness to put us at ease, we were a bit worried. Our pulpit guy at church, Dan Bouchelle, and his wonderful kids (that are in our Huddle at church) came to visit us that evening and he prayed over all of us. The next morning our pediatrician walked in and said the murmur was gone!!! Praise God. Dr. Williams said she broke her rule by telling us about the murmur. Most of the time this corrects itself and she usually waits until after the first 24 hours to tell parents, but Ainsley's sounded big so she went ahead and told us. No echo was needed and we were released to go home on Saturday the 26th. We had a great week and 1 day at home as the four of us, and then we became the three of us as Josh left for College Station to begin work on Sunday, May 4th.


Time went quickly...as a single mom with a 3 year old and a newborn who is in charge of packing up our entire lives, we were busy. Like I said before God took care of us. First God thing - Josh e-mailed the ladies at work before arriving to ask if anyone new of some temporary housing. He had looked at extend-a-stay hotels, but they would have been tons of money for the three weeks we thought he would need one for. One lady e-mailed back that she has some friend how have an apartment above their garage they rent out. Well let me just tell you...what a bachelor pad Josh ended up with. It had a full kitchen, washer/dryer, separate bedroom and bathroom, chichi decorations. He was hooked up AND it was only $150 a week.

Second God thing - Our house in Canyon sold in 4 days...thanks to a bunch a work by my mom who puttied holes, painted trim, picked up the house, took care of Andrew while we were in the hospital and the house was being shown (they sure spent a LOT of time at the park), and several other tedious chores I am forgetting. We thought that was going to be the hard part. Hah!

Third God thing - The three of us drove to College Station over Mother's Day weekend to meet Josh and look for a new house. WOW...College Station is a crazy housing market, definitely a seller's market. We thought we were doing good and had researched the MLS listing one weekend before Josh came down. We had put together a spreadsheet (imagine that...I know Elizabeth and Janelle are laughing) to send to our realtor for Josh to look at before I got here that weekend. We thought we were being so smart. Our thought process was we wanted to buy instead of rent to keep from having to move our stuff twice. We had about 18 houses on the list for Josh and the realtor to look at and weed out. FOUR were available and let me tell you...it wasn't the good 4 either. Josh was frustrated to say the least. He and the realtor went to look at the 4 on Tuesday (the 2nd day Josh was here). She had found a couple others, but not much. Wednesday was a bit better. They found 2, one Josh really liked and then a back-up. Thursday, the one he really liked gets put under contract. He sends the realtor 31 more houses to look at...FOUR were still available. I tell you what, if you even thought about liking the house, you better put a contract on it or it was GONE in a flash. Not only were we competing against young families for these houses, we were competing against parents buying for their Aggies. Darn those students. :) The kids and I pull into town Friday afternoon and look all evening. That evening we put a contract on one that has been on the market 3 days. Well, so does another family. We wanted to move in the house in 2 weeks, the other family wanted July...safe to say she chose the other contract. Saturday morning we are back to square one...nothing! We were driving around and our realtor called our cell to say she had found one that did not show up the first 1000 times we searched MLS...well you guessed it, that is the one we bought. It is a cute 1500 sq. ft, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house built in 2002 in College Station just down the road from the school I taught at. So, our house was sold, we bought a new house, now we just needed to get our stuff here...

Fourth God thing - Josh "reserved" the largest U-Haul truck, a trailer, and 5 dozen furniture blankets for us to pack up Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Well Saturday gets here and there is NO truck, NO trailer, and NO furniture blankets. I thought we were done for. I think by the time it was all said and done, every U-Haul person in Amarillo knew who we were and were trying to find us something. We ended up with 2 smaller trucks, 1 open trailer, and 6 dozen furniture blankets...and ALL of this by noon on Saturday. We decided afterwards that the 2 trucks were a blessing because we do not think all of our stuff would have fit in the 1 big truck! The guys were AWESOME who come to help us load the truck. We were done, cleaned up, and to a going away party by 7:30.


I will tell you that this has been an adventure...but when it is God's will, as we feel this move was, everything just falls into place. Now we are unloaded, unpacked (for the most part), and settling in life here in good ole College Station.