My 30th birthday took place on September 10th, 2001. One day before 9/11. The day before my 30th birthday we moved from Alabama to Tennessee. We had been living in Alabama for 8 years at that point. During that time Bryan's job had come to an end with the family business due to the business being sold. Bryan has always had a strong interest in computers and decided to pursue work in that field. He had been working for a small company in Birmingham, Alabama for about a year but what many people do not know is that he had also been working a few evenings a week, in addition to his full time job, to build up his resume in hopes of getting a job with Apple computers. Bryan frequented the Apple boards and knew the rumors that were floating around about Apple opening up retail stores. He believed the rumors to be true. His part time work in the evenings was as a power representative to local retail stores that sold Macintosh computers. He was not employed by Apple but he went into places like Best Buy, Sears, and other retail stores that sold Apple products and he trained their employees on using the Macs so that they could better sell the product. His hard work and determination to build up his resume paid off in the summer of 2001. Apple was indeed planning on opening up retail stores across the country and they had people scouting the Internet for qualified people to employee to run the stores. It just so happened that the third Apple store was scheduled to open in Birmingham, Alabama and a scout found Bryan's resume on the Internet. They were impressed with the work he had been doing and his qualifications and contacted him about a possible job opportunity with Apple. Of course, Bryan was thrilled. I was so happy for him. In the end, the lease on the Birmingham store fell through and Apple gave us the option of choosing from several locations to move too. We decided on Germantown, Tennessee which is a suburb of Memphis in Western, TN and about 4 hours from where we had been living in Alabama.
We put our house on the market here in Alabama as soon as we found out we were definitely moving. Houston was 4 years old, Emmy 3, and Annie was 1. I was 3 months pregnant with Natalie. When 9/11 happened it hurt the housing market bad and affected us in trying to sell our home but we also discovered when put the house up on the market that we had made some mistakes in the purchase of the home. We had gone with some realtors from our church and we made the mistake of assuming that they were looking out for our best interest simply because we knew them and they went to our church. We discovered when we went to re-sell that we had paid way too much for the house. At one point during our purchase of the house Bryan had asked to see the appraisal and our realtors didn't show it him. They brushed him off. We didn't think much of it at the time but looking back we know that was our first big mistake. It was a hard lesson learned on our end but it was a lesson learned, nontheless. So when we moved to TN, our Alabama house had not yet sold. Bryan and I made several trips to Germantown to search for housing. We were concerned about finding a decent size place for a price we could afford knowing that we still had the house payment in AL to make. God was so gracious to us! We looked at various places, some homes, and some apartments. We really didn't want an apartment because we wanted a yard area for the kids but housing in Germantown is sooo expensive- much higher than most areas- and we knew we just might have to settle on an apartment. In the end though God lead us to a two story townhouse which was perfect for us. It was 1800 square feet, had 3 large bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a formal dining room, and a really nice sized living room AND it had a gorgeous patio off the back and behind that was a small yard with grass for the kids to play on. The best part, it was literally 1 mile from Bryan's work. Our entire time of living in TN he was able to come home on his lunch and dinner breaks which was so nice. I really loved that townhouse and it's location. It was such an encouragement after the discouraging situation with our Alabama home. And even though we were renting I was able to paint, wallpaper, and do whatever I wanted to make the place our home. It was a huge answer to my prayers.
On the evening of my 30th birthday we went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel in Memphis. On the morning of 9/11 I had no idea what was happening. Bryan had gone off for his first day of training. The Apple store at Saddlecreek had not yet opened. It was scheduled to open in October but all of the employees were going through training and working on getting the store ready for it's Grand opening. So that morning, I had boxes everywhere and had just dug into some to work on unpacking more when I got a phone call from my mom in California. She asked me if I was watching the news. I didn't even have the remote to the TV unpacked yet. She filled me in on what was happening as I searched the boxes for the remote to the TV. Needless to say I didn't get any more unpacking done that day. I spent it in front of our TV like the rest of America, in complete shock. Bryan came home just an hour after mom called. They had released everyone from training early.
That was our start to living in Tennessee. Despite the difficult start with 9/11 happening we settled into our new home and community with a lot ease. At least in comparison to when we moved to Alabama. It was really exciting to be experiencing a new area with so many new things to do and see. We had been living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama prior to our move and while their were a lot of things that we liked about living in Tuscaloosa, it is not exactly a place that is known for it's things to do. We always had to drive to Birmingham, Huntsville, or Montgomery to visit cool museums, restaurants, or fun places. In TN though, all the fun was right at our fingertips. I loved that.
Annie and I one month after we moved to TN.
One of my biggest prayer requests when we moved to TN was that God would lead us quickly to a new church. It had taken us 3 years to find a church family when we moved to Alabama and the thought of having to constantly visit new churches with very young children did not appeal to me at all. In fact, I dreaded it. I hated the idea of leaving the kids with complete strangers every Sunday. So my prayers prior to our move had been that God would just lead us very quickly to the place He had for us. Again, I was amazed at God's goodness to us knowing we were so undeserving of His love and provision. God lead us to our new church family within the first month of our arrival in Germantown. Having the Internet to search out churches on made a huge difference too. We didn't have that when we moved to Alabama. We were able to weed out a lot of the Germantown churches without even stepping into them just from our research on the Internet. On our 4th week in Tennessee we visited Grace Evan after researching it on the web and talking with the children's director on the phone, and we knew it was a high possibility after our first visit. It was larger than we had hoped for but their was much about the church that we knew we needed. Looking back years later it is evident that God gave us just exactly what we needed in that church during our time in TN. That following Tuesday morning I headed down to the church with the kids to attend the women's bible study. I knew at the end of that study that Grace Evan was where I wanted to be. We never looked elsewhere after that.
I kept going on Tuesday mornings to the bible study and quickly connected with some of the other moms who homeschooled. We were just beginning our homeschool journey ourselves at this time. It turned out that the church had a homeschool group that was really our connection in developing deeper relationships with some of the other families. Especially being that the church was rather large. The kids loved their classes on Wednesday nights at the church too. I am very thankful for the ladies that reached out to me from Grace Evan.
While we had developed several really special friendships in our first 8 years of living in Alabama our overall experience with so many people is that they had grown up in Alabama and they had their deep relationships already established. Their wasn't always a lot of room or open doors for accepting someone from the outside that was new, into their circles. It always reminded me a bit of highschool and I hated that part. In Tennessee, that still existed among some circles but overall it was just a different feel- many of the people were transplants themselves and I think that often made all the difference in the world. Interestingly enough, here in Alabama Bryan and I have always felt a strong cultural clash with most of the people. We are different. It's as simple as that. We were raised in a completely different culture. Not just the language, foods, and accents, just the overall way of thinking is very different, even among Christian circles. We still feel that clash today and even though it too existed in TN, it didn't feel nearly as strong up there. I contribute that to the fact that while the overall area where we were living was southern, their were so many transplanted people from all over the place that the area was much more diverse than what we had experienced here in Alabama. We felt more connected to many of the people in TN as a result. We could relate better overall. We didn't feel as strange and out of place up there. LOL! Their were even some California transplants up there. *Grin*
Germantown had some of the most beautiful parks that we have ever seen.
Houston and Emmy
The Apple store opened up in mid-October of that year (01). It was a really exciting time. Bryan's dad drove up from Alabama for the Grand opening. It was only a 4 hour drive from his place to ours so he visited us often on the weekends during our 2 1/2 years of living in TN. Bryan's mom and her husband were able to make many visits up to see us as well. We were able celebrate all the holidays with them both which was so nice. Back to the Grand Opening. The day the store opened turned out to be a very overcast and rainy day yet it didn't hinder the opening one bit. People started lining up around 4 am that morning for the 10am opening. They sported their raincoats and umbrellas and weathered the bad weather with much enthusiasm just to see the store. Not just locals, many people traveled from out of state to attend the store opening. It was a very busy day for Bryan.
Houston, Emmy, and I at the Apple store opening. Prior to moving to TN Bryan had to travel out to Apple headquarters in California for 2 weeks of training. While out there he bought these Apple shirts for the kids to wear at the Grand Opening. We still have the shirts today even though the kids have all outgrown them.
The holidays came upon us fast after the store opened that year and it made 2001 zip by even faster for us. I loved our first Christmas in Tennessee. It's funny because when we moved to Alabama I had to look up where the state was on a map. *Blush* Yes, my geography skills were that bad at the age of 23. I didn't hear much about Alabama as a young girl growing up in California. Outside of a few history lessons on the civil rights movement of course. Tennessee was different though. I had heard about Tennessee in many songs and books. It was almost surreal at times to realize we were actually living in TN! I loved all of the holiday events around the city. I will share more about all of the fun stuff we experienced in my next blog post. I really did love every moment of living in TN and I especially loved living their during the Holidays.
Our first TN Christmas.
