Welcome to Commufornia!

I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but we are moving to California.  I embarrassingly will admit that when I see a California license plate driving down the streets of Gilbert that I will scowl and say, “Go back to Commufornia!”  I don’t say it to the actual Californians driving down the road minding their own business.  I’m not crazy.😏 I say it under my breath.😜  

My family is originally from California, but we moved to Arizona when California was still sane!  California is the number one place on my list that I would never want to move.  My parents were born and raised in LA back when it was beaches and orange groves.  My dad would ditch school and go surfing.  People were able to drive right up to the beaches.  There was no parking lot, just sand and no one had to pay to be at certain beaches.  Disneyland was surrounded by orange groves.  Knott’s Berry Farm was an actual berry farm, not a park.  There was no crazy traffic.  Homes were affordable.  The leadership was Conservative and had values.  The stories I have heard about their childhoods are ideal.  Southern California today is the extreme opposite of what it was like when my parents were children.  I lived in Cypress, Orange County, California until I was six years old, so I don’t count it.  I am an Arizona girl.  It is fun to think I am going back to my roots though.  I love California because it is part of my family history.  I still have cousins that live in California and I love them!  There are so many great people that live in California. 

Right to Left: Carrie, Amy, me and Starla outside our church building in Cypress, California
 

The past three years have been overwhelming.  It was as though when Brian got released from Bishop that everything dumped on us.  We’ve dealt with hurt, betrayal, and abuse.  It has not been easy, but Brian and I have had to lean on each other and especially the Savior.  I am grateful that I have my best friend by my side no matter what trials hit us.  Brian is the most patient, loving husband and father.  I have had to learn to have more patience and let go of trying to fix things for others.  Agency is a blessing but at times can feel like a curse when watching a loved one choose to live in a way that brings heartache and destruction.  My dad passed away unexpectedly a year ago.  I think about him every day.  It is still shocking.  I will not go into everything concerning the trials we have been through.  Everyone has trials that can be very difficult.  This journal entry is about how we ended up moving from the place Brian, Kendra, Kessa and I all grew up.  Mesa and Gilbert Arizona. 

(I guess I do not have Brian's Gilbert High School basketball photo saved to our computer so this is the best I could do.)

Gilbert, Arizona LDS Temple

I thought we would live the rest of our lives in Gilbert, Arizona.  Everything is familiar.  The people are wonderful.  Most of our families live here.  I love to visit other states and countries, but I have never had the desire to move to another state or country.

Brian has always worked in the agriculture business.  He has always been sought after by companies wanting to hire him.  The answer has always been no since Brian grew up on his family farm and he started working full time on the family farm right out of college in 2003.  After a lot of contemplation and prayer, Brian decided to leave the family farm in 2019.  It was an extremely hard decision for him.  He went through a period of mourning and a little bit of a self-identity crisis.  He was hired by a good agriculture company on the West side of the valley.  

Brian was released as bishop of our ward in 2021.  We moved after he was released as bishop to a nearby area in Gilbert.  Brian loved being bishop.  He loved the people in the Elliot Groves Ward.  I did not realize how much he was going to mourn being bishop and being involved with the people he came to love.  We had so many wonderful memories as a family during that period of time also.  I was so excited to move into our new home.  I really thought it was the home we would grow old in.  Brian was enjoying working for the company that hired him when another company asked him to work for them.  He would be paid more, and it was more of what Brian liked doing, so he accepted the job.  Brian has integrity.  He did not feel the second company he worked for after leaving the family farm dealt with the business in an honest manner.  He decided the best option was to leave that company.   We were already experiencing a huge change in our lives when Brian changed jobs again.  We had moved from the area we raised our girls in.  It was only a mile and a half away, but it felt like we had moved to a different state.  Kendra moved away to college.  Brian had to change jobs because he did not feel right staying in the company he was working for.  We were going through the hardest trial yet as parents.  The company that Brian had been hired to work for when he left the family farm was downsizing and was not hiring. 

There were no agriculture opportunities in Arizona for Brian’s level of experience.  Three agriculture businesses reached out wanting to hire Brian.  One in California, one in Texas, and one in Colorado.  I was soooo upset because I wanted to stay in Arizona.  That was not an option.  I did not even contemplate the farm company in Colorado.  We flew to California to check out the company there.  We flew into Burbank, California.  Brian took me to an area about an hour and a half outside of Bakersfield, California.  We stopped to eat at a restaurant.  It did not feel anything like home.  We did not even make it to Bakersfield because I already knew the answer was no.

We went straight from California to Texas.  I had already visited Grapevine, Texas because Starla lives in Justin, Texas which is in the same area.  Grapevine and Justin are suburbs of Fort Worth.  I immediately fell in love with the area.  Texas is awesome!  I loved all the suburbs, including the small towns.  The other thing in favor of the company in Texas was that Brian already had a relationship with the CEO of the company.  The CEO had done business with the family farm for years.  Brian accepted the job. Brian’s job was more in marketing.  He had to travel a lot.  Brian and I have never been apart so much.  We are a sickening couple that loves to be together.  We want to do everything together.  It was not our favorite that he had to travel multiple times a month.  It was a huge blessing working for the company in Texas in many ways though.  Kessa was struggling and she still was in high school.  The CEO told Brian that he could work from home until Kessa graduated.  What a blessing!!  People that work in agriculture are usually family oriented and believe in God.  I have loved learning about the agriculture business in the USA and having the opportunity to meet others that are part of the agriculture world. 

Since 2022 we have known that we would have to move to Texas once Kessa graduated.  We tried to keep it to ourselves so that our new ward would not write us off, but we always had it in the back of our minds that we would be moving.  It felt like a little bit of living in limbo.  I never hung family pictures on the wall.  There were some things I wanted to change in the house, but it was not worth it since we were going to be moving.  I loved my house!  I was not happy selling it.  

Can you find Zorro and Bandit?

Brian always plants a garden.  Obviously nothing was growing at this point since we were moving.

No, my house is not always that clean.  Actually it is never that clean.  haha.  We were trying to get people to look at it so we could sell it!

My dad passed away a few months before Kessa graduated high school.  It was shocking.  My mom felt lost and was not sure she would be able to stay in her home.  We knew that we were going to have to move to Texas at some point, so my mom was going to move to Texas with us.  We were wanting to build a house and have a casita for my mom.  Kessa graduated high school and went straight to esthetician school.  She graduated from an esthetician school and then Kendra got engaged to be married to PJ.  That was when we were asked to move to Texas.  They wanted Brian to finally get there and start working out of the main office.

I could not just pick one picture of my dad.  These are in no particular order.

We put our house on the market at the same time we were planning a wedding.  It was like a circus act whenever someone would call to come see the house.  We had to stack and shove everything that we were doing for the wedding.  Kessa was getting ready at the Rothlisberger’s house every day.  They are saints!  It was crazy, but you do what you have to do.  Our house sold!  We were so happy that we would no longer have to be part of the circus of trying to sell our house and trying to make our house look like no one lived there! 

We moved to my mom’s house in September 2024.  We stored all of our belongings in pods.  Once we found a house in Texas then the pod company would move all of our belongings to Texas.  The company paid for a moving company.  It was great!  It was the first time I was not the one packing everything up.  Little did we know that we would end up living with my mom for six months.  I can’t express enough how grateful I am to my mom.  We have felt at home living with her.  She has not made us feel like a burden in any way. 

I planned Kendra’s wedding at my mom’s house.  I wish I had hired someone.  Live and learn.  My mom’s entire garage and house were filled with wedding crap.  It was fun in a lot of ways planning and making things for the wedding.  In other ways it was absolutely bonkers!  We are blessed that Kendra made good choices in her life to lead her to a wonderful young man.  He truly is so kind and fun.  He fits right in with our family, and he treats Kendra like a queen.  The wedding day was filled with joy.  Kendra and Pj were sealed for time and all eternity in the Gilbert Temple on December 14, 2024. 

A few days after Kendra’s wedding, I found out that my beautiful sister has breast cancer.  She is a fighter and is going to beat this cancer to a pulp!  She currently just finished her third round of chemo.  I knew cancer was hard but I have learned so much.  My sister is a rockstar.  

Soon after we moved in with my mom, Brian traveled to Texas for a meeting with the CEO of the company.  The company had headquarters in both Idaho and Texas.  There were some changes being made in the company and everyone in Texas was going to be transferring to the Idaho headquarters.  I was in shock because I had never thought about moving to Idaho.  BRRRR! 

While all of this was going on, Brian started getting offers for other jobs.  He never puts in a resume or has to ask for a job.  They have come to him and offered jobs.  One of the jobs offered to him was in Prince Edward Island Canada.  Brian happened to be traveling to Prince Edward Island for his current job about a month after he was offered the job in PEI.  Prince Edward Island grows most of the potatoes for the entire country of Canada.  The company in Prince Edward Island wanted Brian badly.  Brian took me along on the trip and I fell in love with Prince Edward Island.  However, I could not picture living in Canada where it would be freezing half the year, but especially because it is not the USA.  They even told Brian that we could live in North Dakota.  Brian declined the job. 

Prince Edward Island

A few weeks after visiting Canada, Brian traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for a convention.  He happened to start up a conversation with the president of an agriculture company headquartered in Bakersfield, California.  A few weeks later he got a call from the president of Grimmway Farms.  He asked Brian if he would be interested in a job at Grimmway Farms.  When Brian told me about the job, I immediately said no.  There is no way I was going to move to California, especially in a place that is two hours away from the beach in San Louis Obispo.  The offer was awesome, but I did not think it was worth moving to California. 

I started looking at Bakersfield, California on Google Earth.  It made my stomach hurt.  It did not matter where I looked, it looked like a dump.  Then I put Bakersfield, California into the search bar on YouTube.  I was horrified!  There was not one video that seemed positive.  My stomach hurt even more.  I then put Gilbert, Arizona in the search bar on YouTube.  Everything that came up was tranquil.  It was video after video about how wonderful Gilbert, Arizona is to live.  

Brian asked me to visit Bakersfield.  We woke up very early in the morning to catch our flight.  I was sooo grumpy.  I said, “I don’t know why we are visiting Bakersfield because I already know I am going to hate it.”  I was also annoyed that it was still dark outside and I was cold.  It reminded me of going to A-hour in high school.  I feel bad because Brian was kind, as always, but I was just trying to show him how much I disapproved of living anywhere in California, yet alone Bakersfield!

We landed in Bakersfield.  I expected it to look like all the areas I had seen on Google Earth.  There were large trees and green everywhere.  We rented a car and started driving.  I kept waiting to see the dumps and ghetto neighborhoods.  Brian showed me many different neighborhoods and they were all nicer than the house we had sold in Gilbert.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Brian took me to lunch at a super yummy and fun place.  We continued looking at neighborhoods that day.  I was sincerely shocked at how many nice neighborhoods there were in Bakersfield.  Visiting Bakersfield opened my mind.  I was still not sure if I would move there, but my mind opened a crack instead of being closed and with 12 bolt locks.

I started praying about Bakersfield.  I knew that Heavenly Father was leaving it up to me and Brian.  I wanted to feel good about each step we were making and it was pretty shocking that I was even considering moving to Bakersfield, California.  We could either stay with Brian’s current company and live in Idaho, or switch companies and live in California.  We obviously have chosen Bakersfield California with Grimmway. 

We have been on quite the roller-coaster.  I am praying that we will feel settled in Bakersfield.  My home, neighborhood and church congregation are very important to me.  It will be strange to not have family and friends that I have known forever right around us.

If there is one thing I have learned throughout my life then it is that the only consistent thing in life is change.  I pictured my life a certain way when I got married to Brian.  I assumed I would have eight children and live on farmland with a lot of animals.  Soon after I got married I found out that I would not be able to have children naturally.  Those eight children turned into two.  It may sound strange to some but I feel so blessed to have my two girls!  I do not feel a loss because I don’t have more children.  Ten years into our marriage, I became very ill and learned I have a brain disorder.  I would change having a brain disorder if I could.  I still don’t understand why it happened.  My greatest blessing in life has been being a wife and mother.  A big trial that I have gone through is realizing that our children have their own free will and agency.  We dream of our children’s future and their lives more than what we realize when they are younger.  We think we have more control than we do. We teach them right from wrong from the time they are born. We can do everything in our power to try to influence their choices and teach them the way to happiness and they still may choose a different path.  I still find so much joy in both of my beautiful girls.  I know that Heavenly Father is aware of them and loves them.  They each have their own talents and strengths.  I would not trade them for any other girls on earth. 

 

My life has not looked like the life that I pictured when I first got married, but I have felt blessed.  I could write another novel about all my blessings and the miracles that have happened throughout my life.  I will do that someday. 

We will be moving in the next few weeks to Bakersfield, California.  I will miss Mesa and Gilbert.  I will miss living by family and friends.  I look forward to an adventure that I never saw coming.  Two things can be true at the same time.

BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA

I held off telling people we were moving because I hate goodbyes.  I will be visiting Gilbert often especially because my mom is here.  Oh!  My mom was going to move with us to Texas, but she refuses to move to California.  We will see as time goes by what she feels.  I have just started my campaign on getting her to move to California.  She hasn’t seen my best tactics yet.  My mom is surrounded by the most amazing neighbors and friends.  She has been blessed with the best angels on this earth.        

I just hope that when you see me driving down Gilbert Road with my California license plate that you won't be cussing under your breath at me.😂  I will always be an Arizona girl!