Island Living.

It's official! Tim has accepted an offer to be a pharmacist on the island of Saipan in Micronesia! Kind of a crazy story how we made it to this point but we are definitely happy/excited/nervous/etc. We really feel like through the stress of it all the Lord was really pointing us toward this opportunity. 

We were getting extremely frustrated with the nuclear company that Tim was interested in. After flying him out to several interviews and telling him how great he did but then taking weeks to decide on who to hire we finally started looking into other options. The process was just taking way too long and we didn't have the luxury of time with our apartment lease ending fairly soon. Tim decided to email the owner of some pharmacies in Micronesia since he had heard about it a few years before and had some interest in it. He figured if he was going to work in retail pharmacy instead of nuclear it may as well be on an island. The owner got back to him the very next day and after going through Tim's resume and speaking with him he offered him a job! After the frustration of waiting weeks to hear from the other company this quick response was definitely earning some points. 

We spent the next day trying to figure out if we were seriously considering this option. After all, the other company was still very interested in Tim and was supposed to be getting back to us anyday (it had been down to Tim and one other applicant for 2 weeks!). Soon we found ourselves trying to come up with reasons NOT to go and had a very hard time coming up with any. After much thought and prayer we felt that all of the frustration with the other company had been for a reason. We were meant to make the change in field and go to Saipan.

After the decision was made it was a whirlwind of getting together our passport information, packing like crazy, planning where we were going to go while waiting for our passports and finding contacts overseas. It was pretty chaotic. We left Albuquerque over memorial day weekend. It was actually really hard! I surprisingly had come to love it there. We had built a family there and had many so many lasting friendships. 

We are currently in Southern Utah with my family and will be visiting Salt Lake soon to see Tim's. Having time with both our families before we leave was just another perfect fit to our plan. We are set to leave for Saipan early July and will be there for a 2 year contract and can then decide if we'd like to continue our stay. Personally, I'm torn. I love island living but I think after 2 years I'll want to get back to the city and my blackberry. :-)