J-O-B

Almost exactly a year ago I was looking for an occupational therapy job in Pensacola, FL. Now that we are moving, I am back at my "full time" job of job searching!

This weekend has been incredibly productive! We spent all Saturday looking at rentals in Jacksonville. Then Sunday I spent the whole afternoon applying to jobs and revising my resume.

So far I have applied to the following places:

VA Outpatient clinic (downtown- roughly a 10 minute commute without considering traffic)
St Vincent's Hospital (walking/biking distance from our prospective rental!)
Mayo Clinic (20 minute drive- reverse commute)
Shands Hospital (also downtown)
Baptist Hospital (also downtown which includes Wolfson's Children's too)
Nemours Children's Hospital (also downtown)
Amedysis Home Health
Gentiva Home Health
HCR Manorcare (skilled nursing for a variety of facilities)
EBS Healthcare (travel company that primarily deals with school settings)

I think I've covered it all! Most of these places have listed openings, a few do not and I still submitted a resume.

I am hoping to schedule some interviews before the Christmas holiday, however, I have no idea what to expect being that I'm just applying to jobs now (when we were moving to Pensacola I started applying 2-3 months in advance being that we knew when and where we were going so far in advance).

Anyways, it will be interesting to see what God has in store for us!

More to come...

Slideshow viewing

We've just posted a slide show of the house that we hope to sign a lease for next week. We should be "first in line" to get it! In order to view the posting go to www.joshandwhits.blogspot.com (you will not be able to view it through e-mail like you can some posts)

Feel free to turn your volume on your computer on if you'd like to listen to the music.

We hope to move in sometime between the 8th of December and the 15th.

Thanks for your prayers and enjoy!

Jacksonville

House Hunting Hopefuls

After a rather (actually VERY) stressful day of trying to work while Josh was at home scrambling to fill out a rental application for a house we are very interested in renting with only half the information (needing me on the phone for the other half), we have completed our "rental application" for the house pictured below.

We have rented a handful of times now and have NEVER had to go through such a process to become renters!

We found a house we wanted to rent a few days ago, heard another family was also going to be applying for the house, had our Realtor look at the house for us (she thinks it is going to be a perfect fit for us and then some!), and then spent 5 hours scanning and copying documents for a rental application- sheesh!

Anyways, our application is now complete, which means if the other family is interested in renting the house, we would have first "dibs" over them because we are further ahead in the process. Tomorrow we will leave at the crack of dawn to drive 5 hours simply to see the house (and look at some others just in case) and then drive back. We will not be able to sign a lease until mid next week after a 2 day application review, 24-28 time period to draw up the lease, and then a trip to the notary for us to sign the lease!

I guess this is the red tape you have to deal with when you are dealing with the largest property management company on the east coast (this is the company Josh's brother also plans to go through- lucky for him ;)).


(we think this is the master bath)

(another view of the master bath possibly?)

(den or living room?)

(brand new kitchen)



(den or living room?)

(apparently this is part of the upstairs "loft suite" that has its own bathroom/bedroom area)

(nice fenced in backyard and 2 car garage not pictured)

This house is in the historic district of Jacksonville and if we rent it, it will be a 15 minute commute to work for Josh and central for me to commute from- a commute to downtown would be 20 minutes or so and similar in other directions.

No, this is not the area we originally intended on renting/buying in because it was generally way too expensive to even consider. However, we were able to negotiate a rent rate way below what it was listed (if we sign the lease) and it seems like a great area. Our Realtor lives 2 blocks away and has lived in the area 31 years! This area of town is called Avondale and is very central to base/downtown, westside, east side, etc. Avondale is known for its pedestrian friendly neighborhoods and unique boutiques and eateries.

We appreciate your prayers for safe travels tomorrow, wisdom and discernment in our decisions, and an attitude that is upwardly focused on ultimately bringing glory to the Lord through our everyday lives and decisions.

Moving can be very stressful, but it doesn't have to be when you know that God is in control! This is something that we both will need to learn to surrender to the Lord DAILY, and sometimes hourly!

Remaining Renters

Our house offer was countered at a much higher, rather unreasonable price, and so we decided not to counter on this particular house and waste our time.

It has come to our attention that we need to move in 2-3 weeks, and so at this point we need to begin looking into rentals in the Jax area.

In desperation we even looked into base housing (this would be a last resort) and there is a waiting list!

Soooooo....Teddy gets to have a playdate with his friend Kangaroo this weekend while we hop over to Jacksonville to try and find a place to rent. We have a few places lined up to see on Saturday and really hope we can find something reasonable!

While we won't necessarily be getting the deal of the century on Rent like we have here in Pensacola, we are hopeful that we will find something within reason that meets some of our priorities (safe area, convenience to where we need to go, fenced in yard, and preferably a 2 car garage)

House Hunting

This weekend we drove 5 hours to Jacksonville, Florida to scope the area out, learn a little more about the neighborhoods we may live in, and look at some houses.

We arrived Friday evening to our dog friendly hotel (who knew?!) and Teddy immediately went for the toilet to get a drink of water. While this is not uncommon for many dogs, Teddy has never done this and we were so shocked when he drank out of the toilet for almost a whole minute! He must have been parched :)





(what a spoiled, spoiled dog!)

Anyways, after adjusting to the hotel, we all got a good night's sleep and woke up the next morning for a 9 hour day of house hunting with two wonderful Realtors in the Jacksonville area.
We had a packed day of looking at houses and trying to understand what neighborhood of Jacksonville we'd like to live in.

We looked at about 25-30 houses total between Saturday and Sunday and by the end of Saturday felt that we really would like to try to live in an area called "Fleming Island". More specifically, we would love to live in a development in Fleming Island called "Eagle Harbor".

(this is a picture of the water access at one of the houses we liked a lot - it looked out on "Doctor's Lake")

Some of the things we enjoyed about Fleming Island were: convenience to the base, the amenities of the development (15 clay tennis courts, a golf course, 3 swimming pools, a good military presence, self sustaining community surrounding the development, etc), and the affordability of the area if we decide to buy or rent.

While the historic areas of Jacksonville were beautiful, we simply could not afford to rent or buy in such a nice area.

Sunday we enjoyed touring around base, touring downtown Jacksonville, and revisiting the Fleming Island area. We feel like we covered it all! Surprisingly, Jacksonville does not seem as big as we once thought it was.

(here Teddy is after rolling the car window down himself trying to get to the Dunkin Donuts drive through people- you may think we're fibbing that Teddy is actually capable of rolling the car windows down, but he has now done this 10 or so times to the point where we have had to put the child locks on the windows)

Anyways, I digress. It would take too long to write, and many of you already know the process that led us to make an offer on a house, but we have officially made an offer on a house in Eagle Harbor, however, it is likely to not be accepted, as we would be getting a great deal if they automatically accepted this offer. If it does not work out, we will be back at the drawing board, looking into temporary or more permanent rentals and other possibilities. God has given us such a peace about the decision- although we are moving imminently and really have no idea what we will do for housing yet, the Lord has truly overwhelmed us with a sense of peace about the situation- he is our provider and he WILL provide even if it is not in our timing or up to our standards- even if it seems like it's at the very last minute! (Genesis 22- Abraham and Isaac)

In the meantime, I have applied to a handful of jobs and hope to begin getting some leads for interviews prior to the holidays.

We have decided on an official "detach" date from Pensacola as the 15th of December, however, we do not need to leave this late from Pensacola or we can arrive later than this date to Jacksonville. We will decide in the near future when to have our household goods packed up.

Anyways, I could go on but this is a taste of what is going on for both of us right now! We appreciate your prayers and your love and support.

In Him,

Whitney (and Josh)

Moving Updates

Yesterday we received news that we will likely be moving in the time frame we had hoped, however, this was not what we were expecting! Josh has had several classmates who graduated before him waiting for a few months to hear about when they might move so we were fully expecting a wait as well. This is bittersweet in that it will be exciting to move on, but we have made some truly wonderful friends while here in Pensacola.

It's a good thing we are going house hunting in Jacksonville this weekend, as we will likely have orders to move by December 1. Josh's tentative start date in Jacksonville is January 8. We couldn't be more thrilled with the timing of this and how it will allow us to spend some quality time over the holidays with family. It is amazing that we will probably be moving a year exactly after we got to Pensacola! Time sure does fly!

We will not be sure of our ability to spend time with family over the holidays until we've checked into the base in Jacksonville, but we imagine it will be a good amount of time.

In more important news, Teddy is becoming a full-fledged grown-up!


Yes, he still actively plays with his toys- but what grown-up doesn't? Teddy has lost several teeth lately and hes taking it like a champ! He also is weighing in now at nearly 15 pounds- full grown! Teddy cannot wait to go explore Jacksonville- this will be his first really military move.

As for Edgar, this is all old hat! He's been through more moves than his age in years! He continues to be un-phased by the news grazing on hay, green beans, and food throughout the day.

Jacksonville here we come!

Yes, that's right! Josh selected P-3's (click here for more information). That means at some point in the near future we will be moving to Jacksonville, FL!

We will learn more in the next few days regarding when we will move and when we will have some time to travel for the holidays.

In the meantime, we hope to visit Jacksonville this weekend with Teddy in tow to get an idea of the area and look at a few neighborhoods, etc.

More to follow :) Thank you to those who were praying for God's will to become known in this area of our lives.

Blue Angels Homecoming Airshow 09

This weekend we had the pleasure of enjoying the Blue Angels Homecoming Airshow and Night Show. Josh had duty in the early morning and then joined Whitney and some friends for the airshow. See below for some beautiful pictures!











** to see the video go to www.joshandwhits.blogspot.com and push play button on video above this text

(Josh and Whit in front of the T-6 - the airplane Josh has been flying)

(Josh standing under a very large airplane wing)

(parachuters coming down in formation as the sunsets)

Check

In 11 days Josh completed his 15 required instrument flights for Primary. Josh is now officially done with his "Primary" phase of flight training!




It has been a rather busy 2 weeks for all of us- with Josh being gone for many hours, Teddy has enjoyed attending Doggie Daycare and has come home EXHAUSTED every single day- most days too tired to go for his nightly walk.



(For whatever reason teddy LOVES to sleep upside down)

(here teddy is on Halloween moping that Dad was in Nashville Flying and that Mom made him wear such a funny hat AND that a bunch of little kids kept coming to the door and not staying very long to play with him!)

Anyways...we now look forward to finding out what our next step is on November 16th- Josh's official primary graduation date. In the meantime, Josh will have "duty" or "watch" most days. Although this will keep him busy, he won't need to spend time planning for flights late into the night or being away for days at a time. For that Teddy and Whit are thankful!

....More to follow soon!