We got in the car and my wife suggested we go over to the pond and up the farm access road which is on the other side of the creek.  The weeds were getting tall next to the pond.  I got out of the car to walk to the edge of the pond.  When I got close, a whole host of frogs leapt into the pond to take cover.  The road which leads to an empty field and the forested hills had deteriorated a bit so I had to go on foot.  My wife waited in the car with our son while I proceeded with my camera.  I knew there was a large clearing that I had seen from satellite images from Google maps.  The field looked brown and the trees were bare in the image I saw online so I didn’t have high expectations.

Walking up the road I noticed many wild birds that I had never before seen.  There was one that was magnificently colored with bright blue and other colors.  I paused momentarily before proceeding to watch the birds and take in the fresh summer smell and the sound of the birds chirping in the trees.  It was beautiful and very peaceful.  As I continued walking, I went around the corner, no longer within sight of the car.  A smile gradually overtook me that I was unable to remove from my face until long after leaving the property. 

Walking only a couple hundred feet further I was able to see much of the clearing.  Despite the image I had seen online, the field was green and the trees were covered in leaves and full of life.  Looking all around, the area was completely hidden from the road and visible only to one house.  A house built here would be completely surrounded by forest.  It was very easy to visualize a safe area for my children to run and play and a house could very easily be built here.  There was more than enough room for anything we needed there.  I had found the place and the feelings just moments earlier were understood.  The future location of our family home would lie just across the creek from the family farmhouse.  We would be able to start something new and retain the old.

Why did this area seem to make me so happy?  Why the spontaneous smile and all the joy.  There was much to learn and many unanswered questions, but I felt that I had found the right place and that was enough for right now.

My daughters stayed with my mother while my wife, infant son and I flew to Syracuse.  The entire day was spent traveling.  As we drove from the Syracuse airport to our hotel, we were struck by the beauty of the city.  There were so many very old buildings with amazing architecture.  We saw it in office buildings, churches, homes and businesses.  There’s a lot of history in Syracuse.  We arrived at our hotel at 11:45 pm.  It was just in time to drop off our bags and head out in search of the latest Harry Potter book which was to be released at midnight.  After finding a store that carried the book and an open drive thru for a late dinner, we got some sleep and prepared for the next day.

Saturday morning we drove to LaFayette to see the farm I last saw in 1996.  I had also visited the farm on my 4th birthday years earlier.  We celebrated with a square pink birthday cake.  I don’t have many memories of visiting the farm, but it has always felt like a very special place.  I never dreamed that I would ever move to the farm or even visit more than a couple of times, but I knew there was a good spirit there.  It was last lived in by my Great Uncle Ed and Aunt Carol until 2004 when Ed passed away.  Ed took over the farm from his father, my great grandfather who acquired it from his wife’s family.  My grandfather and all of his siblings were born in the farmhouse.  Needless to say, there is a lot of history in the walls of the farmhouse, after more than a century in the family.

My personal memories are limited, but I do remember catching frogs at the pond at age 4 and I could remember a little of what it was like around Uncle Ed and Aunt Carol.  Uncle Ed produced maple syrup from sugar maples on the property.  It’s been a long time since I tasted it, but I can still remember how good it was and how much better it tasted than any maple syrup in the stores.  Aunt Carol was blind but still very independent.  When Ed passed away, Carol moved to North Carolina to live with her son.  The farmhouse and the property has been maintained, but not lived in. 

A family member met my wife and I at the farmhouse to let us in.  Before entering, we gazed up the hill to see if we could determine the proper location for us to build a new home.  We had felt that if we did move here, we would maintain the farmhouse but not alter it too much.  We would keep anything of historical significance intact and live in a separate home on a different part of the property.  It would be our opportunity to build our dream home exactly to our specifications.  While looking across the parcel that the existing farmhouse stood on, we saw places where a home could be built, but it wouldn’t fit.  We walked towards a shelter that had been used in many family gatherings and reunions.  We peered down from the shelter at the creek which cut right through the property.  From there we were able to catch a glimpse of the pond I had remembered as a young child.  We sat on a swing that hung from the branches of a tree near the house.  It had been there for many years.

Upon entering the farmhouse, we walked first through the entry room, built by Uncle Ed decades earlier.  Many improvements and additions have been made over the years by Ed and by his father while still retaining the original look and flavor of the home.  We walked through the kitchen, living room and bedrooms.  The home seemed very familiar to me but at the same time it felt strange walking through it, now that it was deserted. 

From the farmhouse, we walked through the garage and sugar shack, both built by Ed.  It was great walking through everything, but I expected an overwhelming feeling to tell me that I was to put an offer on the house and property.  I didn’t get that feeling.  My feeling the whole week was that I needed to go with my wife to the farm.  What I was now feeling was that there was no place to build our home and that it wasn’t appropriate for us to customize the farmhouse to our tastes to live in it.  So why was I even there? 

We made a significant sacrifice running off to New York on short notice.  We had an incredibly spiritual week preparing to come to view the property.  Over and over everything lined up perfectly in our travel plans to get the right flights, hotel, and to get my mom to watch the kids.  We even had picked out the perfect floorplan for our dream home and found a builder in the area to build it for us.  We had faith promoting experiences while reading scriptures, pondering and praying all week but now things weren’t clicking like I expected they should.  What was I missing?

That Tuesday we had made flight reservations for Syracuse, New York.  They were for Friday of the same week to minimize time away from work. I couldn’t believe what I was doing but truly felt like I had no choice, that I was being pulled to New York.  While we already felt like we would be moving soon, it still appeared like a spontaneous weekend getaway.  The rest of the week would be spent learning about the family farm, trying to decipher the signals we were receiving, and packing for the weekend.

We were interested in making sure we were on the right path and not led by youthful delusions.  We spent a lot of time before Friday flipping through scriptures, seeking some sort of answers.  Right away we ended up in the New Testament and read chapter 11 of Hebrews.  It starts with “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith certainly would be required if our intuition was correct and we were on the path to a completely different situation.  The chapter continues, recounting numerous stories of miracles accomplished through faith.  Many verses screamed at us, as if they were written just for us as we contemplated our next moves.

Verse 8: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.”  Yeah, that’s about how we felt.

There were many other places we turned to in the scriptures.  Each place had another nugget of wisdom that seemed to apply to our situation and the big changes that awaited us.  To some, flipping to a random scripture that really stands out would be a coincidence.  I consider it another small miracle.  Each day, we would flip through and read to eachother, say prayers together and meditate, hoping that if we had something that we should do, that it would be clear in our minds.  Each day we had similar experiences.  We found more and more examples of faith and miracles.  With no clue of what we would see at the farm or the feelings we would have, we left for the airport early Friday morning.

I will spare the lengthy details, but after a visit with my old bishop my wife and I left with some very clear impressions.  First we felt that family was to remain a top priority.  No matter what happened, we needed to remain close to our family members.  Relationships could be nurtured from a distance, though, just as well as from next door.  The second thing we felt strongly about was that we needed to fly out to New York to visit the property that we considered purchasing.  When we walk on the land that seems to be calling us, we will know whether or not we will be moving.  The third feeling was that business for us would be successful.  Since my business and my wife’s new business are internet based, location doesn’t even matter.

We began to feel at peace over our thoughts of moving across the country.  There is something frightening about this sort of peaceful feeling.  Whenever a big change feels imminent and things begin to feel right, that’s when things begin to get tricky.  But doesn’t it always get hard just before the good stuff?

Without any logical reason backing up our feelings, it was difficult to share our impressions with those around us.  Those who know us have already witnessed plenty of decisions that have appeared to be hastily made and not well thought out (whether true or not is subject to interpretation).  While spontaneity has seemed to be a theme in our 4 year old marriage, this was shaping up to be something different and bigger than anything else we had undertaken.  We were convinced that we were being led by divine inspiration rather than sudden emotion-driven actions.  Since it fits our pattern of occasional impulsiveness, we’ve been a little slow to share our developing impressions of things to come with even our closest friends and family for fear of unfair judgement.  Maybe that fear was also a hint of denial as well that we were really meant to leave all that we know behind to end up in a distant city far different from what we are accustomed to.

By Tuesday, we made a couple phone calls to a select few.  I managed to get the phone number of the man responsible for selling the farm.  His mother married my mom’s uncle after he was born which makes him related to me by marriage I guess, although I had never met him previously.  When I called him, he informed me that there was a verbal agreement to sell the farmhouse and 20 acres of the property to an interested buyer.  There was no contract yet and a survey would need to be done.  When I expressed interest it seemed like things were a little late.  I had my questions answered with kindness but got the impression that the deal was done and details just needed to be worked out to finalize before winter.  There would be an auction to sell the posessions left in the house and he would be up to visit and clear up paperwork the following week.  He would also meet with the buyer while in town.  If I submitted an offer to purchase, he would probably consider it, but he felt obligated to sell to the other buyer since plans were already being made.

The phone conversation wasn’t terribly encouraging.  A buyer was already lined up with financing and everything and was renting nearby until the sale could be finalized.  There appeared to be an opportunity yet to purchase the farm since the buyer was only seeking a portion of the land.  This potential opportunity would require me to act fast to get a solid offer submitted before the other buyer could submit his.  It seemed a difficult feat and under any other circumstances would have discouraged me from pursuing, yet the feelings persisted.  We needed to keep walking through this dark and scary tunnel, hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Not even 48 hours had elapsed from the first thought of buying the old farm and we were already feeling intense time pressure.  It was Tuesday the 17th of July and we felt that the offer would need to be made before the seller came to town 8 days later on the 25th.  That would mean flying out on just a couple days notice and doing an awful lot of additional preparation to submit an offer on time.  How could we be sure this was the right thing to do?  Why would we leave everything behind for an old farm and some extra abandoned land?  If we were sure about our decision, would we have the faith required to take such a plunge forward?  There was so much to consider.

Sunday we were to pack up to go home. We had planned to go to church in the morning with the rest of the family that was still around. It looked like we would have to either skip or leave early to pack our things and check out of the hotel. We came up with an alternate plan. We would sit through Sacrament meeting, drop the kids off at their classes and go back to quickly pack up and return for the 3rd hour.

When we returned to church, the lesson was on obedience. I recall hearing about Abraham and the commandment he received to take his only son to offer as a sacrifice. In teaching about Abraham’s obedience it was pointed out that he did not question but followed with blind faith. Of course an angel stopped him from sacrificing his only son, but not until after he had proven his faith.

There were other discussions that talked about the times when we need to have blind faith from time to time when we don’t know how something will work out but we obey a commandment anyway. I think there is a distinct difference between blind faith and just walking blindly. There was something special about the lessons taught that day at church in Oregon that carried through the remainder of the day.

After church and lunch at my uncle’s, we headed back home with a stop at my mom’s house. I was able to ask my aunt again about what options we had to consider if we were to attempt to purchase the property. I left with my family, thinking that we would contact an attorney to get an idea for what the requirements would be to purchase as a group. On the road, I called an attorney that we knew to ask about our options. Before finishing the call, my wife got the impression that the discussion was unnecessary because we were supposed to buy the property and move there.

Huh? How was that supposed to work? It started to feel right and that was terrifying. The lesson on obedience and blind faith came to mind. If it were the right thing to do, it would certainly require faith and a lot of hard work.

We had a two hour drive to try and talk some sense into eachother. As the drive continued, the impressions we were getting now seemed unmistakeable. I called our old bishop who had married us 4 years ago to ask for a blessing. For those unfamiliar with asking for blessings, a person with the authority of the Priesthood can place their hands on another’s head who is sick or otherwise in need of counsel, comfort, or healing. We wanted to seek additional inspiration and confirmation before pursuing anything so life changing. Because it was getting late, that blessing would take place the following morning…

The recent rollercoaster began with our recent trip to my family reunion in Oregon. Months ago, my wife made it clear that she was not interested in attending a family reunion where we would have to drive 3 children several hours to a place I would see family members I never speak to much anyway and where I would likely get caught up interacting with people she doesn’t know while she tries to keep up with the kids by herself. I understood where she was coming from and it wasn’t so important to me that I would really try to convince her to go. It surprised me when out of the blue one day, she told me to get a hotel reservation and to RSVP for the reunion. Since the reunion was on my birthday, she wanted to give me the opportunity to go.

It’s never really easy to take an infant, a toddler, and a 7 year old on a road trip. In May, we had a tough enough time as we took a weekend to travel to Portland. After the May road trip, my wife vowed to never go to Portland again and to never take another road trip with the kids again. This time we planned it differently. On the last trip, we left at 3pm and got stuck several times in rush hour traffic between Seattle and Olympia. The kids also got long naps making it impossible to get them to sleep at the hotel before 11 pm. This time, we left after 7 pm so if the kids fell asleep after an hour or two, it was bedtime anyway so it would be easier to get them to sleep. Traffic is also much easier after 7. The drive was mostly pleasant. As we approached Portland, we were treated to a beautiful lightning display. This lasted for several miles.

Friday, July 13th was our first full day in Oregon. We started our day by heading to Lincoln City from our hotel in Keizer. We found a great place to let the kids play on the beach.

After some time at the beach, we went to my uncle’s house to have dinner and visit with family members in his backyard. During the visit, one of my aunts mentioned the farm that my mom’s uncle lived on for many years in upstate New York. After he passed away in 2004, it became necessary for his wife to move out. Now there is an interested buyer in the house and a portion of the 75 acres. The remaining land would be split up and sold. There are members of the family that wanted to find a way to pool resources to purchase the property so it doesn’t leave the family. I knew I couldn’t exactly put a whole lot of money or effort into it but I wanted in on whatever idea someone came up with.

The next day was my birthday. We spent much of the day at the state park where the family reunion was held. I had a couple conversations about the property but the prospects weren’t very good. There were just the beginnings of ideas without any plan of what steps we would take. After leaving the park, we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and ended up at a Mexican restaurant for dinner with my cousin and his family. It was the best Mexican food I had ever tasted.

The next day things would start getting really interesting. I was approaching one of the biggest pivotal moments of my life without even realizing it…

I had just started to get on a roll with posting the stupid punchlines for Last Comic Standing.  Since I am on the west coast where the show is broadcast 3 hours later than it is on the east coast, I had to pay for the jokes and their punchlines through text messages in order to post them here on time.  A couple weeks ago, I sent one of these text messages and instead of the usual overpriced punchline, I got this: “NBC LCS Punchline is no longer active.  Reply MORE for a joke a day for $2.99/month.”  I couldn’t believe it.  My evil plan worked.  By posting the punchlines for free here, I managed to take away all the would be paying customers, convincing them to get the punchlines here instead.

How about Dairy Queen?  I posted earlier about my frustration with their debit card policies.  I have since visited a different local Dairy Queen with very different results.  Not only do they not have a cardboard sign informing me of a ridiculous fee for credit cards, the total on the receipt matched the total they told me at the drive thru.  Speaking of these stupid fees, I can understand preferring cash over credit or debit card because of the cost of processing.  But charging the customer extra for using a card rather than cash is bad business practice.  Rather than charging 50 cents to accept debit, Dairy Queen needs to factor in that cost when pricing their products.  It may seem like a great idea to pass on the cost to the consumer but imposing fees drives away business.  If I see a fee for making a purchase, I will be much less likely to return.  If that cost has to be passed on to me, raise the price of your products instead.  If my $10 order changes to a $12 order because the prices go up, I will return and just pay more.  If it goes up because I pay with debit, I will make every reasonable effort to avoid returning (until my wife gets a craving).  I always feel like I am being scammed when I am charged fees.  Enough about my rant.  I was just going to say that the other DQ is way better.  There are no extra fees.  The best part is that their entire staff seemed competent.  I receive much faster and much better service at the Juanita DQ than the Bothell DQ.  In fact, the Juanita DQ is the only one I have ever had fast service.

Over the next several days, I will be posting about some huge changes that are underway in my family.  There are some experiences that I have had that are very personal that I ordinarily wouldn’t make public.  They will be written for me so I can have a place to look back and remember the events leading to these changes.  If you feel like reading along, it’s actually a rather fascinating story.  The beginning will probably be posted later today.

So is the iPhone worth it?  Ok, the phone is so worth it, I actually jump up and down out of excitement when I realize I need to make a phone call.  The phone is actually underhyped if that is possible.  After using the iPhone, I go back to my Windows Mobile based smart phone and just get frustrated.  The iPhone is so easy to use, my 3 year old has already figured out how to play her favorite YouTube videos and then bookmark them for later.

I called my brother right after signing up for AT&T and asked if he was happy with his service since he switched to Cingular.  He asked why so I told him that I got an iPhone.  He laughed so loud my wife could hear him from the other side of the car.  He said he hoped I was embarrassed.  For what?  The iPhone is my greatest impulse purchase I have ever made.  Apparently getting an iPhone on day 1 is “geeky” or something.  Ok I register domain names as a hobby and when I have free time I like to play Sudoku.  I could go on and on but I don’t think that the iPhone adds to my geekiness.

A couple hours ago, I posted about buying 4 phones and not knowing what we would do with them. I changed my mind and only bought 2 phones. I don’t think they will completely sell out and don’t really want to spend all night finding someone to pay extra so they can use it tonight. We may just use them as separate business lines.

There they are. I don’t know what it is about them, but I couldn’t let the night go on without having a couple of them in my house tonight.

So what should I do…sell them? Switch to AT&T? Keep my current provider and get a new AT&T plan? I kinda want to open one up right now to see how cool it really is.

Now, I have no plans for the phones yet, so if you are interested, send me an email to iphone@misterrandom.com. If you live within 100 miles of Seattle and offer a comparable price to what they sell for on ebay, I will drive you one tonight. Otherwise, it can be shipped overnight anywhere or picked up from me anytime this weekend. I don’t expect anyone to email me about the phone, but you’re welcome to.

Speaking of stocks, I think the stock market sucks. That’s why I have been glued to the stock charts non-stop since I started buying stocks last month. I’ve made nearly 100 trades and overall haven’t lost money yet. I intend on documenting fully all of my trades and eventually posting my trades along with my justification for each trade on my blog. No, it’s not meant to bore you (all two of you original readers plus the 10 people who googled the stupid tortilla joke). I’m giving myself the opportunity to look back at my stock buying decisions and see more clearly where I have made mistakes.

If I’m bored, I’ll post an update, otherwise I’ll post a review of the iPhone tonight.