'twas meant to be!

 Goodness, this quote is perfect for so many aspects of life!

So I've talked a lot about our move to Arizona for Eric's new job... but I never shared how it all came about. It's kind of a roller coaster of a story and I still have a hard time believing everything worked out the way it did! It's kind of a long story but I'll do my best to condense it because it really is fun to hear :)

One day Eric came home from work (just a couple weeks after starting his new job in Utah after his old company closed their doors) saying he received a phone call from Arizona. He'd never heard of the company and had no idea how he got their number. After he googled the company (and realized it was legit) he called them back the next day. He was invited down to interview but Eric asked for a phone interview on the spot "so that we don't waste each others time" ha ha. He wanted to discuss his expectations and the company's expectations before traveling all that way. Eric was totally (brutally) honest with his expectations and the man replied with "you are exactly what I've been looking for!" I mean, Eric's resume is impressive for his age, and I'm not biased or anything ;)
After agreeing to go down for an interview, Eric received a call a couple days later from the HR girl where they offered to fly him down... what?! We've never had a company offer to pay our way to interview! And what does Eric say? "Naw, I'll just drive!" Oh brother! The interview was set for Friday at noon. We were going to go down and make a weekend out of it, but decided at the last minute that he would go down and back in the same day because we had family coming into town for the weekend.
We assumed that Arizona was an hour behind Utah time, so if he left at 4:30am that would get him there with 45-60 minutes to spare. Eric got up at 4:00am and left around 4:20. Just after passing St. George, Utah you cross the Arizona state border for a few minutes, before entering Nevada. When he crossed into Arizona, Eric checked the time on his phone... and noticed THE TIME DIDN'T CHANGE! He called and told me the news and we were both totally kicking ourselves for not double checking time zones, HA! So now instead of having an hour to spare, there was no room for mistakes or Eric would miss his interview! (I also wanted to kick him for not accepting the flight, ha ha!) Of course the stress of time mixed with early morning Las Vegas traffic caused Eric to accidentally take the wrong exit, which made it even harder to back track through Vegas to get to the correct one. Mistake #1.
Eric made up time when he could but he had to stop for gas. Of course the credit card machine was broken at his pump, so he had to pre pay. He guessed too low so he had to stop for gas later down the road. Mistake #2.
At 11:40 he let me know he was 8 miles away from his destination. Hallelujah! Those were some stressful hours watching each minute tick by!
Around 12:20 Eric called me and I knew something was wrong. There was no way they had him travel hundreds of miles for a 20 minute interview. He told me that the HR girl (who was located in Colorado) had given him the "old" address, so he had been sitting at the wrong location! Luckily, this wasn't our fault! But the office manager informed him that they were going to have to reschedule because he would be so late, and it was a crazy day at work. WHAT? Eric informed her that he would absolutely not be able to reschedule considering he'd just driven hundreds of miles to be there. She made the connection of who he was and said that they would definitely make it work and gave him the address. But when he called me, he was driving on a dirt road that was so muddy he couldn't stop, or he would get stuck. Did I mention he was in the middle of nowhere and totally lost? (Still wanting to kick him for not flying down!) After being shut down when I asked why he didn't ask for directions (men!) I gave him a quick lesson on Siri (maps) on his brand new iPhone and we hung up. Mistake # 3. The stress was back, man! Eric called me back at 1:30pm letting me know he finally arrived. In case you forgot... his interview was at noon. He was an hour and a half late!
I just knew there was no way he was getting this job! What a waste of a day and a waste of my emotions, ha ha! I had totally convinced myself that this wasn't going to work out, too many obstacles! But Eric called me after his meeting feeling totally confident that he would be happy there, knowing he had landed the job even though we had to wait for an official offer via email.
Even after hearing how sure Eric was that it worked out, I was still totally shocked when Eric received his official offer and seeing all the incentives they gave Eric to pick up his family and move. They really did want him! Thank heavens everything else fell into place for our move so smoothly... my nerves wouldn't have been able to handle any more obstacles, ha ha!

In case you're wondering, we moved here at the craziest time for work so Eric is working a ton, but he is happy! So I'm happy! I'm anxiously awaiting things to calm down so that we can go explore and play and really soak up the fun Arizona has to offer though :)