Tennessee

We spent one week visiting Coralee's sister Yvonne & Craig. They have four really cool kids too. They just moved to Tennessee from California a year ago and have been persuading us to come move near them.

After being there a week we decided to move there for a number of reasons. Both of us would be closer to family. Besides Coralee's sister in Knoxville, her other sisters are based in Ohio and Michigan. Jason's parents live in Alabama about 4-5 hours away. And Coralee's parents live in Florida near Orlando about 10 hours away. Coralee loves the mountains and would love to live back there. We're also hoping to start a family and would love to be close to our family and be able to afford a home if God blesses us with kids.

This brings us to the other reason we decided to leave: economics. We can rent a one bedroom apartment for $425/month while in California the average rent is about $1000-$1200 for something comparable. We saw houses that cost a lot less and we could buy a 3 bedroom house for $130,000 on 2 acres in a beautiful area on the edge of town. We can't touch that in California right now.

Finally, it seems that we would be earning about the same money or more out there. Jason is hoping to teach History. There are about 600 openings this coming year in Knox County School District due to retirement. He could obtain his credential in two years while teaching as well.
Coralee is hoping to start at Kohls and look into working at an affiliated Apartment Complex as a Leasing Agent.

Please pray for us as this is a big change and we are going to be leaving family and friends. Jason has aunts, uncles and cousins in Apple Valley & Victorville. Also all Jason's friends from High School, College & CCV and teaching are in Southern California. Even though we are venturing into an exciting future it is emotionally hard for him to leave.