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Thursday, April 11, 2013

Introducing The Senior Family from Williston ND

Hi All!  I am doing it,  I have started to blog,( it feels so good to write it finally)I have been warning the world that this was going to happen...So I will introduce us and then let the Blogging begin... The economy in CA wasn't the best and my husband and I were trying to come up with ideas to make enough money to support our family and STOP worrying about where the next paycheck was coming from.  We were told about North Dakota and that it was the answer to many of our problems.  After seeing an Episode of Rock Center with Brian Williams and Harry Smith (October 2011), we were convinced that we should at least EXPLORE the possibility... you will find that Ray and I don't leave many stones unturned.  We are a family full of drive and personality and our sense of humor is sometimes taken the wrong way but we enjoy every moment of life that is presented to us and have in turn given that drive to our children.  After a 1600 mile drive to North Dakota, without hotel reservations, but a job fair to attend, we took the leap!  (The kids were at home with the grandparents) If you do not know already, Williston ND has a housing issue...a HUGE housing issue, people were living in their cars, bringing campers and trailers and living in the Walmart parking lot and even if someone could afford a hotel room that didn't mean they would find one.  Many people who work in the oil patch live in "Mancamps"( equal to a FEMA type trailer that people use for emergency situations like a tornado ETC) feel they are lucky to have that housing and have made it a permanent situation, some companies even pay for that employees housing there.  Those are people who are not really members of our community because they travel back home to their families during their days off.  Sorry, Back to the Jobfair/hunt... We came to town, found a Hotel room (lucky) and Ray interviewed with the company he works for now, a Natural Gas processing plant.  Blessed beyond belief he was offered the job...not on the spot though, which is what we kind of expected from the newscasts and other research we had done.  We had to travel back to Ca and go back to our lives and wait for all of the background checks and Drug Testing results and final job offers etc.  It was over 6 weeks before we had the final answer that he had the job and yes he did get housing on a temporary basis.  The minute he got to town he found a community that was under construction and we signed contracts and got our house started.  This is March 2012, We have everything planned out to move September 2012 so the kids can start school and I can start a job that I have my eye on working for Williams County.  There were so many problems with the builder of our house...that from CA I felt like I was the Superintendent on the job... That is a whole other Blog for another day.  The kids ended up having to start the school year, renew all of their relationships and then I had to yank them out of school to move in the end of January... Wow that trip with 4 kids Logan 15, pissed about moving away from his new High School friends, Dillon 14 Happy go lucky boy who has the newest soul and is game for anything, Mirada 12 who has preteen angst and was in tears about 1500 of the 1600 miles about leaving her best friends, Sydney 10 who is sassy and is nicknamed Hurricane Sydney, because she leaves a disaster in her wake... Then there are the cats who were in individual carriers in the back of "Sheila" (our family Land Rover who, yes is a member of the family) Smitty, is a tabby who doesn't like people and Bubbles who adopted us last year by coming to our door one day and walked in (after a search for her family) she became part of the Senior Clan.  We drove through a White Out Storm, we had rain all the way and I had several occasions where I had to diagnose and fix an issue with Sheila as well as flip out on the kids for fighting and sneak cats into hotels 3 nights in a row hoping we wouldn't be discovered OR kicked out!  I will never forget the feeling of overwhelming relief when I drove up to our new home... That was OUR House...for OUR  little family only... it is going to be filled with OUR things and I don't have to share space or have someone else live in our home!  Then the waterworks started flowing...there he was... my husband standing on our brand new porch to greet us along with an entire 54 foot moving truck filled to the limit! But we made it... and so the adventure begins...

6 comments:

  1. Nice start Deanna. We can't wait to read the next instillation.

    Jefe

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  2. Sign your comment so I know who u are 1st and 2nd...

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  3. Sign your comment so I know who u are 1st and 2nd...

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  4. Great blog to read, very interesting :)

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  5. Hello Deanna, I'm from sunny California too. I do miss it there. I'd like to ask you, how did you find this job fair in Williston from Cali and how did your husband find this company and got the job without oil field experience and with an added bonus of having a home in Williston. I went to the employment department and I'm looking for training to be hire first. I wonder if the company your husband works for has openings or others with the same job title that I could apply and perhaps get a place so that I can bring my family here. Carl Castell

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