Our family refers to this summer as A-Bomb Summer. It’s the summer when everything blew up, changing all at once! Here is a quick list of all of our shifts in just the last three months.

• We decided to adopt again
• Adopting meant we needed to move to have a house that is more wheelchair friendly
• We bought a house
• We sold a house
• We moved
• Moving meant the kids changed schools
• My company was acquired, which changed my:
  • Job
  • Commute
  • Team

Over two months, we changed almost every major thing in our lives. This shift has reminded me of a few core values of our family.

Decide quickly and act decisively

Most of the decisions my wife and I have made over the years have been quick ones. Not hasty decisions, but fast in recognizing what was needed, and moving to action immediately. Deciding to move was one of those moments for us.

We had been talking for a few weeks about the adoption and how we would fit this new addition into our home. The problem was that our new son has a walker and wheelchair and our home at the time had a pull under garage in the basement with lots of stairs to get up. At first, we planned to retrofit our home to meet his needs, but as we thought about it over time, that seemed more and more untenable.

So, on a Friday we decided that we had to move to accommodate our new son’s needs. On Saturday we went out looking at houses. On Sunday, we put an offer on the perfect home for us. On Monday we had a contract. That progression might sound crazy, but it’s pretty typical with how we have done things for our whole marriage, and I love it!

Being able to make a decision quickly, not just to buy a house but on which house to buy, gave us an edge that other people didn’t have, and is the only reason we got our ideal home. If we had hesitated, even for a day, I would not be writing this post from this particular home; we would have lost it.

Being able to act decisively, with incomplete information, has also been an enormous asset for us. Once we make a decision, we go all in and never look back or second guess it. It allows us to move quickly, but more than that, it keeps us pressing forward towards our goals, never stuck in the past.

Embrace Change

Change is never easy, but it is constant. So, we embrace it. My wife doesn’t really like change, but she knows it’s needed in our lives and does a fantastic job marching through it.

I like change. I love how it mixes things up, shifts things around, and forces me to adapt and improve. I feel like change keeps me on my toes and makes me a better, more well-rounded person.

I never thought we would leave our last home. I never wanted to leave our street with the most amazing neighbors. I fully expected to live in that house until all of the kids were out of it. Then we opened our hearts to adopt again, and everything changed. And I couldn’t be happier about all of it.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash