The Return to Alaska

We started making preparations to move back to Alaska, and since my now adult brother was getting married and we would back for the wedding, it was a perfect opportunity to start applying for jobs. My husband worked for a yellow pages publishing company in New York and just before we left for Alaska we found on monster.com a similar job in Anchorage. So Ryan applied for it and let them know we would be in town and he would be available for interviews. We came for the wedding and heard nothing from this company.

We got back to Buffalo and about 30 minutes after getting home the company called Ryan for an interview. Turns out they have an office in Rochester and were able to interview him there and what do you know - he got the job! So our plans were kicked into full speed and a month later we were sending Ryan off in an airplane to Alaska, leaving Hope and me to sell our furniture and pack up our lives once again to hit the road. Hope, me and our dog drove from Buffalo to Wasilla in 7 days, stopping to sight-see and sleep.

We arrived back in Wasilla in October of 2002. 5 years to the day of when we left. My mom had bought a house a few years earlier in Wasilla, but she was now living alone since my brother had gotten married and moved to Anchorage. So we moved in temporarily with my mom into her 4 bedroom home. She worked two jobs so was rarely home, so it really worked out well for all of us. We had planned to build a new house at some point. I went back to work for the process serving company that I had worked for before moving, which had now expanded enormously in the Valley.

During the housing boom in 2005 we started looking at building a house. What I really wanted was a house in the same neighborhood my mom lived in, since my daughter went to school nearby at Larson Elementary. After some discussion, we all realized that what we should do is buy my mom's house, and SHE should build a new house, since what she really wanted was something totally different than what she had. So, that's what we did. In our endeavor to reach this decision, I also decided I was ready for a career change. A friend had sold her house the year before and we had talked about how realtors didn't really follow through and sure seemed to get paid a lot for what little they did! So I thought, I'll get my license, make a bunch of money, and do a much better job since I'll actually care about my clients!

I took the class in January of 2005, but decided that with my mom building, and us buying, it was a bad time to change careers. So I waited until the end of 2005 to get my license. My license came in on December 30, 2005.