Writing thank you notes

The boxes are unpacked so earlier this week I sat down and made a list of all our friends both there and here that helped us at our time of farewell and moving. I realized how long the list was and decided it would be best to go stock up on thank you notes before beginning. When I sat down to write those notes, I could only write a few before too many tears flowed to continue.
This is the 17th time that I've moved. I knew it would be more difficult because this is the first time I moved with children. There are so many things that were right about moving here-they were exactly what we prayed for before Ram received a Call to be  pastor here. But we have to find all new doctors here after becoming close to several of our doctors in MN. ID has the best homeschooling law in the country but I found out that they are unfriendly to homeschoolers that need services from them like speech therapy. After student teaching in WI, teaching in a school in IN, and sending the Lambs to the public school in MN for speech, this has been surprising to me that all students do not have a "right" to speech. I was so happy to move to a city with stores just down the road instead of a big mall 3 hours away. But the stores here carry different brands and products than they did in MN. I was used to buying specific items in specific stores in specific towns-even if that meant stocking up when we were at that store and only buying some items a few times a year. Even if the stores carry what I'm looking for, I'm not used to where on the shelf it is like it was in MN. Ram is busy at church so I'm navigating my way through traffic in a strange city with 3 Lambs along. (I must say they have been quite the troopers for the shopping that we have done and I've bought them a few McDonald's ice cream cones to say thank you to them.)
When we were in MN I thought this was the perfect time of year to move-our garden was done, etc. Now that we are here, I realize it was a really difficult time to move. In MN I was really busy this time of year-getting ready to go to all the Ladies Aid Christmas parties, Christmas program practice, Christmas caroling, etc. I brought food to almost all those events so I was busy cooking and baking the whole month. Since this is a bigger church there are more people to help. Here others cover almost everything so as pastor's wife I'm not expected to do those things.
Oh, how generous our former members and friends in MN were when we moved. Here they were losing their pastor and his family and unsure what the future held for them as a tri-parish. They helped us pack, brought us food, gave us gifts, and made sure the parsonage was painted/cleaned/repairs made.
So this post was just to say that I miss MN and our friends and church members there. I know that I will get used to ID. I know there are a lot of great things about our new town and our new church and I will get used to it. I know there are a lot of other wives of pastors that have been at this point. I know I will get the thank you notes written. I know I will get used to my new role as wife of the pastor here. But I will be thinking of what our churches in MN would traditionally do on each of the days this month.
On the positive side, a couple from church invited our family over for dinner this week. If I'm not so busy with church activities, this will mean more time to do Christmas activities and baking with the Lambs.