Our Pool

When we were searching for houses, our kids fell in love with our current neighborhood primarily because of the pool! It was not a must have when searching for homes, but it sure is nice that we have one now. I grew up in my grandparent's pool, and have been sad that my children have not really had access to one. (That didn't cost an arm and a leg anyway!)

When we found out when the closing would be, we knew we would be at the very end of the pool season here in NC. Thankfully the last week the pool was open, most other kids were already back in school. Our family had the pool all to ourselves for the last week! We had so much fun and can't wait till the pool opens again next year! On our last day I finally remembered to bring my camera.

Our Move: Part 3 (New House)

Friday Aug. 30th we moved into our new house. We gained a much bigger backyard, over 1000 more sq feet, a garage, and an amazing community pool with a wading kids area and slides! :) Thank you Lord for this amazing provision!

Luke and Gracie got to go visit with friends for the day and Ben, Jacob, and Caleb stayed to be our helpers!

Having lunch in our new house for the firsts time!

Thankfully, this time we had our friend Andy to help Jeff unload most of the truck. Then Jeff's brother Tim and his wife Gretchen also came down to help for the weekend. We are so grateful for all the help we received to make this move happen.

The favorite part of course is helping Daddy and Uncle Tim go up on the lift gate of the truck! :)

Here are a few highlights of our new house:

Caleb loves the slick floors. His siblings get to push him all over the downstairs with ease.

It is starting to feel like home. We have books unpacked! :)

We have a dining room and a breakfast nook. The breakfast nook is slowly turning into our school area.

We also have a counter with bar stools, which the kids love!

There are lots of projects to help Daddy with like hanging up towel racks and medicine cabinets. This house, although wonderful, is missing a LOT of things which we will slowly try to update.

Gracie says that Baby brothers are not all that bad if they don't mind riding on pink carriages! :)

The backyard is definitely the highlight for the kids. (Mommy personally loves all the walk in closets and huge laundry room, and Daddy likes the garage.)

The kids call our backyard, "the zoo" because of all the lovely creatures they have been finding. The very first day Jacob handed me something saying, "Look Mommy." I held out my hand and then tried not to scream when he was handing me a huge caterpillar! :) Our house backs up to a wooded area and trails (which we have already enjoyed as well). Luke and Ben and Gracie spend hours hunting down all manner of bugs and lizards and other assorted "treasures".  We did discover that after it rains we have a ton of tiny frogs that cover our back sliding door. The kids were enthralled. Mommy, not so much. But, for the sake of my children and learning about God's creation, I can put on an honest smile! :)

Check out this pool! Sadly we moved into our new house at the very end of the season but we made good use of the pool until it closed!
So that is our new home. We are all set for new memories and adventures to come. We are slowly but surely starting to get our head above the boxes to feel like it is becoming home.

Our Move: Part 2 (The Beach)

When we were in the process of finding a new home things moved so quickly. So quickly that we were not able to find a new house in time to have simultaneous closings. With a few days of being "homeless" in between moves, we had looked into hotels close by. Then we thought, "If we have to pay for a hotel, why not make it a vacation instead?" We researched options, and decided to take the family (including Jeff's parents) to the beach! We had never taken the kids to the beach and they were SO excited!

We found an amazing beach condo to rent while we were homeless. Looking back now, I am so thankful God knew what was best for us. I don't think any of us would have survived if we had simultaneous closings and had to pack and unpack a truck in back to back days.

It was night time when we arrived and put the kids to bed. They were so excited to wake up and see the sun rising over the ocean from our porch. It was so relaxing and restorative for all of us after such a stressful week.
 

The benefit of the condo over a hotel in Raleigh was that we also had a fully stocked kitchen and a washer and dryer!

Caleb found my stash of fruit in the fridge and helped himself to a peach. He loved it and screamed when we tried to take it away! :)

Breakfast on the outside porch. Can you tell Gracie is ready to go hit the waves?

The kids absolutely LOVED the beach! They had such a blast playing in the sand and water. We went to Ocean Isle beach which was perfect. It was not overcrowded or "touristy" at all. Here is a bunch of photos of our fun.

 Jacob was absolutely fearless in the water. This of course scared us. He would get hit by a wave in the face and jump up with a smile for more.

Enjoying lunch at the bar stools in the condo.

Of course we had to eat seafood while we were there, (Luke's favorite!)

Day 2 at the beach!

Now after all the relaxing it was time to get back to work! We had to leave at 4:30 AM to drive back to Raleigh for the closing on our new house. Despite all the extra work, the beach detour was so much fun and worth it all!