Ok so I realize that I have been a pathetic blogger for well.....a year. But it has been an insane year. We spent every free minute of January, February & March gearing up to put our house on the market. All the while, staying active in kids activities, work and all that goes with life.
Having the house on the market brought about a different way of life, always teetering on every call thinking it could be a showing and life would get thrust into hyper gear to get cleaned and get out. We knew that the housing market wasn't good but we hoped that God had a plan us to find a new house.
All summer he taught us patience :) As summer came to an end and we pondered all the vacation time that Michael hadn't used since we were saving it for our "move" that didn't come. Michael's parents suggested that we take a family vacation to Disney since the kids were the perfect ages. We locked in our vacation for the first week of November and hoped for the best.
Fall brought loads of school activities and of course school! Lots of work for our now 4th grader and 1st grader. Fall also brought a deluge of house showings. I was starting to think that taking the house off the market would be great for my stress level. I prayed about it and had a clear feeling that we should keep it on the market and we renewed our contract until December 1st. All the while I just kept thinking..."what if we do get an offer?--this is the busiest time of year and we have a vacation planned--it would be chaos!" but I trusted that God had a plan.
My friend had a baby in August and I was dying to meet this sweet little girl. I thought we might have a family trip to Colorado, but it just didn't seem to work out with timing. Over a weekend we made a crazy decision and found cheap flights for the kids and I to fly and spend time with my friend for five days. Just five days after booking the flights we got an offer on our house! It was a low-ball offer but it was the first offer. We weren't sure it would go anywhere but after negotiating back and forth it all came together while I was relaxing in Colorado. Little did I know that it was the last relaxing I would have for weeks.
We got home from Colorado and went straight into house hunting. We had a time clock ticking in order to get house closings to match up. We had 10 days to find a house before Disney. After a lot of looking and a lot of praying we found a house. Somehow we were able to get it inspected and offers finalized the day before our vacation. Praise God!
Vacation was amazing. We all had a great time and came home exhausted from seeing the wonder of Disney over 7 full days. I will post pics promise.
We came home with just over 2 weeks to pack up a house. In those two weeks we also fit in a birthday party for Dominic (because he insisted on having it in the old house)and Thanksgiving. Michael's family was so sweet to come to us and share Thanksgiving and help us pack up. This was the first time since Dominic was born that we haven't been in Springfield for Thanksgiving. It wasn't as festive but at least we were all together.
With the help of friends, my parents and Michael's family (and a moving company) we were able to get everything moved by November 30th. We started off the season of Advent in a new amazing home. I have been battling a bad cough and the overwhelming amount of boxes mixed in with the fun of the holiday season and catching up on school.
So in time I DO hope to get back to posting all of the fun that was mixed in with the busy year that we have just been through.
We feel so incredibly blessed by God's generosity this past year. I am looking forward to catching my breath and enjoying the Christmas season.
Wishing you all the best in the New Year.
Merry Christmas
