New Place

As requested I am finally posting some pictures from our move - and of our new place.

Moving day went really well.  We started around 8am - and everything was moved over by 1030.  We had lots of wonderful people helping.  I wish the boxes would have unpacked themselves as quickly.  :)

Living Room - the door leads to a big storage closet.

Back the hallway - on the left - closet, nursery, Boys  - Master at the end of the hallway - Bathroom on the right

One of the wonderful women that came and helped clean all the dry wall dust the night before moving day.

Another wonderful woman - this is in the entrance room - Living room through the arch - Kitchen through entrance to the left.

Entrance room at the old house, night before moving.

Katherine chilling on moving day in the new kitchen by the new dishwasher.

Living room getting filled up with stuff.  Door in the back leads to the Guest Bedroom/Exercise Room/ Extra room for whatever needs a home.

Nursery, which has also become a home for the desk and one of our chairs.  Katherine says she doesn't mind.

Master Bedroom.

A special thanks to my mom and Jonathan's aunt for unpacking my kitchen.  And to Jonathan's uncle and cousins for setting up the boys' bunk beds.  I spent most of my energy on getting the boys' room ready.  They were gone for the weekend, and I wanted their room to be unpacked and ready for them to move in.

Now - 3 weeks later, things are starting to get into place.  I've hung a few pictures, and most of the boxes are unpacked.  There are a few big things that need to be done inside, but not too much yet.  I'll post pictures of the furnished and somewhat decorated house later.

New house from the front.  Jonathan built those front steps.

Favorite parts of the house so far - Our new neighbors, TREES!!, hearing the birds, cooking with gas (loving this much more than I thought I would), new refrigerator.  I do miss our old neighbors.  This house has more storage areas and probably just about the same amount of space. (We have tons more room in our master bathroom than we did before.  It's so nice.) but it isn't broken up.  I'm not sure if I do or don't like it yet.  It definitely isn't as quiet in the house as it was before - not that it was really quiet.  But it IS nice to not have to go up and down stairs.  The dogs are especially enjoying that part.

Goodbye House

This weekend we said goodbye to our house of 5 years.  I took some last pictures, and realized that most everything I had taken pictures of were things that Jonathan had built himself.  (Well, with some help. :))

I think that is one of the best things we will take from our time at that house.  We learned so much there.  We grew our family there. We watched our kids grow.  I learned about gardening and canning and much more.

But the great thing is - we don't leave that stuff behind.  We just leave behind the place the learning happened.  I was surprised at how easy it was to leave.  And how easy it is to settle into this new house.  Where we will learn a whole new set of things.  Where we learn all about what it is like to have a girl.  What it is like to have family as close neighbors.  We'll learn more about landscaping and gardening and building.  I can't wait.  And can't wait to share all we do to our new place.

Before I post the pictures, I do want to acknowledge the one thing that we will miss the most.  Our neighbors.  There were several kids right close by that Ohlen loved to play with.  It was a great set up.  They had a lot of fun together, and now we've left.  I can't imagine moving your kids when they are in school and have lots of friends established.  I'm hoping they will still get to see each other here and there.  And actually Ohlen is attending Bible School with one set of neighbors.  And I will probably buy eggs from our one neighbor too - it is nice that we've only moved about 5 minutes away.  It will be really strange to someone else's car in "our" driveway.  Maybe then it will sink in more. :)

And now for the pictures.  Some of the things we added ourselves that I'm the most proud of.

Crazy Times

So, we have a new baby.  And a new address.  Or we will after this weekend.

It has been pretty crazy.  Jonathan has been working his tail off trying to take care of everything with the move, plus keeping up with his normal job, and dealing with all the stresses of a new baby and a wife that can't help much.

I've been feeling pretty useless as far as stuff for the move goes.  I can do a little here and there, but I know immediately when I'm starting to do too much - and really I can't do a whole lot without that feeling coming on.  It is so frustrating.

I don't know what I would do without my mom.  She has taken off a couple days this week to help pack things up and take care of the boys.  She has gotten so much done!!  I try to help out a little, but like I said, I can't do much yet.  I can tell I'm starting to heal, and I really have to watch myself or I will go backwards.

I am so excited to be in our new place.  It is definitely a bit smaller, but there are so many things there that we don't have here.  We will have much more closet space (although, we are losing a basement).  There are just little nice things here and there.  Like a built in medicine cabinet on the sides of the bathroom mirror.  A lovely pantry type unit that is just itching to be filled with all our food and canning supplies.  Plus there are all new appliances.  OH and a kitchen faucet with a sprayer.  And a corner shower with a rain fall head thing that I can't wait to try out.  Just some little things to excite me. :)

We are currently waiting on some inspections to happen - and then we will be free to officially move in.  We have to be out of our current house by Monday.

Actually typing that out kind of makes me sad.  I am going to miss this place.  We've done so much here.  Our kids have been through some major milestones here.  So many of the little things about this place we did ourselves, and that is hard to leave behind.  I'm guessing there will be some tears shed the last time I am here.

37

Today I'm officially 37 weeks along. Which means little girl is officially full term. Noah was born at 37 weeks. We were so surprised when he came that early. This time I find myself expecting her to come a little early. Which is never a good idea. I've been feeling pretty miserable in that I can't move around very easily.

The house stuff is coming right along, and I'm getting more and more nervous about the timing of everything. Which is another reason I'm getting anxious for her to be here.

I will probably be induced a little early, maybe 5 days, and I'm nervous about that too. So much to pray about right now, and prepare for.

Boxes are slowly being packed, and it is becoming more real that we are actually moving. It's bittersweet really.

Shocked

Our house is sold. Well I think the technical term is under contract.

5 days after signing papers to put it on the market, we signed a purchase agreement.

Shocked, amazed, blessed, thankful, so very thankful

Date of possession is the day after my due date.  Yikes.

I've been praying this whole time for contentment with whatever timing God chooses for this.  And I am.  Completely content.  Despite that Yikes up there.  It is more of a smiling laughing yikes, rather than an actually scared nervous yikes.

We are in a frenzy trying to get our new place on a roll.  Trying to plan, choose, make decisions.

I've been feeling pretty nostalgic.  Thinking about all the great memories from the last 5 years in this house. (took these pictures on the day we staged for the pictures for the realtor.  It really isn't usually this tidy. :))

Dining room area - countless board games, lots of laughter, Noah's first diaper change at home that resulted in a fountain sprinkling the table, teaching little ones to eat.  The stairs - Just images in my head of the boys learning to go up and down and just sliding down on their bellies.

Oh, the bathroom. Originally the wrong paint color, the struggle to keep it clean. :)  Potty training....  Had I ever blogged about the cupboard?  Jonathan added that several months ago - it's great.

I don't think this room need any explanation.  :) This little girl may or may not get to sleep here.

So many things baked and cooked here.  I will miss my countertops, but looking forward to more space.  Especially more storage space.  And the island I will be getting. (over the moon excited for this)

I'll keep this space updated as we progress through this process.  On this week's agenda is talking to banks and the house people.  Jonathan also has jury duty this week.  And we will celebrate Noah's second birthday.  Should be busy and fun. :)

Sane?

We have a new piece of lawn decor...

Yep, our house is on the market...again...  This will be the third time we've attempted to sell a house.  The first time we were hugely successful.  The 2nd... not so much. We're hoping and praying that this time goes smoother.


So yes, we're moving.  No overseas aspirations this time.  Nothing Earth shattering.  Nothing my mom will be distraught over the thought of. (love you Mom!)  Several months ago we purchased a plot of land from Jonathan's grandma.  The land is part of the property where Jonathan's dad grew up.  His grandma and Uncle's family live right there as well.  They will be our only real close neighbors.  Luckily, we all like each other (so far, right? :-D)  Ohlen is super excited and is insisting that our new house is going to be blue.  Noah has no clue, but I have a feeling that living next to his great Uncle that will give into his requests for "Brrm Brrm Ride (brrm brrm = tractor) will be fine with him.

How do I feel about it all?  I'm excited.  I love my house, the land, and our neighbors.  But change like this doesn't scare me anymore.  God is with me where ever on this planet we live.  And as long as my family is coming along - that's home to me.  I'm excited about having more trees around, and building a tree house with the kids.  I'm excited about picking out colors and things for the new place.  I'm excited about saving more money, because we are downsizing.  I have to admit, when Jonathan first mentioned putting in a manufactured home, I was very skeptical.  But, the more we researched, the more we really fell in love with the idea.  The one we are looking at will have about the same square footage as our house now.  The outside walls will actually be thicker.  AND they include a new appliance package with the house, and can I just tell you how exciting that is.  (such a nerd)  Plus - Jonathan will be closer to work.  We will be closer to church.  And we will be closer to family.  We'll have to learn the balance there, you know? But I think we'll get it.  There is so much I can learn from the women that will be living steps from my front door, about life and about other things like canning, gardening, and other various things of that nature.  And I hope I will be able to bless them in return as well.  And hope that my children don't drive them all insane.

Ok, so this is getting long, feel free to skim right over. :)

As for the question of sanity.  As most of you very well know, I am currently 32 weeks pregnant.  If we sell tomorrow, we would be moving into our new place in about a month and a half (there abouts)  That's about two weeks before I am due...  Allow me to remind you that  Noah came 3 weeks early.   If the house sells in a month...  that will be terribly interesting.  We sell in 2 - 3 months, we'll be trying to pick new house things with a newborn.  Sell in 3+ months we will be showing the house with a newborn, attempting to keep the house all cleaned up with a newborn, toddler, and preschooler.  Pray for us - pray hard. :-D  But really, we've been here before.  We moved into this house when Ohlen was about a month old.  We had to paint all the walls and stain all the woodwork.  None of that this time (THANK goodness)  I am wiser in the ways of babies this time, and in the ways of keeping myself sane and healthy, so I know my limits.  I am well prepared for months of box living if we have to.  I'm prepared to allow others to come in and help and put my things away, even if they might go places that I wouldn't first choice.  I'm prepared to allow Jonathan to organize the kitchen if I am too busy dealing with a newborn.  I will have plenty of time to reorganize things later.

This insanity also is what had me up at 6am Monday morning finishing the touch up painting. And then cleaning  and staging the entire house for pictures.  It was quite the morning.  Needless to say, I did not do much the rest of the day, and decided to take today off, for the most part, too.  I did some wonderful outside reading while the kids played outside.  It was pretty glorious.

So that is the excitement of our house at the moment.  We would appreciate prayers as we forge ahead.  And if you know anyone in the market for a house..... :-D

New Direction?

As I sit here Jonathan has just left class for the day. Yep, that's right. Jonathan just started taking graduate courses this week in order to get his MBA. It is a 2 year program (as long as he goes during the summer). He had been praying and thinking about it for a while and just decided to go for sure about 3 weeks ago. I've been scrambling to get the financial paperwork in gear, hello FAFSA once again. It hasn't been too terribly bad though. :) He currently has a 3 hour class on Wednesday nights and a 6 hour class every other Saturday morning. I think he is enjoying it so far.

So what does that mean for us and Ireland? Well, it looks like we'll be around for at least 2 years, until he gets his degree. I think he would really hate to leave it half finished, but we also know that if we are led to go, we are prepared to do so. I am hesitant to make any statements about where we will be in a few years, even a few months. Like Proverbs 27:1 says "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." We have no idea what God has in store for us in the next couple of weeks, months, and years. It will be exciting to see where He leads.

On a separate note. I don't know if I have mentioned before how sick Sophie has been. (Our littlest wiener dog) For the past month or so she has been real lethargic, feverish off and on, and really weak/stiff. We had taken her to the vet a few times and her symptoms were not making sense. We treated her for a UTI and that seemed to go away, but the other symptoms didn't. So yesterday when I took her back the vet suggested either going to a specialist, which gets really expensive, or trying the same treatment we did about a year ago when she also had some weird symptoms. Different from what she has this time, but still very strange and not pointing to one thing in particular. (We always knew Sophie was a strange one, we just didn't know it was in so many ways.) So last night we started her on a combo of antibiodics and steroids. This morning we woke to Sophie actually wagging her tail! She hasn't been doing much of that. She willingly went down stairs and she walks around without her tail tucked between her legs, which she has been doing for the past month now. I just can't believe how quick it worked. I'm trying not to be too hopeful incase she relapses after the steroids are done, but it's hard not to be when our Sophie is finally coming back.

Back Home

Well, as of tonight we are officially back home. There is so much room, I'm not sure what to do with myself. :) But I am exhausted. I babysat today and then we packed and moved stuff most of the night. Had some great help and are mostly moved in. There are a few more things I need to get, but we really don't have that much stuff anymore. It's also really quiet, we don't have any TV here.

Only frustrating thing so far is that I tried to call Jonathan using Vonage, and I could hear him fine, but I was breaking up. So we will probably have to get rid of that again. Also I can already tell that the internet is just going to be slower than we are used to at Mom and Dad's. Oh well, I suppose we will survive. :)

Ohlen is already asleep. He is such a trooper. :) He's only 2 and he's already moved 3 times. He was having fun jumping on his new mattress tonight. All we need is a box spring for him and he will have his very own big boy bed. :)

Slowing Down

Well, finally we have some moving news. The past couple months I've been feeling like we are running a race. And we've been sprinting. Giving it our all, no looking back. And then a few weeks ago we hit the wall, we stumbled, crashed and burned. It just all seemed to be falling apart. We weren't sure what was going on. Surely if we were supposed to be doing this, it would be easier. Surely our faith, our giving it all, selling so much, would be rewarded with the house selling quickly, and for a good price. But we both just learned a lesson about God and about ourselves and about timing. Sometimes we have an idea, that matches God's idea/plan for us, but He has a different time frame than we do. To us a year would seem a long time to wait for something, But really what's a year to God?

So now we are jogging. :) We're still pressing toward the same goal. We're just approaching it differently. We were all set to auction the house at the end of the month. Jonathan talked to the auctioneer and they were kind of put off by the reserve we wanted to put on the place. So today Jonathan went to an auction with a relatively similar property. It didn't go so good. So as of next weekend, we are moving back in. We're going to keep the house on the market until our current contract runs out, then we'll gauge the market and go from there. Don't get me wrong, I love being here with mom and dad. And Ohlen loves it too. But it will be nice to be back in our own place again. Yay for windows!! :)

We are still going to Ireland, it just won't probably be for a while. Maybe in a year, maybe less, maybe longer. It isn't up to us, and that's fine. For the time being we're just glad we know how we are going to be approaching everything.

Thanks to everyone who's been praying for us and thinking about us through all of this. So this blog will probably morph more into just an update about our lives, as exciting as that is.... :) But eventually it will tell about our travels, just not quite yet.

The Waiting Game

Well, not much has been going on in the moving business. We are settled into Mom and Dad's basement again. Nothing much has been going on.

We had one family come and look at the house. Hopefully they will give us a call, but we haven't heard anything yet. He also haven't heard much from anyone on the bike or tractor which is a little frustrating, but we are just trying to be patient. (You all probably know how hard that can be for us.)

And still trying to convince Jonathan to blog... :)

What about the Wieners?

Before I answer the question about the dogs, another question that has come up alot has to do with the time frame for everything. We really have no idea. It all depends on when we sell the house. And then how soon Jonathan can find a job. So simply speaking, about a month after we sell the house, we will probably be off. It's really uncertain as far as specifics.

The dogs have been quite the topic of discussion between Jonathan and I. We are horribly attached to them and can't imagine being without them. On the other hand, it would be so much easier to move and live over there without them. We haven't come to a concrete decision yet. If we leave them, we would want to leave them with someone who wouldn't mind giving them back up when we are back. Also, we would want to keep them together, so that makes it even harder to find someone who would want BOTH wieners. So we have started the process to get them over there. There is a long list of things and lots of paper work that has to be done before they can go over. OR you can just take them, but then they have to be quarantined for 6 months, which would cost about 2,500 Euros per dog. So, probably about $7,000, plus 6 months separation. Not ideal in any sense of the word. So we are looking at OptionB.

The other options involves:
Getting them microchipped - check
Rabies vaccines - check
Blood test a month later to check for rabies antibodies
PAPERWORK
Wait 6 months
24-48 hours before lift off - tapeworm, tick, flea prevention

And there are many different regulations about what, when, where they can fly in. Crate size, Temperature of take off city. When they get over they have to go directly to a vet in Dublin to get checked out before they are finally released and then are happy Irish wieners.

Such a crazy set of stuff to go through. But Ireland - well all of the UK - have been rabies free for 100 years, and they aren't crazy about bringing it back. I just wish they would let you count the rabies vaccinations that they got before being microchipped, but that's not how it works. Oh well. This route should still be tons cheaper than the quarantine route.

Ireland Blog Take 1

Welcome to the new shiny blog. :) I hope to keep everyone updated on our plans and then later, news from Ireland. The plan is to load the blog up with pictures and videos. Maybe I'll even be able to convince Jonathan to do some posting as well... Ryan, you might have to do some convincing too.

So, I figure the most appropriate start to this blog would be to explain a little about this adventure we are about to take part in. I'll try to make it a short story, but it really isn't a quick tale, but I'll try.

Basically ever since Jonathan and I started dating we talked about so many different places that would be cool to live. We even talked seriously about moving to some different places. Some of them were Canada, Montana, Florida, Germany, Scotland, North Ohio, and now Ireland. Some of those weren't very serious discussions, well most weren't, obviously, since we didn't move. So I guess the idea of moving out of the area hasn't been far from our mind. Not that we don't like it here, we really do, but we just have a pull/call to go elsewhere. Which leads to this particular idea which culminated into a plan.

In June we went to Florida. While we were there Jonathan had zero allergies, which he has been battling pretty bad up here in Ohio. So he started thinking about moving. He was so miserable when we got back. The first thing he mentioned to me was a link about moving to Germany. I was against that, simply because I am afraid of the language barrier. I speak close to no German. So we started talking about some English speaking countries and we decided on Ireland. At this point I was pretty sure that this was just like all the other times and after a few days the talk would fizzle and we would just keep going in our little comfort bubble that we have formed. But that wasn't to be. Jonathan really started praying about it all. He fasted. And after several days, was more excited about it than before, which is a huge sign. Usually his excitement fizzles in a few days. He very much felt that God was leading us to Ireland. We don't know why, but He is. It's really hard sometimes to tell people that, especially since we aren't going for missions; it feels like we should have more of an explanation. But really the biggest reason we are going is that we have discerned that this is God's will for us right now.

I am excited. The first couple days I was pretty overwhelmed, now I'm excited. I think it has been opposite for Jonathan; he's still excited, but I think it is starting to get a little overwhelming for him. I'm glad we don't feel too overwhelmed at the same time, that would be rough. :)

So where are we in our plans?

This weekend we had a huge garage sale. We didn't have too much business, but we sold alot of our bigger items, which is great.

We sold our refrigerator, so we are now living at my parent's house again.

The house has been on the market for a week. We have had a little interest, but not a whole lot.

All our plans hinge on the sale of the house. After that, we can move forward full force. I actually hope it will be a couple months, because Ohlen still needs a passport, and I need to renew mine. Who knows how long that will take.

Well this post is already too long, so I will go. I will post soon about other pressing questions, like, What about the wieners??? :) Also, we still have the older couch/chair/ottomon, piano, and stove for sale if anyone is interested. :) Oh and the truck, van, bike, and tractor. Feel free to leave questions to answer. :)