Tuesday, April 28, 2009

The Countdown Begins!

Well we are at that point again... we are counting down the days until the packers come!

Friday (May 1) I am heading back to IN with the kids (except Xavier, because he is already in IN with Gma/pa Ottinger) and staying the night with my brother, Andrew, and his wife, Sandy, and their son, Andy. We are planning on staying a couple nights with them before heading to Jerry's parent's house. The kids will stay there for most of the week, while I fly out on Wednesday (May 6) to go to Las Vegas!! Jerry is going to be meeting me there on Thursday. Friday he is doing a retirement ceremony and on Saturday (May 9) we fly out to come back home. Mother's Day we will get to see both of our mothers before we head back to OH for our final week in our house before the packers come! Our plan is to come back to IN on Saturday (May 16) to see family and drop off the kids so that we can have a little less stress while the packers are here. Then on Sunday we are going to celebrate my brother, Michael's birthday and head to OH! The next morning, May 18, begins our adventure in moving!!

Jerry and I will be in OH with Caleb finishing up our house cleaning and all that we want to take with us. On Friday, May 22, we check out of our house at 2:30 and will hopefully be free and clear for the holiday weekend! Then we are going to be hanging around with family for a couple of weeks before we head to GA to find our new home.

Part of us is hoping to find a place to live before we get there... but that is really hard to do when you are not there to actually look. We have some pretty great friends down there that run to different houses for us to look at them to see if they will work for us or not. That is helping us narrow down our prospects pretty quickly! We know that God has a place for us and it will be right where he wants us. However, the not knowing of where that is... sometimes catches up with our human side! We are trusting and resting in that trust that there is a home for us.

Well, I need to go fold some more clothes and sort some more things! Off I go!!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Catch Up!

Okay... so there is alot to catch up on! We celebrated Sydney's 3rd birthday with our families on April 4th. We had an awesome time visiting with family and hanging out and playing games! My grandpa made the trip up with his new wife, both Jerry's sisters were there with family, and both my brothers and family were there. We had a cookout, hid some eggs for the kids to find, had cake, and opened presents! Sydney had a great time and was completely worn out by the end of the day.

In the last couple of weeks Caleb has really taken off developmental-wise. He sits up now if you set him down that way. Then he usually leans to the side to get on his belly because he can roll EVERYWHERE now!! He is so cute! You put him in the middle of the room, turn around, and the next thing you know... he is next to a couch on the opposite side of the room! He cracks us up and the kids get a big kick out of watching him go all over. He is getting so big.

Our big move is getting closer, and closer... sigh... We set the dates for our movers to come. They will be at our house packing us up on May 18, 19, and maybe the 20th... just depends on how long it takes them to pack us up. A family of 7... accumulates a lot! Then on the 21st they are loading it all up and taking it away! We are hoping to find some place to rent so we can move in June 1st... but we will see how things work out. There are some great houses out there, we just hope they are still there when we get there!

Jay and Anna are testing this week. They are taking the Iowa Basic test for 1st graders. We wanted to get an idea of just where they are at and what we need to improve on. The first day was tough for them... first time to do anything like that was bound to be. Jay shouted out answers a couple of times, and got bored so he filled in the circles because he was done -randomly filled them in, of course! Thankfully, the proctor made him erase them and do it over! Anna meanwhile, just didn't do 2 pages because she couldn't keep up. The proctor told me that there are things on the test that are older grades, just to see how much the kids know. That made me feel a little bit better, but not much. Anna said the proctor was reading too fast and she asked her to slow down. The proctor said she did slow down as much as she could but had to move on because the majority was done... She is young to be testing so I will leave it at that. However, day 2 went much better. Both kids came out happy and energetic and really thrilled with what they did! So hopefully day 3 will be even better and all will work out to the best!

Our next 5 weeks are going to be hectic... I am not looking forward to some of it and am for some of it! The moving is going to be stressful. We have a trip to Vegas in there which will be a nice break before the intense things begin! And then it will all happen very quickly.

Please pray that all will go smoothly and we will all stay healthy and that we find a place to live!