July

This month marks the half way point of the year. It's crazy to think that so much of the year has already passed. I was talking to a friend earlier today saying how in March every day just dragged on and then suddenly it's July and we are getting things ready for school to start.

This week I took Madison school shopping. I like to go early in the summer and avoid the rush. I won't buy shoes until closer to the start because she is growing like a weed. Things in the world are a little different right now and so most of her shopping was done online. She is starting to really have opinions on what she is wearing so I really have to get her input as far as clothes go. Braden on the other hand will wear anything. He doesn't care if it matches, is dirty, and most of the time won't wear a shirt. I bought him a couple outfits for the first week of school and his "big boy" backpack. I still can't believe he is starting kindergarten next month. I'm hoping the Covid stuff will calm down a bit and he will be able to have a normal school year, otherwise we will really be considering homeschooling. They proposed having the children wear mask the entire time while at school and I just don't think that is going to work out well for anyone. Truly, I want the kids to be safe and I am worried about Covid, it's just not practical to make them wear the masks all day long. I just don't know what options we really have. This has make quite the impact on the world around us. Businesses are forever closing their doors, restaurants are taking a hit, and every thing is trying to figure out how to become efficient online.

We have tried to keep things as normal as possible with the kids and have recently started taking them with us to the stores again but that ever looming threat of Covid still hangs around.

In other news, we very randomly decided to move.... in the middle of a pandemic. Smart, right? Our first home is nearing 25 years old. It is starting to need a lot of work done. During the almost 4 years here we have put a lot of work and love in to this place. We've reached a point where our flooring needs to be done, and I spoke with a realtor friend about what would be the most beneficial to put our money towards for resale value. She came over and talked with us about all the updates we've already done to the home and all we are thinking of doing. She mentioned looking at a couple houses close by to see how they had done things to give us a better idea of what to do. After looking for a couple houses we were driving back home and happened to pass another house for sale. We looked at it the next day and fell in love. It's still about the same as the house we have currently, but it has a basement and just a little more room to grow. We put an offer in and got our house ready and on the market within 72 hours. Talk about an insane weekend. Then 10 days went by with no offers on our house. I guess it's hard to sell a house right by the train tracks. During those 10 days we looked at a couple other houses and found a second house, our forever home. We instantly fell in love and put an offer in. Then we left to go camping. While we were gone we got TWO offers on our house and our offer for the "forever home" was outbid by another buyer by 50k. Insane. So we looked around at a couple more houses and still were in love with the first house. After extending our first offer they re accepted our second offer and we are officially under contract in our current home and our future home. It's about 3 minutes from our current house. Built in 2018 and still has three bedrooms. It has a decent size yard which most of the new builds don't, and room to grow in the basement.

I feel so stupid. I am excited for the move, I know the positives of the newer house, and the money pit our house is becoming. However, as I sit here... in my backyard during sunset, looking at our huge cherry tree, listening to the train pass by, and cursing the damn mosquitoes... I don't want to go. I have fallen in love with our neighbors and the traditions of this house. It holds a huge piece of my heart. It was our first home. Our family has grown so much while we were here. Braden was 18 months old when we moved in. Now he's 5. I will miss the kids climbing the cherry tree, that was perfectly ripe every year on the week of Braden's Birthday. I will miss the beautiful garden box my husband built me so I can continue to grow my hobby of gardening. I will miss the evenings when my backyard is entirely and perfectly in the shade for gatherings on summer nights.  I will miss being walking distance to some of the best people I know. I will miss being able to walk to the park and elementary school. I know these things are stupid and I know that we aren't moving far so I can't just jump in the car when I want to but still.

I love how much this house has forced us to grow. We have learned how to be homeowners. We have taken on new projects and tried new things. Some were fun learning experiences and others were mandatory because we had to fix something that broke. We've grown up a lot. Thank you for the memories 1725 W 140 S. I know the next house will provide just as many growing opportunities as this one did.