Grand Teton, Avery's Baptism Pictures, 4th of July, Josh's Promotion, My 36th Birthday

I am actually writing this post on July 26, but I am going to pretend like its about July 11th (my birthday! lol) because I am going to talk about the rest of June and the beginning of July, before we went to Wisconsin. Then I will do the next post about our Wisconsin trip!

So the second half of June was a a lot of soccer games, 7-on-7 football games, me prepping my classroom and making lesson plans for fall, Josh working as a sergeant from noon to midnight, and everyone trying not to go crazy being around each other so much! In a typical year, the kids get out of school at the end of May and then by about July 20th I am ready to send them back to school. I have about a 6 week tolerance of my kids being off of school. But this year, they got off of school on March 18th! So we had the rest of March, all of April, all of May.... so you can bet that by mid-June I was getting a little sick of them! And we still had two more months left!! We tried to fill the time in June with some fun things like going to Grand Teton National Park for a day, going on hikes, and floating the Warm Slough of the river in tubes.

Here are some details of some of our things in June and the first half of July....

Gabe's soccer
Gabe's season for having actual games began about the end of May I think and ran until the end of June. He had a lot of fun at practices too though and one of his best friends, Amos (from England), was on his team. Gabe played striker/forward most of the time, but also played mid. The coaches were two young college boys and they made the experience pretty fun. I think they probably won about half of their games and lost half. It wasn't like they were the strongest team in the league or anything, but they had fun! I was just glad to get Gabe outside and with his friends after a long spring of being quarantined! The weather was also beautiful as we would watch their games in Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello in June. Here are some pictures!

Caleb's football
I can't remember how much I've talked about Caleb's 7-on-7 football so far, but I know I've mentioned it and I think I had pictures in a previous post. I didn't even go to their very last game because it was at 7 AM on a Saturday morning that was cold and rainy and Josh ended up just taking Caleb while Gabe and Avery and I stayed home. So therefore, I did not get a team picture! But it was basically Caleb and about 10 other boys from his regular fall football team. Colter Summers (who we went on the cruise with) was the quarterback and Cody (his dad) coached the team. Caleb played center, but it was also fun because he got to run and catch the ball a few times. He even scored a touchdown in the last game! (Guess I should've gone... oops.) This fall, it will go back to regular football (unless Covid-19 ruins that too!) and Caleb will be playing on the line again, so no more catching the ball unless it is a fluke interception! He had a lot of fun though and it got him outside and with friends in May and June, which was the real prize!

String Lake at Grand Teton
Josh and I first discovered this beautiful lake last summer on our anniversary in August. We bought the year-long, all national park pass access pass for $80 that day and we have put it to good use! We took our kids last September to Grand Teton and then we went again for the first time this year at the end of June. We had debated if we should make a camping trip out of it and try to get a camp site, but I have heard it's been more competitive than usual this year with everyone cancelling their flights and trying to stay local. A lot of people from neighboring states have been visiting national parks instead of taking big trips. So we decided to just leave out house at 9am and get there about 11am and find a good spot to spend the day at the lake. It worked out great! It was tricky finding a parking spot. I ended up dropping off Josh and the kids at the waterfront and then going and driving around and talking to some people as they walked to their car, then waiting for them to leave so I could have their spot. But it wasn't too far to walk back to the lake. It actually worked out really well. I found a shortcut through the woods. :) I didn't even get eaten by a bear! That is actually a real thing there. The rangers walk around the waterfront constantly and ask if you have any food in your bags and if you do they make you put it into this big metal "bear box" that is on the beach.

So we spent the afternoon on the lake, paddling around in our little tubes and inflatable canoe and letting the boys jump off the big rock in the middle of the water. I got super sunburned, to the point where I was actually peeling on my shoulders a couple days later. The kids and Josh were all fine though! I guess I didn't apply enough sunscreen. Here are some pictures of Grand Teton!

Avery's Baptism Pictures
Being that Avery is the only girl and the baby of the family. I did something I have never done before and I actually made a point of getting nice pictures taken of Avery for her baptism. With the boys I think I just used whatever pictures I had from our most recent family pictures outing. But with Avery I actually had my friend, Claire, come out and meet us at the temple and take some pictures of her in her white dress. The temple grounds are still actually closed because of Covid, so we couldn't really get close enough to touch it or stand right next to it, but that was okay. Claire did such a beautiful job. She even suggested we go into this wheat field just north of the temple and those turned out to be some of my favorite ones! I used some of these on her baptism program in Wisconsin and a couple in frames on the tables. I am glad that we have these adorable photos to remember her at this special age! (Gabe was a little sour that I never made him a nice baptism program... lol)

July 4th, 2020
In the crazy world that we live in right now with Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests and riots happening against police and people burning the American flag on facebook, everyone was a little worried about what this year's Independence Day would look like. Many cities cancelled their fireworks and parades. Luckily, Rexburg decided to be awesome and still do everything - with some minor adjustments. The parade route was extended to allow for the people watching to have more space to spread out. We ended up parking right at the very end of the route in the Subway parking lot but the roundabout and we were able to get a great spot! We backed in and were able to even sit in the back trunk of our SUV.

There weren't any people around us until the very end when the gymnastics team ended their parade float and then got off and stood right in front of us to wait for the parents to pick them up! But otherwise, the rest of it was great! There wasn't any candy being thrown of flyers or anything handed out. The floats were a little lame (lots of pickup trucks with just signs on the side - like come one, we can do better, folks) but there were a few good ones! Broulim's grocery store had their giant shopping cart, there were cowboys riding horses standing up, and my personal favorite was a book store that made a little Viking ship with a real live cat riding on it! lol Josh was working and was riding around the parade route on a little golf cart (not a hard job really.) I told him he should've put a flag bandana on Drax and had him ride around too, but he was afraid he would've jumped off. Here are some pictures of us at the parade!

After the parade, we spent the afternoon relaxing at home for a few hours. Then we had our own little neighborhood fireworks. Our neighbors, the Milners, bought quite a few bigs ones. We could also see the city fireworks going off everywhere. The city had decided to launch fireworks from three different locations around town so everyone could see them without gathering in one place. It was probably the best fireworks show they have ever done!

Caleb went over to his friend, Peyton's, house for a little while where they had BIG fireworks. He also participated in a pig chasing contest and won $20 from Peyton's dad, Colt. (Idaho fun right there! lol) It was a fun night and it was nice to have Josh home for once on the evening of the Fourth of July! Because Idaho Falls had cancelled their fireworks, he wasn't tempted to go work that for the extra money they usually bribe him with!

I almost forgot to mention this! The sweetest thing happened! The day before the fourth, we went out to lunch with Josh at Freddy's while he was working. This sweet mom and her two little girls, probably ages 3 and 5, walked up to us and the little girls handed Josh this napkin with, "Thank you for your service" written on it and a $10 Freddy's gift card! It was so nice. I'm glad we live in a city where everyone hasn't gone crazy and thinks police are bad!

A local car dealership also did this "Police Appreciation Lunch" just to show the police some love amid all this crap going on. They rented a bouncy house and set it up in the parking lot for the police to bring their kids to use. They also had a mechanical bull which Gabe and Caleb did a few times! Sadly, I didn't get a picture of that. But here is Avery with the bouncy house practically to herself!

Josh's Promotion
While we are on the topic of Josh... this past month has been somewhat bittersweet. There have been some changes made at the police department and a guy named Corey, who was previously the patrol Lieutenant, ended up being moved to a different office position instead. That led to there being an opening for his former job as the Lieutenant. Josh just became a Sergeant last summer and the department even pulled some strings to let him keep Drax. Typically, when people get promoted to Sergeant they have to give up being a K9 officer and give the dog to a new guy. But being that Josh had only had Drax for about two years, they let him keep him. So now this opportunity to become a Lieutenant opens up and the Chief and Assistant Chief both really want Josh to put in for the job. Even though Josh was happy where he was at and really didn't want to give up Drax, he felt like he had to take this opportunity because if he didn't he was basically saying, "I don't want to advance in my career, thanks anyway."

So he ended up putting in for it and of course getting it. The Chief asked him if he would like to still try and keep Drax, but Josh just felt like, "You know, there are some younger guys that would love the opportunity to be a K9 officer and I don't want to be the jerk that's advancing and still hogging this K9 position too." So in the next couple of weeks, we probably won't have Drax at our house anymore. :( Josh is pretty bummed about it. He loves that stinkin' dog. He's hoping to be able to get a German shepherd puppy for our family down the road... we will see. I would be happy with a Pomeranian or perhaps a Shih tzu. Maybe he could train those dogs with the drug-finding and attack commands? haha

Here are a coupe of pictures of Josh with Drax, in his honor. lol

My 36th Birthday
Ironically, I don't think we have a picture of me on my birthday! That seems to be how it goes as a mom! Always the one taking pictures! The day started off with breakfast, which Josh made for me. I think he did crepes. Then we decided to float the Warm Slough. I always think a birthday in the sun on the water is a good one, but we don't own a boat, sooooo..... floating on donut inner tubes down a slow-moving river is what it has to be! lol

The water was a lot lower than it was on Caleb's birthday when we went and it took a little longer to float because it wasn't moving hardly at all. The water was also a lot warmer so the kids wanted to just swim more. I stayed in the inflatable canoe pretty much the whole time!

Then that night, Josh and I just went out to dinner the two of us to Da Pineapple Grill and I went to the Cookie place and got a free birthday cookie! I had also spent a good portion of the day and some of the day before packing everyone's suitcases for our Wisconsin road trip!

We left early in the morning the day after my birthday, July 12th. So we got the car as packed up as we could on July 11th before we went to bed!

Well, I think that brings me up-to-date on everything I needed to talk about before the Wisconsin trip!

Classroom Before and After

I love a good BEFORE and AFTER! Heck, we had a LOT of those in Wisconsin when we redid that home on 15th street. Then we redid our kitchen in this house and basically all of the kids' bedrooms (more than once.) So, the latest in my collection of redos is my classroom!

Here are some pictures of what it looked like when the previous teacher was in there, and then some pictures I took today. I basically got rid of lots of the furniture that was in there, including her old desk and computer cart. I bought a new desk and put up some new things on the walls. I painted some of the existing bookshelves that were in there (white instead of black) and just tried to brighten it up a bit! Josh also helped me build some bulletin boards for the walls.

First, here is my desk in the back corner of the room, in front of the window. She just had SOOOO much stuff on the walls, on her desk, EVERYWHERE! Cords were even hanging down from the ceiling! And I truly don't even understand how her computer was up high on that computer cart. She must've had to stand up every time she looked at it!

Then here is a view of the front of the classroom (taken from the back row):

And from the side:

Here is the giant map on the wall that I added pictures of our stories to!

Prepping my Classroom, Soccer, Football, and Caleb's Birthday

The last time I wrote was May 1st, which was the first official day that SOME of the Coronavirus quarantine restrictions were lifted. Honestly, in Idaho we were pretty relaxed about the whole thing by May 1st. We had taken it pretty seriously from mid-March to mid-April, not letting our kids play with friends, not taking our kids to the stores when we had to get groceries, etc. We would occasionally take them out to places like the nature park or to the mountains to go on hikes, but for the most part they were at home and in our own backyard playing with each other. The weather was pretty cold and gloomy at the end of March too, so it made it easy to just stay indoors and watch movies and play games. But then by the end of April, when the weather starting warming up and the sun started shining, I think everyone was like, "Okay, enough is enough. We are going back to normal life!"

Finishing up the school year
So on May 1st, we started letting the kids play with friends more often and they would be outside a lot during the day. The school district officially cancelled in-person school for the rest of the year I think at the end of April, but we continued to do "home school" until May 15th. The official "last day" of school was May 22, but there are usually field trips and class parties and field days that whole last week. Also, Gabe and Caleb's teachers made everything due to be turned in by May 18th so that they could get grades submitted. The whole "grades" thing was kind of a joke though because the superintendent basically told the teachers not to fail anyone. So you could have done absolutely no assignments during the "home school" months and still passed. But for the kids who actually tried, they could give an A or a B. Gabe and Caleb both had straight A's. Avery's grade was simply a P for passing because that's how they do it for elementary school.

On May 21, the room mother of Avery's second grade class decided to have a little class party since the school wasn't having one. She made little buckets of goodies for each student and then she had everyone drive up and wave to Miss Homer (their teacher) and grab a goodie bucket. If you wanted to, you could park and let your kids get out for a minute and play. Avery is good friends with the room mom's daughter, Briella, so she was ecstatic to have the opportunity to go to her house and play for about an hour (outside.) She also was excited to see some other friends and her teacher. The fun thing is, her teacher got moved up to be a third grade teacher next year and most of the class is requesting to have her again, so even though they didn't get closure at the end of this year, it will  be like they are all returning to her class again this fall! Here are some pictures of Avery writing with chalk at the school for teacher appreciation day and then the little class party at Briella's house.

Gabe and Caleb didn't really have any class parties. At the middle school, Caleb's teachers stood outside at tables and had taken everything out of the lockers and individually bagged it, so as you pulled up you would say your student's name and they would bring over their "locker contents" bag. Caleb's included his jacket, two water bottles, some gum, and lots of other random junk. He said to me, "I feel bad for the teacher who had to clean my locker out." haha

Gabe's school had a day where you would also drive-up and they would give you your yearbook, but I had already taken Gabe with me to the school to make copies for next year and he was able to empty his locker and get his yearbook already.

Gabe and Caleb both have a lot of their friends in our neighborhood anyways, so it wasn't like they weren't able to see their friends. Avery's friends live more spread out around town, so we have had a couple of play dates in the past couple weeks with them.

Getting my classroom ready
Once school had officially ended on May 22, the teacher whose classroom I was taking turned in her keys and I was able to get them. It was kind of confusing, but basically the CLASSROOM I was taking was not the actual TEACHER's that I was replacing. They kind of took the opportunity to shift things around because they wanted all of the English teachers closer together and then the History teachers closer together. It actually worked out better for me because the classroom I got was better! haha So I am the new inhabitant of classroom 183. The lady that was retiring, Mrs. Munns, had been teaching history in that classroom for the past 10+ years and boy did it show! There was sooo much stuff in that room! She had every shelf packed, ever wall cluttered with posters, every inch was used. It was kind of giving me a panic attack when I first walked in to be honest. It was like "Hoarders: Teacher Edition." On one wall, she had even put up this HUGE wallpaper map of the world. I mean, it was kind of cool, but I thought, "How am I going to apply this to English?" She even said to me, "That map IS NOT coming off the wall. I used wallpaper glue." Yikes. So once she turned in her keys, I went to the school to assess the situation. She had so sweetly left me many "treasures" that she apparently thought I may want. These included buckets of markers that were all dried out, used file folders that had writing all over them, and lots of old bookshelves that took up tons of space in the room. So the first thing I did, was haul a lot of stuff OUT of the room. To her credit, she HAD already hauled a lot of stuff out and she probably felt like the room was pretty much empty (compared to what it had been), but I still needed to remove even more.

The desk that she had used was easily older than me, so I also chose to get rid of that and bring in my own desk. The school is super tight on funds (especially lately with all the COVID budget cuts) so I didn't even bother to ask them for a new desk. I just placed an IKEA pick up order and Josh, Avery, and I drove down to Utah, picked it all up, and drove home all in the same day. I go a new desk, a cubbie book shelf, and a few other things. It cost about $200, but in my opinion, that is money well-spent for my sanity. Also, we got that stimulus check so I figured it was putting it to good use.

I don't have my classroom all put together yet, but I will show some pictures soon! I still have a few things to do, but the classroom is almost done. Then I need to focus on the actual lesson planning!

Getting Outdoors
As the weather has gotten nicer over the past month, we have tried to get out and do some fun things. We were so cooped up for the months of March and April, when May hit and the weather warmed up everyone was like, "Let's get outside!"

We went to the BYU-Idaho gardens and walked around a few times. Avery and I even had a picnic there one day while Gabe was at soccer practice and Caleb and Josh went to the gym. We walked to the campus and bought Chick-Fil-A from the food court (which was only partially open and you couldn't stay there to eat) and then we walked to the garden and had our picnic lunch.

We also went there two separate times and Avery had me take about a thousand pictures of her in the gardens. We also walked up to the temple and took some pictures. The temple has been closed since mid-March too, but you can walk around the grounds outside the gates.

We also went to Rigby Lake last week. This was our first time going there this year and the water was still pretty cold!! The boys took the inflatable canoe out across the lake and Avery played on the beach in the sand.

Just this last week, the weather was REALLY warm and on one 90 degree day, we floated Warm Slough in the inflatable canoe and tubes. It only took about an hour and it's really close to our house, so it's a fun, quick little afternoon float. Here are some of Avery's glamour shots in the gardens and us floating the river!

Football and Soccer
Gabe had signed up to play soccer for the spring. This usually begins with indoor practices in January-February and then they start having tournaments and games in March. They were actually supposed to have their first tournament on March 28th in Boise, but then it got cancelled of course because of the plague. So they didn't practice at all from about March 18-April 30th. Then they resumed practices outdoors on May 1st, three times a week. Gabe had his first games last week on Wednesday evening, May 27th, and another one on Friday evening, May 29th. They lost the first one and won the second one (9-4!) and Gabe had two goals. It was a really fun game to watch! I need to get some soccer pictures of Gabe. I haven't taken any yet!

Caleb started his 7 on 7 football season in mid-May. They usually have practices twice a week and then their games are on Saturday mornings. Because Caleb is a big kid, he usually plays defense. This whole 7 on 7 thing is really more for the offensive players to practice their running and passing plays, but Caleb decided to play anyways. It's just fun to be with his friends and get out and run. His time to shine though is really in the fall when the regular season starts. Yesterday, his team played two games in Idaho Falls. They lost one and won one. Caleb even had a couple of good catches. After his games, we went and got pizza with some of his friends on his team and their families, which brings me to his birthday!

Caleb's 12th birthday
Since Gabe didn't really get a party this year (Coronavirus and all) and Avery isn't going to either, we decided not to do a big party for Caleb. He played his football games in the morning and then we bought a big cake from a local grocery store, which I picked up after the game in Idaho Falls. Then we went to Lucy's Pizza with his friends Colter and Colton (haha and Caleb... the three C's) and sang to him there. After that, he ended up going over to Colton's house and swimming in his pool in the afternoon, so he still kind of ended up having a birthday party! He also had his friend, Benson, some over two nights earlier and they watched movies and made smores and popcorn. So he wasn't TOO neglected. For his presents, he got this game called, "Nuts about Mutts" (a card game), some football gloves, some shoes, and a virtual reality video game (the most expensive present).

Caleb also had kind of a second little birthday "party" a few days later when he had a few other friends over (Benson, Kyler, and Cole) to just hang out at our house and have cake!

I think that about brings us up to speed! Oh, I forgot to mention... we took our house off of Zillow six days after we posted it. We showed it about five times in those six days and everyone "loved it" but yet no one offered! So we felt like maybe the timing wasn't right. Also, that townhouse that we had wanted to rent got rented out to someone else, so then we really had NO idea where we would go if we sold. We decided with all of the changes in our lives this year with me teaching and Josh potentially being promoted, it might be best to just stay put for the next year. We will keep looking out for land to buy, but we will probably just stay here until next spring. We have still had realtors and people calling us and saying, "Are you sure it isn't for sale??" So hopefully we won't have any problems selling it next year. Our next-door neighbors just sold their house (or at least ALMOST have sold it, contingent on the sale of the buyer's house) so we will be getting new neighbors soon.

Some days I am excited at the thought of moving and other days I am excited at the thought of just staying in a small house and not having a mortgage past age 44! lol So we will see what happens!

Quarantine Life, Easter, Josh's Birthday, and the House is on Zillow

You would think that being home for the past six weeks would've given me lots of free time to update my blog, but yet I still didn't! haha

Here it is, May 1st. We officially began our "Quarantine Life" on Wednesday, March 18th. The kids' last day of school was March 17th and, though we didn't know it at the time, that would be their last day of school for the 2019-2020 school year. Today is the first day that some businesses in Idaho are starting to re-open. It's looking like HOPEFULLY this whole thing may be coming to an end. Here is a picture that our neighbor took of our family. She went around to each house and took, "Front Porch Photos" to commemorate the time we spent as families on lockdown. We didn't kill each other, so that's something to celebrate!!

Over the last month, we have had to make several adjustments to our lives. First off, we tried to do at least a couple of hours of "homeschool" everyday (Monday-Friday). The kids' teachers all set up their own different ways of getting assignments to them. Most of Gabe's were online using Google Classroom. He has been very self-sufficient during all of this, usually getting up early and getting most of his school work done in the morning. Caleb's teachers were mostly emailing things and partly using google classroom. I always have to make sure Caleb is staying up-to-date on his assignments. He is pretty content to do whatever the bare minimum is. Avery's teacher compiled big packets on paper and came and drove around to each of her student's houses wearing rubber gloves! haha So Avery usually sits at the dining room table with either me or Josh and works through her math, grammar, spelling, and more. Here are some "homework" pics!

Josh's work schedule hasn't been too bad. The actual shift he worked changed to 12pm - 12am. So that shift is pretty crappy. But he would work 4 days in a row and then have 4 days off. Then, once a month, he also would get one week where he could "work from home" and just be on call. That just so happened to be this last week, so it's been really nice to have him home so much. This is day 9 of him being home in a row because he had his normal four days off, then four days of "work from home," and now he has his new four days off that he is just starting today. Today is Friday and so I think he finally goes back in to work on Tuesday. He HAS been on the phone a lot though, managing guys and fixing schedules and helping with things.

I have been trying to do as much as I can to prepare to be a teacher this fall - with NO classroom experience. :{ It's going to be crazy when I step into the classroom this August and say, "Hey guys!! Well, let's try and figure this out together because I have NO idea what I'm doing!" haha No, I won't say that. But, that's what I will be thinking!

I have been going through the curriculum and trying to read all the stories we will cover. Gabe is in the class right now that I will be taking over, so I'm trying to watch the assignments that the sub is sending him via e-mail. The sub he currently has is also going to be taking one of the full-time English teacher positions for eighth grade next fall. He's a really nice guy. Basically 3 out of the 4 eighth grade English teachers this year are leaving, so there will be me, him, and one other new teacher next year! Poor Mrs. Clark is the only one staying, so she will get to lead us all! She's really nice too though and has given me a lot of resources already.

So besides homeschooling, we have tried to keep ourselves busy with other things that we can do! This usually involves playing outside (the weather has been AMAZING lately), jumping on the trampoline, going on hikes near Rexburg, Josh and the kids going on jogs around the high school across the field from our house (not me), feeding the ducks at the nature park, doing crafts (Avery made this panda pillow), playing card games, watching movies, and sneaking out to get food through the drive-throughs now and then.

Even our church has been "home church." Usually the boys put on a white shirt (no tie) and church pants, but no socks or shoes. lol I put on a very comfy maxi skirt and a sweatshirt of some sort. Avery is just in her sleeper. There's no getting her to even remotely dress up if she doesn't have to.

On Easter Sunday, I think she actually did dress up, but that was the only time! We celebrated Easter this year by doing an egg hunt out on Uncle Ben's river property. Josh called him to see if we could come out there to hide eggs. It was great because we had the whole place to ourselves. I hid almost 100 eggs! The three kids took about an hour to find all of them. On Sunday, the Easter bunny came in the morning and they found their baskets in the house. Then we had our little, "Easter church at home" and ate our Easter dinner.

Avery also had a big day on March 31st when she got braces on her teeth! They had planned on doing in March 23rd, but then everything went crazy. Luckily, they still made her a priority and got her in March 31st. Her two front top teeth were so bad that they were hitting into her bottom teeth and damaging them. So I'm glad they were able to get the braces going ASAP.

Josh turned 40 on April 18th! Since we were in quarantine, I couldn't throw his a huge surprise party (which he was sooo sad about). I did compile some sweet stories from friends and family to give to Josh in a book. He loved that. Then for his party, he just had to go fishing instead! It was going to be just he and his cousin, Devin, and then all of a sudden the word spread that they were taking the boat out on her maiden voyage this year and Josh's brother, Bryan, and two other friends, Scott and Craig, said they were coming! Haha (That was probably against the social distancing rules, but they said it was okay because all the seats in the boat were at least five feet apart.) Here is Josh with a fish he caught!

The other BIG news is that we have been toying with the idea of selling our house. We have talked about always wanting to build a house someday and I've said for years, "Well, if we are going to do it, we need to do it when Gabe is about 14 or 15 so that he has a few years to enjoy it at least!" So here Gabe is now 14. How did that happen so fast?! Everyone is telling us that the market will start to change now because of COVID-19. Some people are saying they don't think Rexburg will see much of a change because BYUI is here and they always are hiring people and there's shortage of housing already. Other people are saying, "If you're even thinking about selling your house, you should put it on the market ASAP and try to get your money out of it before things drop!" So we went back and forth about it and decided to just take some pictures and list it on Zillow.com. It's completely free and there's not contract, so we figured, "Let's just see what happens." We listed it for sale on Tuesday night and then showed it three times on Wednesday. Yesterday (Thursday) we showed it another time. Today it is Friday morning and we haven't heard anything back, so we are just kind of sitting here waiting like, "Well... is anyone going to offer?"

Part of me will be sad if we get an offer because I really do love our house. We have been here almost nine years and there's so many memories here! This is where Avery's first home was! This is where Gabe helped teach Caleb how to ride a bike! This is where Gabe lived when he started his first day of kindergarten! It's just been such a great place to raise our kids. But, with the neighborhood just growing and growing, we are starting to feel more and more closed in. Our backyard has a fence, but on every side our neighbors have built elevated decks that can look right into our backyard! Then the neighbor just behind us started building a raised playhouse last week and their kids are constantly hanging over the fence and practically FALLING into our backyard! It's just gotten so bad. Josh is like, "It's time to move." So we've been looking at different land options and we just decided to try and list our house and see what we could get out of it. If we don't get an offer in the next couple of weeks, we may just take it off Zillow and stay.

The other reason that we decided to list it was because a friend of mine is moving out of her 3-bedroom townhouse down the street and it would be AMAZING to live there for the next year while we try and build. So! That's what we are hoping for. But we really would need to have an offer soon for that to be able to work!

No stress at all, right?!

The next time I post, hopefully I will have an update about where we will be living the rest of the year! It's crazy to think about. Here is a picture of our house two days ago, which is now the cover image of our listing on Zillow.com!