Loooonnnggg overdue!

Ok, I know I haven't written in F-O-R-E-V-E-R, but we've been a little busy moving across the world and all :o)  Just kidding...actually the move went fairly smoothly...it's pretty amazing having a corporation move you.  They do most of the hard work.  Even still the last couple of days in Brussels were pretty crazy...the day the movers were supposed to pack everything one guy showed up and said everyone else was sick or something so he would pack a few things, but that they'd have a big crew there the new day to pack AND move everything out.  Which also meant we couldn't really do our cleaning until that same day too...and Jacob ended up being gone pretty much that entire day running last minute errands...like returning the cable box and closing out the bank account.  So I was stuck cleaning and scrubbing the entire place down...while trying to stay out of the movers way.  It was bad planning on our part.  We probably should have stayed one more day and given ourselves a little extra time, but we made it work and were excited to be on our way to our new home.

We had a furnished apartment waiting for us in Kingsport too so it was nice to go straight to an apartment and not have to spend time in a hotel.  It's not the nicest place in the world, but it was just great to have some place waiting for us.  We were hoping to find a house right away too so we wouldn't have to stay here long, but unfortunately that didn't work out exactly as planned.  After seeing probably around 30 houses there were a couple we liked, but unfortunately nothing that we loved and especially not at the prices we were finding them at.  Soooo...after lots of thinking we decided to build. Our realtors husband just happened to be a custom home builder so we found an awesome lot and are planning to build a beautiful house that fits our needs perfectly...and stays in our budget!  We also found another apartment at half the price just up the road from here...so although moving again is not ideal, it's totally worth it to save some money!

Autumn and I have been getting out and about quite a bit too.  We joined a mommy group and the YMCA and also visit the Kingsport library for story time.  We're meeting some nice new friends and exploring the area.  Tri-cities definitely seems very family oriented with lots of things to do so that's wonderful and making the transition a little easier.

I'll try to update a little more frequently, but for now I'll leave you with a picture of Autumn standing in front of where her new house will be...and a link to the floor plan we're building (it will be a 4 bedroom, 3 bath as we're building the bonus room with a full bath).

The Greenbranch floorplan by Don Gardner.