A "Bro Trip" & A Staycation

Tyler and Dan took a "Bro Trip" to Hilton Head, South Carolina, at the end of June.  They stopped by our new neighborhood both on the way to their destination and coming home.  They saw a lot of kids playing in the neighborhood (yay!) and even met one of our new neighbors.  :-)  They had a lot of fun going to the beach and the pool every day!  They even went to a ropes course and were so brave while completing the course!  We would send texts and pictures back and forth, and talk each day.  My favorite text from Tyler was in response to a photo or video I sent of Brady.  He wrote...

Brady is so cute mom!!! Good morning :)

Brady and I were loving on Tyler and Dan before they left for their big trip.  We had never been away from them for eight days and nights before!

And then we were loving on them when they got back!  We were all SO excited to see each other!  We couldn't believe how tan Dan and Tyler were!

Thankfully, the time apart went by fairly quickly because Brady and I were so busy!  We worked very hard preparing our town house for pictures for the real estate listing.  Thankfully, my parents were able to help us a lot, and we were able to have some fun mixed in, too.  My friend, Barbara, came over to visit, and my friend, Nina, too!  I got my hair cut and went over to my friend Chrissy's house to enjoy pizza & chatting time on her new back porch!  I also got to have a long phone date with my friend, Megan, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina.  I went to Home Goods, Target, and other stores for the first time in three months!  Brady loved spending time at my parents' house.  He especially loves playing on their new swing set!  :-)

Our house looked as good as it's ever looked since we became a family of four.  The only problems?  I told Dan, "Well, you won't be able to park in the garage any more...not until we move to the new house."  After the pictures were taken, I thought about taking a quick shower, then realized that the bathtub was full of stuff I was trying to hide for the photos - ha!  It was definitely the most stressful photo shoot of my life.  :-)

BIG News!

We are moving!!!  

Not only are we moving (about two years before we had planned to) but we are moving out of the area where I have lived my entire life, except for my time at JMU.  Dan has lived here since April 2007, Tyler has lived here since March 2011, and Brady has lived here since December 2015.  I have lived in our town house for a little over 15 years!!  It's going to be a huge change, but we are feeling excited and ready.

We keep hearing from people that they are very surprised by our news.  I keep telling them that no one is more surprised by everything than we are!  ;-)  We've been talking about possibly moving to the Richmond area for a few years now.  We thought we would definitely move in the summer of 2022, when Tyler would be heading to middle school and I'd be heading back to work that fall.  If we moved to a bigger home in the area where we live now, we would definitely need for me to be working too, because the cost of living is so high.  Richmond was appealing to us because we knew the homes were much more inexpensive there.  (We hadn't even thought about property taxes and HOAs being lower too!)  Also, one of my best friends, Vanessa, lives in Richmond with her family, and I have been visiting her twice a year for the past 18 years!  We also have wonderful family members in the area who we are excited to get to see more frequently.  I have always been comfortable driving on 95 as opposed to other major highways, and I knew that it would be easy for me to come back to this area to visit my parents, friends, & other family members.  

In fact, out of the many homes we considered looking at, we ended up choosing the neighborhood that is closest to my parents' house!  It just worked out that that was the neighborhood where we found our dream home!  If I time things correctly, and there's no traffic, I will be able to get to my parents' house in an hour and 15 minutes!  :-)

We started looking online at homes in Richmond in May.  Dan actually sent me an email on 5/22 (my Uncle Dennis's birthday) with a list of his favorite homes.  The home we are buying was the very first home listed.  Funny enough, when I looked at the first photo of the home, the price, and the square footage listed, I decided not to open the rest of the album.  I immediately moved on to the next home!  We were so early in our search and in the beginning, I was very focused on the outside of the home.  I was also hoping we'd find a home that was a bit cheaper.  And, based on the square footage listed, I declared the home "too big".  :-)

After spending a day in Richmond, and having Vanessa give us a tour of many neighborhoods, we learned a lot.  We toured three townhomes and two single family homes that day.  We considered ourselves to be "townhome" people because we love not having yard work!  Ha!  But when we drove home that day, Dan said he realized that he really wanted a four bedroom home.  This was a very important realization, because it totally changed how we searched for homes online!

We realized that we liked the area enough that it was time to reach out to a lender to see how much we could qualify for, and Dan asked his boss if he could still work for the company if he moved to Richmond.  He said yes!  He needed to ask his boss, but then she said yes too!  So we knew that IF we found a home that we loved, we would be able to move.

Two weeks later, we realized that we had to go back to Richmond.  We had plans the next three weekends, so it was our last chance to get down there before July!  We didn't want to wait until July because we wanted to move and be settled before the boys start school in the fall.  A few homes in a neighborhood that we had our eyes on, all changed to "pending" the week before our second trip.  Apparently we weren't the only ones thinking about moving during this crazy time!  It was totally meant to be that all of those homes were no longer available, because it led me back to that first home on Dan's list.

I came across the house once again, and I noticed that the price had dropped.  This made me open the album, and when I looked at the inside of the home, my jaw dropped!  This house was EXACTLY what Dan and I had been describing as our dream home!  It is spacious yet still feels cozy.  It had absolutely everything we wanted - built ins, a white kitchen, a mud room, an office for Dan, a playroom for the boys, and a big tub.  It even has windows on the second floor that I had dreamed about having as a little girl!  And best of all, the backyard was the best one we had seen for Brady!  There is a six foot tall fence that he hopefully won't figure out how to climb!

We ended up touring three homes during our second day in Richmond.  The home we are buying was the second home we toured, and Dan, Tyler, & I all agreed - this was it!  Poor Brady didn't get to tour any of the homes with us (Dan and I took turns staying in the car with him), but he definitely approved of the neighborhood playground, which we can walk to!  We can't believe that in two and a half weeks, we will be living in our dream home!  We are SO excited!  :-)

A Brady Update

Brady has been talking so much lately!  He has been saying "up" and "mama" nonstop!  He is consistently saying "out" when he wants to go outside (which is ALL the time!)  We have also heard him say these words...

down

leaves

apple

no no no (when I gave him the wrong cup!)

hi

His two favorite items to play with inside are his rocking chair and his 4th of July balloon!  He went through a long phase where he would bring me an egg from the refrigerator.  He always wanted to see me crack it open and pour it in a bowl!  He is SO funny!

Brady's favorite activity continues to be spying on the neighbors, and hoping that their garage door will open or close!

He has been SO excited to be able to go to playgrounds again!  Of course he is quite a wild man whenever we go...

He is still napping almost every day - either on the sofa or in the car (if it's not too hot).  Of course in the car I have the AC on high!

Brady loved painting the other day!  He made a beautiful painting that we will include as part of his cousin Julia's 8th birthday gift!

I absolutely love how it's obvious in this next picture that Brady is talking!  He has been doing a great job using his device from school.  We are so excited for him to have it for the summer!  His favorite thing is to go on a car ride to go see the "tractors".  There is a huge neighborhood being built within our neighborhood, and we drive by the work site at least twice a day.  Brady loves seeing all of the "tractors" and the "worker trucks".  :-)