We're home!!!

So, we're here. I am so thankful that Jeremy had some vacation days where he could stay home and help me pack a few days before the big move. I tried to pack as much as I could the month before we left but as we found out there's a lot of stuff you need until the last minute. I'm also soooo thankful for Jeremy's dad who always volunteers to help whenever we need it. He was a lifesaver! The trip up went very well. I was wondering how it'd be to travel with a dog but Paisley did great. We made it in on Saturday and we actually (with a lot of help) got the whole truck unloaded and Jakob spent the night with his Grandma so he could go to church with her on Sunday and me and Jeremy started trying to get things unpacked. By Monday afternoon the whole house was unpacked. My mom came over Monday and helped me unpack the kitchen which seemed like it took the longest and I had the least patience for, but maybe that's just because it was the last room full of boxes and I was really over unpacking. I took Jeremy to the airport Tuesday morning @ 4 a.m. to put him on a plane back to south florida. I miss him so much already. I find myself wanting to call him 20 times a day and tell him something Jakob did or said or some great idea I had but I have to file those thoughts away and tell him at night when he calls. When he calls Jakob says "hi daddy" then he'll say "love you, bye" he's not much of a conversationalist right now, but I know he loves his daddy :) 

We've been talking for quite a while about if our renter ever moved out of this house and what we'd have to do. It took us 8 months to find the guy who rented the house the first time and even then we had to lower the rent we were asking before we found him. We knew we couldn't wait another 8 months or really even 2 months before we'd just have to move into it and leave Jeremy down there. Every time we'd talk about moving back into our house we'd preface it with "now remember, the house is really small" or "it's going to be a big change from what we are used to now" I know it sounds superficial or silly but I really worried if we'd have enough room in the house or if we'd feel very cramped and packed into the place. When we lived here before Jakob was just a newborn and he didn't have much in the way of toys and stuff in general. Now he has a lot of stuff. I guess we had both been dreading the tight living quarters but I had determined in my heart that I would be thankful and not complain with my words or even in my heart about the house being too small. When we got here we were very happy that everything fit into the house and it doesn't feel cramped at all. We don't have a garage but I think eventually there's a plan to add a big shed/barn in the backyard where we can have a lot more storage. Our mortgage payment is actually over 200 dollars less than what we payed in rent so we will appreciate that too, I'm sure. 

We already knew that the yard had not been taken care of because Jeremy comes over a couple times a year and pressure washes the house and does some maintenance type stuff on it. Last time he came the yard was a wreck. That's pretty much when I knew the guy would be leaving soon because he no longer cared how the place looked on the outside. It made me nervous about what the house looked like on the inside. Thankfully there was no major damage to the house. When the guy moved out he really tore up the door frames (obviously he had giant furniture or something) and banged up a few of the walls. My dad patched the walls and painted my bedroom for me. Eventually we will have to replace the door frames that the guy chipped up but we can do that later. I took some pictures and they will probably look pretty familiar to y'all because everything is pretty much in the same places as when I lived here the first time :) I took a picture of my bedroom because I picked out a light blue paint (it actually looked lighter than it is on the little card) and I am really loving it. We turned Jakob's old bedroom into the office. It makes me a little sad because we made his room so nice but it is the smaller of the two bedrooms and we wanted him to be comfortable so we gave him the bigger room. His room needs painting but it will wait into Jeremy gets here (either by moving or for thanksgiving) Jakob is loving having trees (we had no trees in our yard in Labelle) mostly because he can collect acorns to his hearts content :) He is also loving visiting with his family. All day he's been saying "go nana's house a-morrow" He hasn't yet learned that we have our own house here, we won't be staying with nana all the time. 

When we left 3 years ago I thought this place was a little ghetto ;) Now I've lived near a pretty ghetto town, and we had a little bit of ghetto in Labelle too and I realize this place is just redneck, there is a big difference. Our neighborhood is growing. I saw a lot of mom's walking today with their kids in strollers. Couples out for a jog. It's turning in to a family kinda place instead of a few houses out in the sticks, which is what it was when we bought our house. I am loving it. It doesn't matter that we've been gone for 3 years, this house still feels like home. I feel kinda guilty because I am feeling so good about being here and Jeremy is down there by himself :( hopefully he won't have to be for too much longer. 

It was super cold the first few days we were here...let me preface that by saying y'all know I'm a florida girl and cold to me is 70 degrees. The high has been in the 60's and the morning I took Jeremy to Pensacola it was 40 something. That is cold to me! Today was a gorgeous 75 degrees. I am excited to take Jakey to the park and the library. I've still got to call and try to rush them along in getting him into speech therapy. 

Well, that's about all I can think to write right now. I am super tired. Single parenting doesn't seem too hard until the end of the day when your child is tired and decides they don't want to do anything you ask them to. That moment when you'd look at your hubby and he'd step in and take care of stuff. Yes, we had that moment tonight. It has worn me out and I'm ready for bed. Thank-you all for your prayers. Hoping to have good news to share with you very soon. Until then, here's a few pics of the inside of the house. The yard looks pitiful right now. I'll probably take pictures as we work on the yard and show you before and afters :)       

View of the living room

Living room and bubbie playing with his angry birds :)

My bedroom

Jakob's room

Jakob's old bedroom aka the office. Yes, it's Jeremy's man cave and he has free reign of decorating with this one room. There's also a turkey tail hanging on the other wall (lol)