"We're Going Home"

Many of you may have been wondered where we have been for the past 6 weeks; Flashback Friday's only; what's that about? Well...we've been EXTREMELY busy preparing to go home! :) Where is home? That's a great question! Aaron and I asked ourselves that same question six weeks ago; (May 8th to be exact). We decided that it was time to put our roots down for our family and move on from Virginia to a place that we could call "home"! After one rather short conversation (in the Outback parking lot); we decided "home" is...Mansfield, TX! We felt very good about it, figured if it was actual guidance that was leading us there (and some awesome day dreams about hanging out with Mat, Emily, Jason, Kyle and of course, Jake the snake...along with being closer to April, Aubrey, Gini, Hans, Mammer and Papa, Becky and Dennis and their family; driving distance from Florida AND Utah!) As if that wasn't enough; we decided that if this was the right decision things would fall into place. Aaron came straight home from Outback and started sending out his resume online; (he had already put it out there some over the past several months; there was one company that got this whole ball rolling; but we thought at the time of the Outback conversation that opportunity was dead in the water!) We decided that night that we would "pretend" that we were going to put the house on the market on June 15th; just in case something did materialize in a short time and Aaron had to leave! (He didn't want to leave me to put the house in order to sell!) Thank goodness for that little game of make believe!! This post could go on for days...I'm going to make this short and sweet from here on out! After many resumes, many phone calls, WAY TOO MANY flights in a very short amount of time (Aaron took 9 flights in weeks time); LOTS of waiting; 2 job offers from companies in none other than Ft. Worth, TX and WAY too many signs that this was the right thing for us to do...Aaron accepted a job offer from Alstom Transport on Tuesday morning (his first day is July 21st); gave notice of his resignation from CSX on Tuesday afternoon (his last day is July 11th); the house goes on the market on Saturday evening; and the plan as of this moment is to drive away from Virginia headed "HOME" on August 11th! We are so excited to be heading to Texas! Jocelyn has always talked about dreams of living close...REALLY CLOSE...to family...Jocelyn your dream is coming true! We are so excited to be close to all the family in Texas! We will be in the same town as Mat and Emily; which we will LOVE!!! LOOK OUT HERE WE COME~!!!~

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to over the past 6 weeks! We've been SUPER busy getting the house ready to put on the market. The biggest job was de-cluttering and painting the ENTIRE house! I can't even count how trips I took to the Goodwill! Here are just a few of the pictures that we took of our work on the house! The best is the before and after of the playroom; it looks like an entirely different room now!

First room...Master Bathroom...it was really exciting at this point to be doing all of this because we knew what the end result meant!

Master Bedroom just before painting.

Playroom midway through de-cluttering and painting..The finished product!Jocelyn's room pre-painting The "red room" this room was a nightmare...there is a reason that I always wanted a red room; but never dared to paint one...this room was this color when we bought the house...we just re-painted it to freshen up the paint! ...by the time we got to this room; it wasn't fun anymore; we just wanted to get finished with the painting already!!!!

To Sum it all up...We are so very excited to be moving to Texas and so grateful for all of the things that have fallen into place to make it possible! ***Like Aaron working so hard to get his degree; that was a HUGE factor in all of this! It helped that he has done such an awesome job at CSX that these companies saw that he was a goldmine!*** Aaron, thanks for working so hard to get where you are today!!!! Thank you to EVERYONE for the family support; and a special thank you to Mat and Emily for the daily phone calls, e-mails; text messages; constant encouragement, and your love and support!!! We are thrilled at the REALITY of the kids growing up so close to their cousins and more Aunts and Uncles than ever before! We will definitely miss our friends and family here in Virginia; but we know it is time to go "home"!

Look out Jake the Snake...Addie's coming to get you! Bgock!!!!!

P.S. - I would be ungrateful not to mention the AMAZING act of kindness from our friends tonight!! Erin, Travis, Heather & Nate! I cannot even begin to tell you what amazing friends they have been the whole time we've lived here; but especially tonight! They spent several hours at our house tonight helping us stage our home to put on the market tomorrow! (THANKS FOR ALL THE LOANERS! THE HOUSE LOOKS UNBELIEVABLE!) I'll have to add pictures tomorrow...right now, it's time for bed!