Thursday, January 25, 2018

riviera maya, mexico


For the longest time Becky and I have wanted to go on a vacation without kids + our spouses. We tossed around several destination ideas but landed on an all inclusive, adults only resort in sunny Mexico.

We left on Sunday and had five glorious, lazy, sun filled days. We did nothing but eat guacamole and lay by the pool and beach. Our biggest struggle was finding four lounge chairs together. I think traveling is one of the best things for any relationship, sister and brother-in-law relationships too! Thanks for traveling with us Jared and Becky!












Since my foot was broken and the sand was really hard to walk on, Alex gave me a lift when needed


Wednesday, January 24, 2018

fall retreat


This year we took our high school youth group on a fall retreat the last weekend in October. In years past we've gone to the middle of nowhere Missouri but we always got lost and had car trouble. So this year we decided to stay a little closer to home and go to Camp Durley in Greenville.

The camp's facilities were perfect for what we needed and the weather held out so it wasn't too cold. We did all the normal fall retreat activities- we played games, had a camp fire, did a bible study, had small group prayer time, ate all the puppy chow, some of the boys fished and two of our fellas thought it was a good idea to jump into the lake...the very, very cold lake.

It's always encouraging to study scripture with our students and for them to engage and grow in their faith. Youth ministry isn't for everyone but we love our students and seeing them grow closer to Christ.

Saturday, January 20, 2018

the house we sold


We lived in our brown house (maybe it's more tan?) for four years and made so many amazing memories there. Not only did we do a lot of the updates to make it our own, but we grew in our marriage, hosted countless game nights and backyard bbq's and brought Margo home from the hospital to name a few.

We loved so much about the brown house and it was far harder to say goodbye than I'd like to admit. We knew it wasn't our forever home and we felt (mostly) confident that it would sell. Thankfully it did and with virtually no hiccups!


















Friday, January 19, 2018

the house we flipped


The blue house was a labor of love but when we finished it we loved it. We saw a lot of the benefits and updates that it offered that our house (let's call it the brown house for the sake of clarity) didn't offer.

The brown house still needed a lot of the expensive updates that we didn't feel like we'd see a return on when we decided to sell. The brown house needed a new HVAC and windows, the floors were getting really worn out (I got a splinter walking in our bedroom!), the oven and dishwasher were on their last legs and I really wanted a deck in the backyard.

So, after a lot of discussion, advice from friends and family, lists of pro's and con's and prayer, we decided to list the brown house (OUR HOUSE!) on the market and see if it sold. If it did, we'd move into the blue house if it didn't we'd try our luck at selling the blue house and see if that went any better.

We decided to sell 'by owner' so I cleaned, organized and staged our house. Then I took pictures, edited and narrowed them down to enough to leave you wanting more so potential buyers would schedule a showing. I was so nervous that:

a) no one would like our house and come look at it and
b) people would come and be really disappointed and not buy it

It was a humbling process for me, but we nervously posted the house and within hours had several showings lined up. It was in our favor that the housing market in Edwardsville was on fire! We posted the house on Zillow on Tuesday and had three full price offers by Friday and were under contract on Saturday.

All of the inspections and appraisals went well, we had a few updates and changes to make but then closed without a hitch on November 2, 2017. 

That gave us 30 days to finish all of the little details at the blue house and move in. Somehow, with a broken foot, several Trailhead Students events (including the fall retreat weekend away) and an upcoming vacation we got everything done and settled just in the nick of time.