Was my last post really about the first day of kindergarten? I'm finally posting again and we just celebrated the LAST day of kindergarten. Much has happened in between, so I'll try to catch you up!
- We celebrated Audrey's 2nd birthday later in September.
- About a month after Ava started kindergarten, Mark was offered and accepted a new job - IN MARYLAND! He started November 7, and I stayed with the kids in Ohio until Christmas.
- We rushed to get our house ready to put on the market which happened right after Mark started his new job.
- Ava turned 6 in November!
- The week before Christmas, in the midst of me frantically trying to pack in preparation for living with my parents while waiting for our house to sell, we got an offer on the house at about 85% of the asking price. We had already priced low desiring to sell quickly, and we weren't at a point of being desperate to sell, so we countered at $1K less that asking price. We figured they weren't that interested and were just hoping to get a steal (frankly, I was annoyed that they were wasting valuable packing time!).
- Mom & Dad came out with Mark a few days before Christmas to load up what I'd packed. In the midst of loading up, we missed calls on both our cell phones from our realtor calling to say the buyers had come back (after the deadline had passed) with a much more significant offer. After some calls back and forth to work out the details and negotiate a final deal, we finally accepted their offer and were now faced with packing everything up and being moved out by January 20!
- We celebrated Christmas in Maryland, then drove to West Virginia to celebrate with Mark's family. Mark's new job gave him the week between Christmas & New Year's off, so we headed back to Ohio for the rest of the week to pack.
- Ava started school in Maryland, going to the same elementary school my parents attended as well as my Mammaw (although at that time, it was a high school!). She also switched from a half-day to all-day, every day... and was amazing through it all - so proud of her!
- Once we closed on January 20, we started looking for homes in Maryland. I feel like I could write a book about the experience of looking for a house. I can say with some certainty that most of the owners had never seen any HGTV shows about how to sell a house.
- We found a house in March - God worked out the details providing more than we thought we'd be able to find in this market, and we closed on April 20! We took a few weeks to paint and transfer all our stuff from storage to the house and made the move mid-May.
We've been gradually getting things put away and are still living with lots of boxes, but we're thrilled to have a place and especially excited that we'll have room for guests!
To come full circle, Ava finished out her first year of school last week. This fall, she'll be in a new school once again, but we moved into a neighborhood with lots of kids, so I'm hoping she will soon make friends and be excited to go to school with them. I'm also hoping my next update isn't months from now! Here are a few pictures from the last day to compare with the first day:
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| In front of our new front door! She grew several inches over the school year - notice how much shorter her skirt is! |
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| Outside her classroom |
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| Getting off the bus at Nana & Pap's house - next year there will be a ton of kids that get off and get on the bus at the bus stop down the block from our house. Should be quite different than going a mile or so before picking up the next rider! |
