We Sold Our House! Are We Nuts?! Probably...

Well.  We have some friends, with a beautiful home.  And they mentioned pretty recently that they were downsizing and planning to sell their house.  We were interested in their house...it has pretty much everything I wanted when we were looking last year.  (think screened in porches, big kitchen, walk out basement and more).  James and I discussed the idea of trying to buy their house and after a discussion with our friends who are selling we thought, why not?  We figured it wouldn't pan out, after all, it's a terrible time of year to sell a house and we were getting ready to go on vacation.  (We were thinking our realtor could show our house while we were gone and it would stay clean!)  So, we quickly listed our house thinking, if it sold then it was meant to be and we would have flexibility to buy our friends home when they put it on the market.

We listed our house the Monday before we left for vacation and had a buyer by Wednesday!!  Again!

Perhaps we are lucky or it was really meant to be?  Either way we went on our big vacation for nearly 3 weeks and then had to hurry fast when we got home to abandon ship....

Finding a rental was a challenge since we did not want to sign a lease.  (We have no idea really when we can put an offer on this house since we are at the mercy of the VA certificate and our friends who have decided to build another home).  Fortunately our realtor owns several rental properties and had something to offer us while we wait.  Unfortunately it is in Springfield...  So we now live quite a distance away from our ward family, James' clinic, and our friends.  Upside?  We are really, really close to all the big shopping areas in Springfield...and at Christmas time no-less.

We moved in the day after the renters moved out and they left a mess!  We helped our realtor clean up since we really needed to be in right away.  The house itself is also dated...  big time.  It was built in 1972.  Think Brady Bunch.  Everything is green.

Green kitchen....

Green Toilet.  (oh and YES, that is CARPET in the bathroom.  Gross...we cleaned the heck out of it, sprayed urine degenerator, and then laid down overlapping bathroom rugs so we wouldn't have to walk on it)

Other things are strangely floral.... 

Or pin-striped.

The shower was pretty rough...we cleaned, bleached, sanitized and threw down shower rugs.

The people who lived here before us had 3 dogs, that seems to have tinkled everywhere so one room is just terribly stinky.  We are chasing back the stink and we are either winning...or I've gotten used to it.  I'll have to remember to ask my friends if I smell bad when I see them.  LOL.

Honestly, its not too bad.  It is better than an extended stay (which would have cost a lot of $$ or signing a lease which would have taken away a lot of our flexibility).

Anyway, SURPRISED?  Us too.

It happened pretty fast and I totally had sellers remorse at closing.

We have no idea exactly what will happen next or when, but, all will be well, eventually.  :)

Celebrating A Christ-Centered Christmas by Emily Belle Freeman {Deseret Book Review}

Discover how each figure of the nativity can lead your family closer to Christ this Christmas season. Learn the tradition of the tinkling bell, whip up a batch of French cocoa, create a tender mercy tree, and find ways to make your gift-giving more meaningful as Celebrating a Christ-Centered Christmas guides you through seven meaningful traditions inspired by the nativity setting. These simple experiences will give you an opportunity to escape from the frantic busyness of the Christmas season to spend time reflecting on the Savior and the miracle of His birth.

Ok!  I'll admit that I am guilty of the sensationalism and commercialism that surrounds my favorite holiday.  We love Santa Claus, we love presents, the tree, the lights and all the sights and sounds that come with it. 

Last year we finally decided that we HAD to cut back and give our kids less.  Yes, it is fun, but it was creating a sense of entitlement and I realized that our kids were not understanding the true meaning of Christmas and they were not having a heart for others who had very little.  In fact, last year, I was trying to explain to my children that other kids may not get much for Christmas this year because their families couldn't afford it.  They were perplexed because, after all, if their moms and dads couldn't afford it Santa would still bring them gifts!  What a mess. I want my kids to love the magic of Christmas and still understand the true meaning behind the holiday - which is the focus on our Savior, Jesus Christ.

So, I started looking for activities and books that would that would help bring more spiritual meaning to our Christmas.  This one is a winner!  In this small book, Celebrating a Christ Centered Christmas, author Emily Belle Freeman demonstrates for us seven traditions that will lead us closer to christ while not compromising the childhood joy of the season.  Starting with Mary, she discusses Joseph, the Angel, shepherds, wise men, the lamb and lastly the Christ Child through personal stories, scriptures and hymns.  Her insight helps the reader to glean more meaning of the scriptures and provides the reader with thought-provoking dialogue.  At the end of each chapter she gives the reader a Tradition to Ponder.  This includes a hymn to sing, a story to tell or lesson to share, and a "moment of celebration" where you a service for someone else.  Lastly, you place the figure in the nativity.

You could treat this book as an advent, reading from it and doing the activities in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  Starting with an empty nativity, placing the figures as you go.  I cannot wait to do this with my family this year!  If you are interested in this book I highly recommend getting it several weeks before Christmas to give you time to really dig into the stories and do the activities.  

Celebrating A Christ Centered Christmas retails at DeseretBook.com for in soft cover for $10.99 and as a Bookshelf eBook for $7.99 .  

Thank you so much to Shadow Mountain for letting me participate in this blog tour!  

All opinions here were my very own.

Monticello {On Tour With the Founding Fathers}

Continuing our tour with the founding fathers, we spent a day visiting Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.  There were a few interesting things that really struck me about our visit, the first being, there was a TON of people there!  On a weekday.  Tour buses, school groups, and families.  They were organized but we were shuffled through Monticello pretty quickly and it was impossible to see everything because we were crammed into pretty large groups and were pretty smooshed together.

To keep you from knocking stuff around they made us wear our backpack backwards.  That was fine but wowzer, they were adamant about it.  I was reminded twice before I even managed to get into the tour line.  It was borderline impolite when I hadn't even managed to get within 20 feet of Monticello yet.  

The house was very interesting, just full of artifacts including a portion of Thomas Jeffersons library (the rest is at the Library of Congress). It was pretty darn cool to walk where Thomas Jefferson walked.  I was a little star struck I have to admit.  Too bad we couldn't take pictures inside.

 Once we finished our tour of the house, things were a bit more spread out as you headed into the lawn and gardens.

On the steps of Monticello.  

This is the back side, where it was a lot quieter.

The gardens.

 

On Mulberry Row, Jefferson's Slave Quarters.

They are currently doing excavations at Monticello down in the slave quarters area.

Kayley even found a small piece of pottery!  She asked the archaeologist working and he agreed with her assessment and told her she could keep it!

Thomas Jefferson Grave.

The girls and Thomas Jefferson.

The museum was pretty cool.  Here is an invention of Thomas Jeffersons called a cipher wheel.  This allowed him to send secret messages.

Another inventions of Thomas Jefferson's.  A Polygraph.  He invented this so it would automatically make a copy of whatever he was writing.  He was an avid letter-writer and wrote hundreds of letters in his lifetime.  We learned that he would get upset with his grandchildren if they did not return his letters.  

Maggie enjoyed cooking over the open fire in the slave cabin.

Kayley's Monticello.

Jamestown {On Tour With the Founding Fathers}

While we were in Virginia we took the opportunity to go to Jamestown.  While there we could see replica's of the ships that the Virginia Company sailed on to the new world.  The flagship, the Susan Constant, was really neat.  

  

We spent some time being goofy in the recreated Powhatan village.

The girls learned how to tan a hide.

.

We enjoyed puttering around the reconstructed Jamestown settlement.

Trying on some armor.

Learning about guns.

Hauling water from the river would've been tough.

The kids had a great time at the historical site filling out a scavenger hunt and answering the history questions to earn a National Parks badge.

Archaeological dig!

Pocahontas.

They earned their badge!