Much Needed Update

First of all...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY ABE!! I love you sweetie!!

Okay, now on to the updates...

We are finally in Surprise and done with moving!! I am so happy that it is all over! We had quite a few bumps in the road to get here, but all in all we are pretty blessed to be where we're at. I will now attempt to sum up all our adventures from the last month...I'm sorry if I leave anyone out!

- First, a million thanks to my wonderful in-laws, Bill and Jean, for EVERYTHING they have done to get us here. We literally could not have gotten here without them.
- After about a month of waiting the house finally closed on June 4th. We planned to work our butts off to get everything ready by the 20th for moving.
- 17 gallons of paint, and countless hours of sweating and backbreaking work done; most of the rooms are freshly painted. If only you could have seen what the den looked like before we got to it! (A side note: hats off to anyone who has ever painted a red kitchen...or anything red for that mater!)
-Thanks to Jared and Abe for doing the work to epoxy the garage floor - it looks great.
-Thanks to Kelly Budinger at Superior Blinds for doing a wonderful job with our blinds and sunscreens. We love them!
-Being that the house was previously owned, we had the carpets professionally cleaned and paid some people to clean up the yard. The yard was like a jungle with all those weeds and now it looks brand new! That was probably the best $200 we spent this whole time.
-About a week before moving day we discovered that the downstairs A/C was not working! So we decided to change moving day to the 28th. Thank goodness we got a year warranty on all appliances!
-A big thank you to my mom, Jenny, Becky, Jared and Jean for helping with the kids!!
-Thanks again to my father-in-law Bill for helping us to put a gas line in the laundry room. We did not want to have to buy a new dryer.
-We did however get a good deal on a new range and microwave at Lowes. Probably the first thing we actually stayed within budget on.
-Considering the fact that my poor kids were dragged back and forth from house to house for three weeks, they were really well behaved. Thank heavens!
-A special thank you goes to my wonderful husband. He is so great at fixing things and such a hard worker. We made a pretty good painting team too. :)
-I was only able to get a 14 foot truck for the move. So...we made 4 trips in the U-haul, 4-5 trips with Abe's parents' vehicle, 3 trips with our car, and one trip with my mom's truck. So needless to say, we spent a lot in gas!
-And finally, thanks to all the strong movers who helped us move into a two story home on a 113 degree day - Abe, Craig, Jeremy, Waylon, and Mom - You are all the best!!!

We are sad to have left Goodyear behind, but very grateful for everything that we learned and the friends we gained while living there. We are excited to start new adventures in Surprise and will enjoy being closer to family. We are especially happy that now that Abe is closer to work we will be saving about 4000 miles a year on our poor little car. Not to mention the gas money!

Here are some pictures of what we've done so far in our new home. Enjoy!


The house before we moved in...
...and after.

The kitchen before...

...and after.

Here is how the boys kept happy while Abe and I worked on the house.

The den before we got to it...yuck!


Aidan helping to paint the den

The den all finished.

Tanner's room....I finally got my yellow!

A wall in Aidan's room...going along with his Spiderman theme...this took me absolutely FOREVER!!

And now all I have left is the master bedroom...Yes!!