March/April

Well, let's throw things WAY back. Forget the fact that I just drove to my parents' house to start the move to NH. And there are currently movers scurrying around our house right now back in Southern Virginia. Let's take it back a few notches to March and April... sheesh. Life's been full lately, but I don't want to miss out on sharing a few gems in photos. 

For current photos, kept up more regularly, you can find me on Instagram as "riverandshore." I still like to take photos with my good camera, but it just doesn't go everywhere with us and so it misses out on a lot of daily life, outings, and activities. 

MARCH

March has become one of my favorite months because that's when my family has their spring breaks. They usually come and visit us for some of their time off and I love it. Aunt Phoebe came for a few days,

 and then my parents came after they returned from Madrid!

 We hiked to the Cascades!

The carrot boys!! My grandma always called me her carrot girl.

Before Easter, in April, Ian and I had some fun with potato painting and then stamping them on paper, they were supposed to look like eggs.

Papa had to moonlight over the Easter weekend, so the boys and I hit the road for Paris Mountain for some  Willem reading Ian one of his favorite books, "Saint George and the Dragon" :)

Dad read Owen the cliff notes version of the book. Owen looks SO sleepy! About 14 months in these photos.

Let the egg-dying pursuits begin!!

I'm pretty sure this is the first time my dad has ever dyed eggs with us. I love that our kiddos bring us all together :)

Ian's pipe! ;)

Phoebe's boyfriend, Will, was a bit amazed by our egg-dying talents. Haha!

Candy Land, one of my favorites growing up. I used to cheat and put the princess near the top of the deck, and placed a few turns away from the beginning for me to turn over. Hopefully Ian doesn't take after me... although he, too, gets a bit impatient to get to the castle :)

Dad decided to burn his Christmas tree and it was a HUGE fire.

The smart little man that Ian is, he decided to come up on the porch when the flames got higher and higher.

Cuddle bug... :)

Those blues....

A little belated now. but thank you for a lovely Easter, Mom & Dad <3

8 on the 8th!

Eight years ago we said "I do." We stepped into this journey called marriage and started the journey of walking each day of our lives together. Year eight has been no joke. It's been challenging, exciting, busy and has included a whole lot of soul-searching. We location-searched, job-searched, house-searched, and dug deep into our ambitions and goals for our family. 

And after doing each of those things, we *FINISHED* residency and hit the road for our new home in New Hampshire. In the end, we are thrilled with where this year took us, where this marriage adventure has landed us. And, so far, we aren't taking one single day out of residency for granted!! Here's to more family time, outdoor pursuits, adventure, and beach time than we've ever had or done before. Year nine, it's on!! :)

Marriage is an amazing thing. So many layers of life all wrapped up within one person. The joys, the painful, the self-sacrificing, they're all seen and heard by one person day in and day out. We have a lot of learning & growing to do yet, but it's good to stop and take stock of where we are in year EIGHT.

Deeper in love than before, feeling known, & at peace with this life we're making together.

Home Sweet Home

One week ago now the boys, my parents & I all arrived at our new home for the very first time. We took a couple of days and nights and made the trek up from my parents' home. We enjoyed hotel pools, dinner at a Hibachi restaurant (what a treat and the boys were mesmerized!), pulling off the road during a deluge and flash flooding, and lots of time bonding in the car :)

 And THEN, we arrived at our new home! HOORAY!! It was my first time seeing it; Jim had come up in February when we put an offer down on the house (offer was placed before even seeing it, too!).

People have been asking for my honest opinion and it's that I absolutely love it. So do my parents. And Ian keeps saying, "I really like our house." Sure, there are things we will want to fix & enhance, but overall, it's a beautiful home and matches our needs & even all of our wants to a tee. I'm still marveling at what a great fit it is for our little family.

Here are some sneak peeks from the midst of our first week :)

 Huge backyard, 3 acres.

Post and beam construction.

 Here's the outside from near the back of the yard.

 I love the details of this home.

 Let's just leave this picture here. It was a horrendous night with the movers. Like the worst possible experience ever. This picture was taken at about 3 AM. I didn't get to sleep until 3:45 AM. Insane.

 The house was too quiet. I found this guy reading on his new little shelf :)

 Our table, made by Jim, just breathes in this space. It's lovely.

 I've hung up a few things around our house so far. Here's one from a friend who's been such a blessing. She gave this to me the night before we left and it's so significant and beautiful to me. I will cherish it always. Our home is filled with items like this that bring us joy and remind us of dear and talented family & friends.

 This swing was here when we arrived and it's made Ian SO happy! Dad obliged and pushed him in it whenever he asked. Ian shouts, "I'm flying!!!"

 Morning light in those windows.

 A mantle to enjoy decorating. Aunt Lizzy's painting displayed front and center <3

 Watermelon on the porch because.... summer.

 Our bedroom.

 My parents left today after staying with us for a week. I cannot thank them enough for all of their help, support, love, patience, & compassion. So many errands, meals, activities, play times with the boys, cleaning places, laundry loads... you name it, they did it. We've been so blessed. This was how they both spent there first 11 days of summer. I am one lucky daughter. Thank you for loving all of us so well. We miss you already.

And so begins life in NEW HAMPSHIRE!!!!!

A Little Lately

In the past few months, many things have filled our attention and peripheral time. It's about time that I took a couple moments to write about the boys and their latest developments and goings-ons. My, how they change within days, weeks, and months...

As of a month ago now, Owen is walking!!! His ginger steps and falls of the first week have become steady, balanced journeys across the room. His face and eyes light up with each movement forward as if to say, "Goodness, will you check this out?!? I'm walking!!" So sweet.

His language has grown, as well. Now, when I walk in to pick him up after his nap, I am greeted with a "Hi-ee!" It's incredible. And it sounds exactly the way I say "hi" :) It's one of my favorite moments of the day to walk in, pull back the curtain around his crib and hear "hi-ee" before seeing his smiling, rested face peering back at me.

Yesterday I was reading him a book and the book says, "Bump, bump, bump." He immediately said those words right back to me. It was so surprising and exciting!

Owen's personality is SO fun to see unfolding. He's silly, laid-back & opinionated at the very same time. He makes funny faces that keep us all in stitches and he LOVES to be included in absolutely everything.

He's started carrying books over for us to read, which is just the best.

Ian is really into playing WITH someone and doing joint activities. This bleeds into almost every single activity of the day, be it picking up toys, getting dressed, playing with toys, you name it. Life is meant to be shared.

He speaks often of moving to New Hampshire and it's clear that he's processing what it will mean for him. One day on the way to Parent's Morning Out (PMO) he told me that PMO and Ms. Natalie and Ms. Kristy won't be coming with us to New Hampshire. He said that he would have a new school. Once we arrived at PMO I asked if they had been talking to him about this and they said no. At home I asked Jim and he, too, said that he hadn't. Before we were even having the conversations, Ian was starting to process it. And now, today was his last day there. It was bittersweet for both of us. He seemed to understand it and lingered there just a bit longer. We waved goodbye to the building and both teared up a bit.

We've shown him pictures of our new home and he talks about it often. He'll say things that he wants to do there and things he wants to bring with us when we go. It's on his mind a lot, which makes sense because we are all talking about it a great deal, these days. It's amazing to process something like this with him.

He's also VERY into asking the question, "Why?" A new level of understanding brings the new question of why things are the way they are, why people feel a certain way, you name it. I often sing the Mr. Rogers song in my head, "Why, why, why, why, wonder why... "

These boys adore each other. One day, we were playing at a friends' home with lots of other children running around. I looked across the room to find them in a longggg embrace. It lasted so long that other moms started to notice and comment. Ian had been outside playing and Owen just noticed that Ian was around again. He went over for a "welcome back" hug. This mama could hardly stand the emotions :)

What they love best is being outside and playing together. We are THRILLED that this is the case. We cannot wait for them to have space to explore the backyard in our future house. It's not long now.

We celebrated Mother's Day at home this year. It was lovely. Jim made me a huge breakfast spread, we built a super cool fort in our backyard, we had a relaxing day in our home & yard. Then Jim made a yummy dinner. My belated mother's day gift was to take a needlepoint class in Blowing Rock, NC with one of my friends. Last Saturday we took the whole day and drove down three hours, took the class, ate lunch and walked around the super sweet town of Blowing Rock (I want to go back!), before driving back. We chatted the whole way, both of us gone from our second babies for the first full day ever. It was lovely and so nice to spend time with this dear friend.

We also celebrated Jim's birthday!!! He turned 31 last week! We enjoyed dinner outside and then had, at his request, mint chocolate tiramisu cake. We enjoyed a sweet family celebration and gave Jim a few little gifts. His favorite was an interview of Ian about the birthday boy <3

Life is moving so fast. So much paperwork and phone calls, visits and goodbyes. We just want to savor and linger in each moment. I know that I am only barely skimming the surface right now on this blog. I hope to catch up again once more soon. Boy, am I thankful for my little family. For these boys who provide us with so much laughter and make us beam with love and joy, and for Jim who's finishing up this grueling & rigorous season so very soon.

A friend asked me if I've been able to process moving and it's a hard question to answer. I am trying. I am journaling. I am attempting to do the things we love in these last few weeks, but it's also difficult to imagine that I won't mourn it. Seven years of love and roots have been placed here.

We are SO thrilled & excited for our new location and a place to call our own. And cannot wait to start putting down roots there, too, but this current season is about saying goodbye before I can move completely forward. For some friends it's only a "see you later" though, and for that, we are grateful.

Life Less Ordinary (Part II)

In my last post I announced that we'll be moving this summer!

Come June, our address will change as we drive states away from our beloved Virginia and into New Hampshire. After we made the decision to move to New England, we both had moments of stress and concern thinking about how we would possibly find a place to live from so far away.

During our second visit to New Hampshire, we had a wonderful experience touring around with a realtor who'd been recommended to us by one of the other doctors in the practice. We both felt confident that she would be instrumental in helping us find the place we could call home.

While we were up there, we narrowed down where we'd like to live, based on the school system and commuting distance for Jim. I took an afternoon and went and toured the two potential elementary schools our boys would attend in that area. One of them TOTALLY knocked my socks off. So, that narrowed down our house search even more and that informed my opinion on every house I looked at.

About a month ago the housing market started picking up in New Hampshire. Our realtor started sending us listings and I started dreaming and imagining us in every single house.

Now, I should probably preface this with the fact that Jim and I have been dreaming about our future house since before we started dating.

There's no telling how many hours Jim has spent researching and reading articles on sustainable living, straw bale construction, and permaculture for the property. It's like breathing for him; my wood-working, extremely capable husband has spent many medical study breaks dreaming of a life for us, a home for us and our children. We always thought we'd build a house, when the time was right.

So, maybe our style could be called rustic farmhouse, but even rustic seems to strong a word for us. We both like a simple feel, lots of natural light, and neutral colors. An open floor plan was a strong hope and desire.  A kitchen with space for the two of us to cook together, and a dining room to hold a large group of friends & family for holidays and potlucks. We prefer absolutely no carpet and love hardwood floors. Our home needs a mudroom to bridge the gap between our desire for adventure and outdoor pursuits, and our love for a somewhat tidy abode. We also always dreamed of having an apartment to rent out for extra income.

And then there's the land. We have always dreamed of having a few acres for our children to explore and climb trees, or kick a soccer ball. And space for a garden, fruit trees, and chickens was always a necessity, too. We didn't want to limit our options too much, so we put at least one acre on our hopeful list.

About one week after we started receiving listings, five houses came on the market in the very same day. I had been opening the emails immediately, every time a house came on, hoping that it would be a match for us.

At 4 PM on Monday, the perfect house marked EVERY SINGLE CATEGORY!

I opened the listing and sat there stunned for a minute. Jim and I had been on and off of the phone all day, during his 12 hour shift, working on getting pre-approval letters through the bank, and thinking we would pursue one of the houses already on the market. When I saw this house, I sent Jim and email saying "THIS IS THE ONE."

He didn't even respond to my email when he saw the house, he immediately called the bank.

I texted the realtor.

As my dad said, it's uncanny how much this house looks like me and Jim. My mom said it was made for us. And Jim and I have said over and over again that this is the house we would build ourselves.

So, thus began the absolutely absurd week of attempting to get our dream home.

I'll save you all of the details, but the house came on the market on Monday, Tuesday Jim drove to Florida to take a board exam on Wednesday, we put an offer down on the house on Wednesday, Jim saw the house on Thursday in NH(!), & Friday night our offer was accepted over many other offers!

It was a sickening week. Jim and I both didn't sleep or eat well imagining this house slipping out of our fingers. But....

 HIP HIP HOORAY, it's going to be ours!!

So, the details?

It's a four bedroom house that's attached to a large mudroom, that attaches to a two car garage with an apartment on top!! The house is built with post and beam construction, so the whole house has exposed beams-- so gorgeous! It's an open floor plan between the kitchen, dining room, and living room space with a fireplace, a master suite on the first floor, and then three bedrooms upstairs. Each of the bedrooms upstairs has a loft, perfect for creating cozy spots to read or relax!!

The house is situated in the middle of three acres, with a large open yard, and lots of woods surrounding the house. It's located very close to the high school and down the road from the middle school, so our children will be able to walk to school!! It's also within walking distance of University of New Hampshire (UNH) and the downtown. UNH has trails for running, snow-shoeing, cross-country skiing that we'll be able to enjoy, as well.

The house has a few opportunities for Jim to work his magic on, which he's excited about. There's an unfinished basement with a bathroom and the garage has space for a studio or woodworking shop. Jim's mind is already spinning.

It's brought us so much peace and stability to think about moving to a house we love so much already. We couldn't have dreamed up a better home to come on the market at precisely this time. BUT, it's also our first time buying a home, so it's entirely terrifying & nerve-racking, as well.

Life has kept us on our toes, lately!!