The last few weeks....

Have been nothing short of CRAZY!! Holy cow! So we got completely moved into our new digs (awesome!!). That was a fiasco in of itself. No... really... I mean it! After pulling an all-nighter to finish the moving, we ended up having to stay with Andy's parents for 2 weeks because our house wasn't finished yet. The builder had sincerely hoped to complete the construction and have the inspection finished by the first but that didn't happen. So, we had a great mini-vacation staying with Andy's parents. I do have to say that having a fully homemade dinner every night was pretty sweet! I had a really fun time hanging with Andy's mom, Carol. We went to the Hagerstown outlets to do some early Christmas shopping/looking/wish-listing. It was awesome! They have a fantastic store called Legacy that has all handmade, solid wood furniture that is a little pricey but total worth the cost. We picked up a gorgeous natural hickory dining room table set. It's 42" x 66" and has two additional 12" leaves. I'm so excited that we can finally entertain and have enough places to seat everyone (without having to use the living room)! And since it's being delivered Thursday afternoon, we'll be able to use it this weekend!! Yay!

I am just so excited to finally be moved in. The unpacking isn't going quick as quickly as I'd like, but my main goal right now is to just get everything put away that is a necessity. I'll worry about the other stuff later. Andy and I would really like to finish painting the rooms before we put everything in them. We have the living room almost complete. My goal this week is to finish Kristi's bathroom and her bedroom. Once those are finished, I'll be moving to the master bedroom and guest room.

I was so happy to cook my first meal in my new kitchen tonight (EEEEEEEE!!!). Even though it was only omelets, it still made me really happy :-) As I've been going through boxes and attempting to pare down some of the non-essentials, I came across a salad dressing hand mixer. It's been sitting in our cupboard at Biglerville for 2 years and I had no idea what it was. Haha! (Just like I didn't know that the grinder Andy used for his flax seed was actually a coffee grinder! LoL!) Well, now that I know I can't wait to try some of the salad dressing recipes I've found. There are so many things, cooking wise, that I want to try. When looking through cookbooks, I find so many different recipes worth trying but some just seem very unhealthy. My current cooking goal is to try and find a way to make those oh-so-unhealthy recipes more healthy. Whenever I do that, I'll totally post it here and share :-)

So Kris and I were having kind of a lazy night tonight. We were watching Barbie Thumbalina when a knock at the door totally startled us. Our next door neighbors came over to say hi, introduce themselves, and bring us homemade chocolate friendship bread (YUM!)... You know like in the movies!!! It was so cool! They were incredibly nice and I loved chatting with them. :-) I think we talked for close to an hour! They have 2 adorable little girls that Kris had a blast playing with and a 4 month old son. I think she made some fast friends. Speaking of....

We got to meet Sophie Rose yesterday! What a blessing! Kristi was so cute yesterday morning. When I went to wake her up for church, I told her that today was the day she'd get to meet Sophie. As soon as those words escaped my lips, Kristi bolted out of bed faster than I could say, "Good morning!" She was so stoked! After she and Sophie met, they were inseparable. They had a blast playing with each other and especially with all of Pappy's toys (he uses them in his play therapy counseling). It was so much fun watching both of them having fun. :-)

Well, I'm thinking this update is getting a little lengthy so until next time... Much happiness and many blessings!!

♥Courtney♥

Beach and moving

As you all know, my goal was to update each day I was at the beach to recount what we did, where we went, and the fun in general. Obviously, that didn't happen. I only made it to the library once and didn't have enough time to update. Anyway... As you read in my previous post, we headed out very early in the morning on Saturday, the 19th. We arrived at Antigua (our condo) around 11 a.m. and I, of course, took our arrival picture.

Our condo

 After we arrived, we unloaded and unpacked everything into our room. We hung around the condo for most of the afternoon to give the little ones time to rest.

 

We have some awesome views from our condo: 

Bay side

Beach side

 After we spent time at the condo, we went down to the boards for supper and exercise. We ate at so many amazing places including The Bonfire, Lombardi's, Dough Roller, The Bayside Skillet, Bull on the Beach, English's, Crabcake Factory and some I know I'm forgetting. I ate so much fantastic seafood which is one reason I love going to the beach!

Monday morning I went for a walk on the beach while Kris and Andy were still sleeping. Here's a few of the pictures I took:

My favorite

We got to spend some time in the sand this year and the weather was perfect!

Little love trying to build her first sand castle

Kris, Andy, and I went out on the beach later in the week to walk around a little while the smaller children were napping:

Andy's attempt to get Little Love near the water

My Love wishing he could swim in the water

This is how the beach looked after the enormous waves

Running toward the waves

Building a sand castle just so the waves could knock it down

Our version of "foot prints in the sand"

At the beginning of the week, there was a rip current advisory so the waves were enormous! Because of that, Andy couldn't swim in the ocean which definitely made him a little sad. But, he walked with Little Love along the water to get her acquainted and hopefully swim later in the week. She made me laugh so many times because as she and I were walking along, she would run up to the water and when the waves would get close, run away screaming and laughing. It was a really great time! Andy and I drew our initials and instead of doing hand prints, did our footprints (kind of like the poem). Kristi, of course, felt a little left out (which was totally not the intention) so she made her own with all of our initials:

My Love & Little Love both went swimming multiple times while down there since there is a heated pool at our condo. I was so proud of Kristi for swimming all by herself and allowing Andy to teach her how to dive! It's was a fantastic experience for all of us!

Every year, there is an artist who creates these amazing sand sculptures near the boardwalk. They are always of Christ in various forms. Here's this years (sorry about the blurriness... I took them at night and didn't have the right light setting):

I love seeing these every year! It really helps ground me in a place where I sometimes need to be grounded.

Here's a couple of random photos from our trip:

A real guy doing a tribute to our soldiers

I think I only got one photo where she actually smiled

Kristi's first experience in the ocean

Thursday was the last day in our townhouse in Biglerville. It was a very bittersweet moment for me because although I'm super stoked about moving into our new place, Biglerville was the first house Andy and I had together. We have so many memories there. I actually cried a little but I think that was more because I had been awake for just under 24 hours! Andy and I finished patching, loading, and cleaning around 4:30 a.m. and took the final truckload over to the new house Friday morning. We dropped the truck back in Gettysburg and headed back to Andy's parents since the builder cannot get the occupancy permits until next week at the earliest. I finally got my first hour of sleep but Little Love woke me up so I could each lunch. :-) It was a trying week trying to get everything taken care of and I am so happy that it is finally over. Well, other than that, not too much is happening here so until next time...Many blessings!

♥Courtney♥