Well- It's official

From the lakes of Minnesota to the hills of ...... Virginia- We're moving!

For a few months now, Ive been ancy and not really happy with my job or the fact that Adam didn't have a career picked out. We've been looking into traveling to Alaska or Hawaii on a 3 month assignment (I even got an OT license for HI). Things kept falling through and not seeming to work out for us. I got an email about a job in Virginia that would pay for most of my student loans. (3.5 years of grad school = alot) I emailed them and things started to fall into place. We ran into an old friend who started talking about his job installing sound systems for the church- Hello Adam's dream job! SO he found out what kind of degree he would need and it is offered at Weber and from an extension in a little town in Virginia! I interviewed over the phone, they flew me out and offered me a good job and even offered to pay for our move. I accepted and this week they flew Adam and I out to look for a place to live. We have looked at several places online that were cute but when theyy began showing us rental properties, they were all ick, except one that went up for rental yesterday. We saw it and it was so cute, we told them we'd take it. So now we have a place to live and all thats left is to sell our house. Someone came through it yesterday and want to come back today so ....fingers crossed everybody.

We're moving to the town of Martinsville, VA which is a small town down near the border of North Carolina. We're about 30 min from the Blue Ridge Mountains and 3 hours from the coast. I'll be doing home health but being paid by the hour which is way better :). Everyone here sounds a bit like Mater from the cars movie...with a little bit of a drawl. but it's a cute place. Nascar races here twice a year and there are some cute lakes around for boating. Our plan is to be here long enough for Adam to get his degree and pay off all our student loans (mine and his) and come home completely debt free! It's good to have a plan, but we will definately miss our family and friends. (Hopefully many of you can come visit us. We'll keep a guest room ready ;) I'll be coming home a few times while working on my Doctorate- oh, yeah, they'll pay for that too. Isn't that awesome?

We're excited for this new adventure. We know it will be challenging but we will grow and probably become closer as a family and have some great missionary opportunities. (Our branch covers like 4+ cities) We're going there on sunday to check it out. We'll be leaving Sept. 28 so play with us before we leave :)

Our Square Foot Garden

This year, inspired by my Mom, we built a square foot garden. It is a special way of gardening that optimizes space and makes it so you never have to weed or till again-ever. To make it, we followed this book and made a Mells Mix consisting of 1/3 peatmoss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 mulch from 3 different types. We mixed it and planted it and followed all the directions to a tee but my seedlings never really took off. One of the things Mel says about square foot gardening is that it never needs fertilizer. When my mom complained to the J&L people that hers wasn't growing either, they said that Mel was wrong- square foot gardens do need fertilizer. So we got some bat guano, bird guano and fish guano (for those of us who are not up on our terms that's bat poop, yup... bat poop) We fertilized, and like magic things started to grow. A few of the seedlings got stumped but the rest have gotten so big! We've eaten beans, tomatoes, purple beans, carrots, beets, lettuce, squash and huge garlics. Food just tasted so much better when it comes from your garden. Love it. I definately recommend square foot gardens and fertilizer. Not only are they practical, but the're so darn cute!

Our latest project- tell us if we're crazy

After

Before

So ever since we moved in, Ive wanted to do something to update our kitchen. Especially the cabinets. Adam put in undercabinet lighting and overcabinet lighting, but this week, we decided to break out the black paint. Adam added crown molding and base moldings. What a job, but I think it helped alot. Our cabinets look new and modern- why didn't we do this earlier? Oh yeah, because of black paint everywhere and our little painter Jackman. Thanks to Grandma though, we got rid of him for a day and safely painted just the cabinets and not everything else in the room. When I mentioned to some of the Elderly ladies I work with that we were painting our cabinets black, they gave me that disgusted look and said, "Why would you do such a thing? Kitchens are supposed to be light." Is it modern or did we go too bold? What do you think?

The Greys River

All growing up, we would go to the Greys River every first full week in August. Grandma B would cook up 5 batches of chocolate chip cookies and lots of other goodies for camping fun. The smores by the campfire, time to talk and get to know cousins, and a stove covered with trout, I have so many great memories of our large family get togethers. Its been a few years, Grandma and Grandpa aren't able to come anymore, we weren't able to get our exact campsite we used to get, but this year we returned to the Greys.

A bunch of dirty feet after a week of camping...
Last summer we were all pregnant and this year we have beautiful babies!! Shanna and Josh, Jessica and Camden and Me and Charlie.

All the kids. After this picture, Jack demanded that we take another one with just the Big Kids and of course, Jack was a big kid. (I attempted to photoshop Camden in because he was sleeping when the picture was taken... thus Charlie's 3 feet and big Camdens mismatched body.)

Jack loves his rocket

Daddy and Charlie

Grandma Mushy and the cold water!

Roasting mallows for smores

Some of the group

Grandpa and Char bar

Swimming in our wading pool that we filled with river water