Bye Bye 'Bama

I have news! Our offer was accepted on the house in Saratoga Springs!! AHHH. We move in October 30th and I AM SO EXCITED. We all are! It's a beauty and exactly where I wanted to live. I'll share more about that in a few weeks when it's officially ours. This post is a little bittersweet for me because it's my very last Alabama post :,) I made sure to save the photos from the house listing for memories sake. We sure are going to miss 6 Burke!

^^ Jumping for joy when our house finally went under contract.

Disclaimer: The colors in these photos are not very accurate. These look like totally different floors haha.

I think both me and the kids miss the playroom the most.

I'm still so amazed at the yard comeback. Our backyard was dead grass, weeds, and dirt for the majority of our time here. It made having a big backyard not so fun. I'm glad we had pictures taken when we did because thousands of army worms moved in a few days later and they sucked the life out of the grass. Those pesky worms got into the house a couple of times which made the idea of moving much more appealing to me. I wish I was kidding, but it's true. Our yard became a buffet for the birds so this was a sight I loved to see. We treated the yard and sprayed the house before moving out, so hopefully this won't be much of an issue for the new owners. Either way, no longer our problem!

I started packing up and selling most of our furniture the day we accepted the offer. I must say selling stuff on Facebook marketplace is basically a full-time job. Listing, pricing, messaging, negotiating, profile background checking, scheduling, pickup planning. My phone was blowing up! It was a hectic week for sure, but the wad of cash we ended up with made it all worth it haha.

While I was organizing bins I found this old picture. Um Brielle is that you?! I see so much of her in little me, it's crazy!

- Move out day -

Besides some heavy furniture, Jason loaded the uhaul entirely himself. He also helped load Ryan's uhaul because they were moving out that day as well. I was extremely overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that had to get done. There was so much to do, I didn't know what to do! My mom was a huge, huuuuge help. She packed up the entire kitchen, did so much cleaning, and drove the entire 25 hour drive while I dealt with the kids. I truly don't know what I would have done without her! My sweet neighbor Kenzie brought us a yummy homemade dinner that night and watched the kids for a little while we cleaned and packed up some final things. Her husband Jared and our neighbor Josh came over to help Jason move the fridge, washer, and dryer to the garage. I am so thankful for all the help we received! Before heading out early the next morning I snapped a final picture of our kitchen. It was so weird seeing it completely empty. It's kind of a sad thought that we'll never go in that house again. So many happy memories were made here.

So long 6 Burke! You were so, so good to us.

The drive to Utah was....... long. The kids did okay the first day, had a few more meltdowns the next day. Honestly, I don't blame them. We stopped at a fun park in Atlanta to help break up the drive. It was HOT but the kids didn't care because they were free!!! Emmett even made a cute new friend while we were there. The highlight of Emmett's trip though was definitely the hotel. He was in heaven riding on the elevator, running down the halls, jumping on the beds, and opening the door with the key card lol.

We made it to our townhome in Syracuse around 4 pm that evening. We had family there waiting to help unload the uhaul as soon as we got there. So grateful for them! It was a good workout for everyone because this townhome has two flights of stairs and most of the furniture had to go to the third floor. We're not looking forward to moving everything back out in a few weeks.... but it will 100000% be worth it.

Well that's that! We've been in Utah for about two months and have done sooo much during that time. I may or may not get around to posting about some of it... we will see. There's a good chance the next time I'm on here we will be in our new house!!!

Life + July 4th

I started this post weeks ago and sooo much has happened since! Our house is finally under contract after almost a month on the market. We packed up, cleaned everything, moved out, and drove thousands of miles across the country (with much help from my mom!!) After two full days of driving we moved straight into a townhome in Syracuse and we've been here now for about three weeks. It's been a fun, busy, but hard time. It feels so good to be back but the transition has not been easy on the kids. They haven't been sleeping great and are acting out more than normal. Emmett tells me daily he wants to go to his "old house". They miss their friends and going to the gym daycare everyday. Jason went back into work for the first time since Brielle was born. He also had kidney stones for the first time ever which was so so so painful for him and scary for me! Because of that we spent our Labor Day in the hospital and ended up missing Callum's first birthday party. That's just our luck!!

I was really hoping I'd fall in love with the area we're in because it's so close to Jason's job, but that's not been the case. I don't like the whole living an hour away from everything and everyone, especially during the day when it's just me and the kids. Soooo we will likely be looking elsewhere for a house. We actually put an offer in for a house in Saratoga Springs today. It took a lot of convincing because that's an hour commute for Jason, but I have high hopes that he'll be working from home part-time or be able to transfer to the Northrop Grumman office in Magna eventually. I'll keep praying! But I truly, truly think our daily life (and my sanity) will be better off living somewhere we actually want to live that's closer to the people we want to be around. If they accept our offer we'd live two minutes away from Britta, five minutes from my parents and Mauri, twenty minutes from Hailey, Karlie, Ryan, Mel and about thirty minutes from Shilo. To me it's a no brainer!

I feel like I could share so much more about life in Utah so far... like Britta's baby sprinkle, the Biddall's reuniting, City Creek with Sydney, car shopping, house walk-throughs, Tierra and Cort visiting, Reese being born!!!! But I need to cut myself off somewhere or this will sit in my drafts forever. I'll update more on some of that later, but let's finish what I started and take it back to the 4th of July! This was our last holiday in Alabama so we decided to drag out the celebration haha. We spent the afternoon of July 3rd swimming with friends, eating pizza, hanging at the Collins, and going to a firework show. On the 4th we dressed festive, took pictures, went back to the Collins house for a yummy bbq, sprinklers, and street fireworks. It was a good time. We're all really going to miss holidays with the Alabama fram!

^^ Brielle's face is my fav haha.

Love these cute cousins. We're so happy baby Harvey followed us to Utah!

Alright, that'll do for now. I hope everyone had a festive fourth!

GOD BLESS AMERICA.