Our Serendipitous Journey

These past few months have been generally quite calm, which is much appreciated. The summer ended with us being incredibly busy and school started up before I even had a chance to say goodbye to summer. Our MN trip was incredibly fun and we got to see SO many people. Right after we came back, Dan and Laura jumped in the car and they did a family road trip out to PA. It was the first time we had family stay at our new house. We LOVED it! We went to the beach and Dylan got to see the ocean for the first time. Andy and I had to work so they took a couple days and went to DC. Then we had a little more time with them back here before they left. It was so fun to have the nephews around and really get to hang out with them. School started in the midst of that and somehow I am still just as busy in December as I was at the beginning of the year. I am teaching 4th grade this year at the same school. The best part about it is that I am on the same floor in the same hallway with al...

One year ago today, we drove into PA with Lisa and Nick. When I think back over the year, a LOT has happened, but it has all felt very normal. We have lived in a hotel, an apartment, and a house. We have packed and unpacked twice. We have driven down the entire East Coast to visit Andy's dad and Kathy in Florida. We checked the Carolina's and Georgia off of our bucket list. We have been to MN multiple times and traveled to New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland on a regular basis. While it's been a fun year, I'm looking forward to settling down in our new neighborhood, going back to the same school, and having some normalcy for a while. Normalcy also means traveling to MN, which we will be doing next week. Family weddings are always a good excuse to get back. Andy still has an office in MN so he will be working, but I'm going to continue to enjoy my summer by hanging out with family and friends. I'm really looking forward to a longer time home ...

Timing for our new home could not have been better. We moved in on June 4th and it went so smoothly. The movers showed up on time (yes!) they were careful with our things and efficient (yes!) and we have successfully moved everything from MN into our new home in PA with absolutely nothing getting scratched, dented, or broken. We picked up our storage PODS and got the rest of our furniture, our china and our china cabinet. Everything we own is in one place and it's so great. We got a lot unpacked that first week, which was good because we were off to Firefly just a few days later. My last day of school was on Wednesday. I drove home to meet up with everybody and we were off to Dover, Delaware to camp in an RV and listen to live music for the long weekend. This is our 5th year in a row going to a music festival, and our 3rd year at Firefly. We love the fact that you get to camp on site and hang out on the festival grounds the entire time. We have found a great group of peo...

It has been a busy, stressful month since I last wrote, but I'm happy to say that it's all in the past and we closed on our new home last Wednesday! When I last wrote, we had just lost out on a home we really, really liked. Seeing and losing that home really got us antsy to find our forever home so we amped up the search that week and found a bunch of houses to go look at the following weekend. We saw a few that were fine, but none of them felt like home when we walked in. We saw some pictures of one that I just couldn't quite wrap my head around, so I wanted to see it in person. When we opened the door, to our surprise the homeowner was walking down the stairs! She was extremely pleasant and said that she didn't drive in the snow (yup, snowing like crazy in April!) and that she would stay out of our way. We walked through the house and loved it. We finished our tour that day and wanted to go back and see this home for a 2nd time. We called the realtor and she...

I think of there as being 5 seasons in the year: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Miserable (also known as January and February). Winter is this beautiful time of year when snow is falling and everything is pretty and the cold is not too cold, but chilly. You wake up and everything is bright and you drink your hot coffee and think about how beautiful it is outside. Then 10 days later I'm over it. The good news is that the months of 'Miserable" were not so bad in PA this year. It was pretty mild everywhere, but here the snow really didn't stick and the cold wasn't that cold. It's not nearly as brutal as MN. We saw signs of spring early and there were plenty of days that a jacket wasn't needed and the sunroof was open in the car. Again, I know it was mild, but I'll take it. While not a terrible winter, we were looking forward to our vacation. During Spring Break we decided to road trip down the East Coast and make our way to FL, where Andy...

We're going to back it up a bit here, and you will see why in a moment. About a year ago I decided it was a good idea to try to get my PA teaching certificate. We didn't know that we were going to move for sure, but we knew it was a possibility. I figured it couldn't hurt to have it, and I didn't want to find out we were moving and then rush to try to get it so I could find a job. That all sounded a little too stressful for me. I did my research and after way too many phone calls and emails, all trying to convince myself it couldn't be true, I resigned to the fact that I was going to have to retake all of the Praxis exams that I had ALREADY taken AND PASSED in MN, to get my PA certificate. I hate tests. Really, really, a lot. Hate. I went online and registered for the tests. I had to decide between 2 licenses; PreK-4 or 4-8 with a content specific license for 6-8. To be exact, I didn't HAVE to decide, but I didn't want to overwhelm myself with...

There's nothing like being stuck inside during a blizzard to remind you to blog. I recognize that MN gets a lot of snow, but this amount of snow and wind is pretty intense, even for our MN blood. I didn't stock up on water, toilet paper, milk, and bread like the rest of the East Coast, but we are sticking to the indoors and staying off the roads. One thing I've mentioned before is how narrow the roads are here. It's not that they can't or don't plow, it's that there is nowhere to put the snow. I've heard that with a big storm like this, the roads might be narrow and pretty rough for a long time. I guess I'll find out in a day or 2. Until then, let's catch up on the past month. Christmas and winter break were really wonderful. We were in MN for 5 days and got to spend time with both of our families. I also got to catch up with some friends and take our nephews out for some Auntie and Uncle time. It was great to be able to be with our ne...