Catching up on the blog!

We are settled into our new house.  I recently changed some of the landscape on the front yard.  Just before the heat really kicked in, but I got a good tan and workout!

Three months after Christmas and they finally get to enjoy their scooters!

A trip to Mt. Pleasant to search for some furniture and we stopped at a pretty good "dive" Jack's Cosmic Dogs.  We got there just in time, a huge crowd showed up along with all of the regular's that knew what they wanted right away.  We quickly picked a hot dog and found our seats.  Chad is so use to getting 3 hot dogs from hot dog stands…he couldn't finish the 3 he ordered from here because they are so filling and on a bigger roll.  But very yummy!

 We also participated in the kid's run during the big Cooper River run.  They had a great time!

They are all winners!

A unplanned trip to Isle of Palms!  

Some decorating in the playroom.

Five months later….they get their bikes from Granna!  Kirsten and Jack are loving them…Tyler needs to warm up to riding a bike.  Jack did eventually take off the training wheels.

Young Living Essential Oils

At the beginning of June I met some wonderful ladies and learned about Young Living Essential Oils.  It was right before Tyler's tonsil surgery and I was concerned about managing his pain since he does not take medication's very easily.  They told me about a few of the oils and what I can do with them so I decided to sign up as a wholesale member and ordered the premium kit.

We have gone through almost all of the lavender and peppermint.  Both are used for so many reasons.  Peppermint has been my go to oil for headaches.  I haven't had tylenol or advil since May.  I have used the lavender on the kids for all their scrapes.  For Tyler, I have used peace & calming after his tonsil surgery and I diffuse a few times a week to keep peace in the house.  I was hoping it would calm down Brownie, but it doesn't seem to be working.  But it did work on Jack after he crashed on his bike.

Check back to see some of my favorite oils and recipes!

If interested in becoming a Young Living wholesale member, please visit 

http://tinyurl.com/franklinfamilyoils

Member #1851253

Our New House….the building process.

Back in the fall of 2012 we started talking about moving and getting a bigger house.  So after Christmas  we decided on Charleston, SC and went down to take a look and see if we really wanted to live there.  We booked a condo on Edisto Island, about one hour south of Charleston.  We drove down with all the kids, mom and Jasmin.  The kids didn't quite understand what we were doing, they were just excited to see the beach.  Temps weren't too bad, in the 50's the entire week we were there, so we were able to go out to the beach for a few minutes to play.

We met up with a realtor in the area of Mt. Pleasant….a nearby city surrounding Charleston.  We liked what we saw and figured that Mt. Pleasant had the best school district near Charleston.  She drove us around, explaining all we needed to know about Mt. Pleasant and Charleston.  We even went and checked out a new development….and drove around some other neighborhoods.

By April 2013, we put our house on the mountain up for sale.  It took several months before we had our first walk through…kinda depressing, but we had it listed a bit high since we weren't in a rush to move at that time.  By the end of the school year we were ready to drop the price.  And still no walk throughs.  Towards the mid of June I had been searching different area's in the Charleston area.  We had decided that we would not be able to afford a house in the Mt. Pleasant area because we think we should get a 5 bedroom house since we won't be able to have a basement down there.  It is the low country after all.  That way the kids can somewhat get there own room and we will have a place for a play room.  So I found the City of Goose Creek, only about 15 minutes north of Charleston.  I even found a new build, which made both of us very excited!  So Chad went down to Charleston for a networking function and took a drive out to Goose Creek to check out this new neighborhood.  We both fell in love with the one that I found.  So we planned a mini vacation to Charleston so I could check out this house in person.  We left Tyler and Jack with Granna and took Kirsten and Andrew with us.  We were down there for the 4th of July and that just made it all more exciting for us, and made us want to live there even more.  After two visits to the model house we sat down and put a contract on our new house!  WOO HOO!!!!

Back to trying to sell our house on the mountain we lowered the price again, held many open houses, and even started packing up things.  By the beginning of August we were all moved out of our mountain house and were temporarily living with mom.  We put most of our stuff in a tractor trailer/storage unit.

Living with mom….we moved in and put the kids in Fairfax County Schools, Jack and Kirsten are in Lane Elementary and Tyler is at Island Creek Elementary for preschool.

More months went by and still no buyer for our house, meanwhile we have a contingent contract on the new house, which means they won't start building until we get a contract on the mountain house.  By November we decided we would rent our mountain house so we could get the build started on our new house.  In December we got renters!  And mid December we went down to do a pre-drywall inspection on the house.

That was so exciting to see!!!  And now the kids understand that we are building a new house.  

It is now February 2014 and we are counting down the days until we move in.  We are going through several delays to get us in the house.  Chad went down on February 17th for a final inspection…there were just a few things to fix but things look great!!!

We were suppose to be moving in this week, but it looks like that won't be happening until March 13th now….long and complicated story!  Can't wait to get into the house!

Christmas/Disney Trip 2011

For Christmas we decided we would take the kids to Disney World...we hit the road after opening presents on Christmas day! They were so excited, but they didn't expect such a long drive. We stopped over night in Savanah, GA. I think the made things better, they were really excited about sleeping in a hotel. Traveling on Christmas day is a bit challenging, not many places were open to eat for lunch and dinner, so our "Christmas dinner" was going through the drive thru at McDonalds....and it was the worst service I had ever had at McDonalds. But at the time we decided to stop, we had very few choices. We had hoped to find a truck stop and at least get the $9.99 steak special, but we didn't see any. We stopped early enough that the kids were able to run around the room for a few hours before we went to sleep. We got up early the next morning for the 6 hour drive to Disney. Oh were they excited now. I must say pulling into the whole Disney resort area felt like a dream come true. It kinda felt like we were in a whole seperate world the whole week.

We stayed at the Disney Carribean Resort! BEAUTIFUL & TROPICAL!

After we checked in and semi-unpacked, we headed out to the Magic Kingdom. We didn't have to drive at all while we were at the resort, we took the resort shuttles everywhere, which seemed like a special treat to the kids (no car seats).

Just after we walked through the gates at Magic Kingdom a parade began...how excited!

We watched the parade and danced in the streets...so much fun. The only downfall to today's visit was the HUGE crowds. We honestly didn't think it would be this crowded, but we were ok with it. It took us that day to figure out what and how things worked at Disney. For example, we had the meal plan (our meals were all prepaid so we could eat any place throughout ever park and every resort). It was lunch time, so after the parade we found a place to eat, probably in the most crowded area of the park. The one thing I kept saying good things about was the food service at the parks. Having been to alot of amusement parks, I was expecting a horrible experience. But they know how it's done! Even though the place was extremely crowded, we walked in, decided on our food...got our food and were seated right away. The staff was SO friendly and helpful....and the food was pretty good too!

After lunch we began our journey through the park...in amazement over the long lines. We kept seeing signs about fast pass, but had no clue what that meant. I think we ended up only riding 2 rides that day, saw many stage & street preformances. Later we headed back to the room had dinner at our resort (which didn't go to well with cranky kids, it was a late dinner). We settled into our room and found out all the tricks to the parks. We were happy at that point.

DAY 2:
Today we went to the Animal Kingdom. Pretty cool places, lots to see but not much to ride, but again we were happy. There was a short rain storm but we managed to get into a bird show.

After our day at Animal Kingdom, we headed over to the Port Orleans Resort for dinner. Such a wonderful dinner! Much better experience then the night before. Kids were so happy during dinner that mommy & daddy were able to enjoy an adult beverage and yummy desert!

DAY 3:

Today we went back to Magic Kingdom...we got up really early (ate breakfast in the room, I packed plenty). We just wanted to get there early and get our fast passes so we could ride all that we wanted. I do believe we got to ride everything that the kids wanted. It was a blast!! But this ended up being the longest day of all. I had planned to have dinner at Downtown Disney...orginally thought we would be done after dinner and just head back to the hotel, but there was one more ride that the kids just had to ride and our fast pass was scheduled for close to 9pm. We just couldn't say no to them...even though mommy & daddy were exhausted. Poor Chad was carrying at least one of the boys at all times...mainly on his shoulders. We discovered how old we were now...but kept on going. Which worked out just fine, we were able to catch the night time electric parade...one thing we both remember from our childhood visit, still looked the same too.

DAY 4:

Last day at Disney. But we didn't slow down one bit! Today we got up early again but headed to Disney's Hollywood Studios for a character breakfast. This was a breakfast buffet where some disney characters walked around to visit all the kids, pose for pictures and sign autographs. Also adding some dancing and singing entertainmet which all the kids were able to join them. A good time was had by all of us. There wasn't much rides at hollywood studios, more like shows. Or at least we weren't able to get on the rides because we didn't get fast passes or the lines where too long. But we still had fun at the shows and getting to meet some of our favorite characters. We saw the guys from Monsters Inc. (Jack was a bit scared of them), Lightening McQueen and Tow Mater (Tyler was in heaven!). OH, and at breakfast we saw Handy Mandy, June from Little Eintstein, Special Agent OSO, Jake from the Neverland Pirates.

Well during this whole trip the kids really wanted to swim in the pool at the hotel, but the weather wasn't as warm as we had hoped, today was probably the warmest day. So we left the park early to get in at least one hour at the pool. The water was fine as long as you stayed completely under water. Getting out to get our towels was torture! We decided that was going to be our day, so we thought....we went to the food court for a early dinner (Jack passed out at the table) meanwhile, I felt a little bad about not being able to finish up at Hollywood Studios. We decided we would go back to the room, pack a litle and then go back to the park. That was a good decision. There was a part of the park that we saw during the day that looked a little strange to us, it was set up like some streets in a city, like New York, but the buildings looked strange. Turned out that they were covered with lights and they changed with the music...very cool! Plus we didn't get to see Phineas & Ferb and we (meaning me) wanted to go see them!

Time to head home...but first we stop in Appomattox for another family Christmas. I am writing this blog two months later and the kids are still talking about the trip to Disney and really want to go back. We hope to make this a semi-regular trip. Maybe every 2-3 years.

March 2011

Mini vacation to the National Harbor, we stayed one night in the Wyndham Hotel.