4 Years

Dear Josh,
Thanks for asking.
Love always,

Lindsay

Our Life in Boxes ...

What a crazy past couple of months...  crazy enough to put me a couple months behind here. 

So...let's get caught up, shall we. 

Josh and I arrived to Texas with our life packed in a Penske truck on May 26th. With the help of my cousins, sister, brother-in-law, mom and dad - we unloaded the majority of our life in storage and the rest at our temporary home. Not knowing what the next couple months were going to bring, we decided to stay at my Dad's for a bit until we could decide who we were going to build with and where. The house hunt (January to present) was not going too well. We felt all odds were against us since we had been looking for five months, a couple offers that didn't go our way, and the pleasure of meeting some crazy wonderful builders and Realtors along the way. Now we were "homeless". I never fully grasped how HUGE the Dallas metro was until we were looking for houses. Take North Dallas, draw a 30-mile circle around it, and there you have where we were "hunting".

(Disclaimer: iPhone picture (not the best). Josh is holding up a bumper sticker A & L got him for graduation. It reads, "I may not have been born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could".)

 Get on with it right!? We arrived with our life in boxes on the 26th of May, as I mentioned before. We set out on the 27th to look at a house with our realtor that had just came on the market.  One more shot before we focused on our commitment to build.  We liked a lot about this house but it ended up being a "who lives like this" house on the inside.    Needless to say... we thought the odds were still against us but we were willing to wait and "watch it".  A little home improvement project didn't turn us away.

Fast forward to 2:00 pm the same day.  Josh and I are still in the area and I receive an email from our realtor with some more listings.  I browse the listings and come across another house.  I tell Josh literally, "I think we should go see this one.  The pictures are really nice."  Knowing our realtor had another commitment in about an hour, we call her quick and see if she could set up a showing.  Booked.  2:30 it is.

Josh and I got about five feet, maybe ten, inside the door and looked at each other - "this feels like home".  Praise the lord.  We found a house!  Not so fast...we were up against another offer.  And now the game of house hunting really drove me mad gets fun.  Yes, I cried.  Any women would, right?

Long story short.  We got the house!!  We are officially Texas residents as of June 25th.  We had so much support from our families along this crazy ride.  Sounds kind of silly that finding a house was so hard for us.  We cannot thank them enough for their encouragement along the way.

I promise more pictures are on the way...

Mrs. Smith

I have to brag.  Ashley was recently recognized as Decatur's Teacher of the Year which was on top of being named Carson Elementary's Teacher of the Year!   It takes an incredible gift to be teacher and I have so much respect and admiration for Ash, for her kind nature and patient hand.  What a difference she is making in the lives of her second graders and their parents. 

We love you Mrs. Smith and so do your kiddos!

Photo found here: http://www.decaturisd.us/10261022119218957/site/default.asp