Come on Over - Part II

I'm back to finish showing you our new home for the next year. I mentioned in yesterday's post that I wanted to better document how our house evolves. And even though we will only be here a year I'm sure there will be plenty of changes - I know there were in the apartment we just moved out of and we only lived there 11 months.

Yesterday I showed you the first floor of our house and today we are heading upstairs. Remember the stairs at the front door? They lead up to all the bedrooms.

The door straight ahead is to a bathroom - it's the boys' bathroom.

To the left of that is Owen's room.

Spin around and the master bedroom is across the hall.

That door in the little nook is to the master bath.

Here's a shot of the door straight on.

And here's the bathroom.

Back out in the upstairs hall you can see the doors to the laundry closet.

Ethan's room is to the right of the hall bath.

And the playroom is on the far right. It's the smallest bedroom in the house, hence the reason behind why we chose this room as the play room.

So there it is folks, our new casa. We've already begun slowly making it ours. Surprisingly I have a vision of what I want to do in every room with the exception of Ariana's room. She still needs a new mattress (Seth took her mattress when he PCS'd), as well as a bed frame. So once I figure out what I'm doing with her room I'll be sure to fill ya'll in.

Any moving for anyone else only five days prior to school starting? It's been crazy dude...straight-up bananas.

Xoxo,

Lorri

Come on Over - Part I

Come on over bay-buh!...No? No Xtina fans? Well then boo to you too...

Let's take a virtual tour of our new abode, shall we? Play Christina while taking the tour and you'll get bonus points.

In this house, I wanted to make sure I did better at documenting the changes we made, projects completed, and just the overall transformation of our house into a home. When packing up the apartment I realized how much it changed even just in a year and I I have a passion for decorating and making our house into a home so I really appreciate when I see a photo of a room on week one and then the changes a room has taken in weeks, months, (and if we military folks could be so lucky) years. So this go-'round I busted out the camera on move-in day, although I probably should have done it prior to putting anything in the house because as you will see in a moment all these photos are crazytown! With boxes everywhere and Jersey being a photo bomb. So without further ado, let's get on with it. Yes?

First off, we are in a rental. Second, it's a sweet little townhouse. Lastly, it's a bit over 1900 square feet, has five bedrooms, three full baths, and one hilly driveway. While it's obviously a modest home, it's ginormous in comparison to our tiny 1300ish square foot apartment in Destin we just moved from. And yet our rent is almost $500 a month cheaper here in the new place. But I guess that's what you happens when you live in a tourist area - they bend you over and...well, even I won't go there.

So let's get to it...

When you enter the front door you are greeted by stairs to the bedrooms.

To your left is the living room.

The living room is small and it shares a space with the dining area but it's still more open than our apartment's living/dining area was so we can't shouldn't complain.

Past the dining area is the kitchen. Why they made a little cutout in the wall is beyond me, they should've just knocked the whole wall down to make everything feel more open and seamless. At the very least the door to the kitchen could be doubled, the rectangle opening closed, and more cabinets/counters put on what would be left of the wall on the kitchen side. Just saying.

Speaking of the kitchen let's take a looksie. The black appliances are an eyesore but they're new so there's the positive in that. The cabinets make me want to barf - if this were my home and I were going to live here for more than a year I'd start in here first. I'd change the cabinets, add more counter space, and get rid of those black appliances, seriously.

If you come back out of the kitchen there is a plethora of doors in a little square-ish area, I call it the square hall. The door straight ahead is a bathroom.

The open door in that plethora-o-doors photo is Ariana's bedroom

This home is on the market, so I'm assuming that when they staged it they put up those sexy curtains you see in the first photo of Ari's room. I want so bad to burn said curtains in a ceremonious fire, but I have to hang them back up when I move out so they are sitting in a closet untouchable.

Below is the view looking out of the squarish hall.

Again, hands off the stunning brass chandi over the dining table, you'll have to fight me for that puppy. Seriously though, I would have replaced that the day I moved in if this were my home, but alas I'm only renting so I'll be cringing at the fixture each time I walk by.

So that's the first floor of our new house. I planned to show the whole house in this post but it's already a bit of a lengthy post considering I'm simply giving you a photo tour of our home. Plus, it's late and I need some shut-eye. So I'll give you the rest of the tour tomorrow morning. And then tomorrow evening check back in with us because Ari and I have a quick somethin' somethin' for ya!

Until then,

Lor

Spiders, and Chaos, and Moving, OH MY!

It's coming together ya'll. Life, that is. I think we're finally getting into a routine and things aren't nearly as hectic as they were a few weeks ago. Now don't get me wrong, I've embraced the fact that some level of chaos is always going to be a part of our lives and I'm sure that anyone else with three school-aged kids, a full-time job, and thousands of miles separating them from their husband can safely say the same thing. But we're making it work and enjoying the chaos one day at a time.

Speaking of craziness, guess who's moving? This girl and her three offspring.

Don't fret, those faces aren't because we're moving, although I'm sure we'll look like that halfway through moving day when we just want it to be over with. Instead, those are the faces of four terrified individuals that had to fight a spider to the death. Normally we'd all squeal then call for Daddy to come kill the spider, but Daddy is on the east coast flying multi-million dollar jets so he's kind of busy and dealing with things slightly more important than spider killing.

So who kills the spiders now? Ethan, of course. Hellooooo?! Don't judge me for using my child as our bug killer. I mean, if you think about it he's practically a grown man - let's not focus on the small fact that he has seven and a half more years before he's legally an adult in the state of Florida. Besides, I made that kid from scratch (In case you missed Health Ed class I started with only an egg ya'll, and nine months later out came a human) that's kind of a big deal and causes me to feel no remorse when asking him to take one for the team by killing bugs. Long story short - the little ones came barging in my bathroom screaming that there was a bug the other day - it seems that they only need me when I'm peeing, in the shower, or just sitting down on the couch after standing for four hours straight - I digress,  so I ran out to the dining area to see what all the fuss was about. The two little ones were full on yelling at this point, Ari was standing on the bench to our dining table and Owen was actually on the counter.

I just looked at them and said something like, "Simmer down, it cannot be that serious." Then Ari pointed to the floor and screamed, "Mommayyyyyyyyyyy! Look!" I looked down and...screamed at the top of my lungs, ran in circles before taking note from my two youngest children and jumped onto the dining room table. Ethan, all the while, was laughing. He grabs a shoe as we scream, "Get it!" over and over again.

Finally, the spider is got. Note the celebratory dance from Ariana and the grin from E. The kids were still freaking out slightly so I did what any good mom would do, I consoled them grabbed the camera to document their faces and I added effect by screaming as well. Hence the above photo...and the below photos...

But back to the purpose of this post, our upcoming move. I rented this tiny, over-priced apartment because it was supposed to be temporary. I thought I was going to PCS (which stands for: permanent change of station for all my lovely civilians out there) with Seth last month so that would've meant only 10 months living in said tiny apartment. But, as I explained a while ago that didn't happen. And my lease is up at the end of August, and the rent is raising, and my kids are cramped, and I'll be in this area for another year so Mama needs to find a newer, bigger, cheaper abode. And so began: Mission Impossible. There was no way I was going to find a bigger place here in Destin for any cheaper than what I'm paying now, it's a tourist town, with so much to do, the beach is literally across the street and there is no way I would find a place for less thaaaan saaaay $2000/mo to even simply rent a place the size I was hoping for. Bananas, right?! So I had to look in other nearby towns. Enter, Crestview. Or Crest-tucky as the locals call it. They give it its nickname because it's supposedly country as hell there (get it? Kentucky...Crest-tucky), but apparently none of these people that refer to Crestview as Crest-tucky have ever been to where I'm from, because lemme just tell ya'll, where I'm from, I got phone calls years after graduating high school and moving away informing me that they were building a Super Walmart there. Phone calls from people I hadn't talked to in years! To inform me that, "We're getting a Super Walmart!!!"  How's that for country? So I wasn't turned off of Crestucky for it's tucky-ness. In fact, I was turned on (too much info?) by the fact that you can get a nice sized home for super cheap. And so we did.

Ah, a huge burden off my back. I was so relieved to find a place I like, and that was a decent size for us, and for a low price. Especially since when I gave my current apartment my notice to vacate I didn't even having another place lined up for us to move in to. So now that I do, I am muy relieved.

The new digs has five bedrooms, one of which is downstairs. The master is upstairs so that left the three kids in the running for a bedroom downstairs. Owen was immediately out of the question, despite his desperate pleadings to bunk on the bottom floor, but the kid is six, and I'm his mom, and I have a need to have him close by me at that young of an age. Then Ariana and Ethan started vieing for the room. I explained to them that there were enough bedrooms upstairs for everyone to get one and that we could simply use the downstairs room as a playroom or guest bedroom. "But I need my own bathroom! And my own space! I'm a giiiiiiiirl," whined Ariana. Ethan's argument? "I'm the oldest. Boom.

I will admit that I agreed with Ethan initially, but I did give it some serious thought and I didn't want to make a final decision until closer to moving day so the other day I announced that E was, indeed, getting the downstairs bedroom. Of course that resulted, somehow, in me agreeing to Ariana getting two additional fish. As you know we currently have Salt and Pepper, our ninja-like goldfish that we unexpectedly won at a school carnival in 2010!!!!!!! Yeah, goldfish aren't supposed to live for two years but Salt and Pepper have proved that they are part ninja so pick your mouths up off the floor.

So there you have it, the reasoning for not so many house photos lately (it's half packed in boxes) and the reason why you only got a simple photo of Owen's new nightstand on Friday.

Please tell me I'm not the only one with immortal goldfish, or a brave soul of a spider killing son, or country so deep in my veins that even after being away from home for 12 years I still say 'ya'll' in every other sentence.

On another note, smile ya'll it's a happy, happy Monday!

Xoxo,

Lorri