Last post-March 8th. That's disappointing. We apologize to the two people that have noticed. Here we go again, though. If you haven't read, we've moved to Florida and we're loving it! We have some great plans for our new house here in Tampa. But before we get started there, let's have a quick update on our lives.

First Jack. What a kid. I'm sure we share our feelings with all you parents; the amazement you feel everyday to watch your child grow and learn. Jack is talking more, saying new words just about daily. It's amazing, the things he soaks up and remembers. We really have to be careful what we say and do. He repeats it all.

Playing at the park. He's such a happy child. (Usually)

Jack has been in swim lessons for a couple of months and LOVES being in the water. Which makes us very happy parents since we love it too. He's great at holding his breath and getting better at paddling under water. He's fearless around the pool which can be scary at times. We have to watch him like a hawk because he'll throw himself in the deep end (or shallow end) at a moment's notice.

He insists he wear his goggles.

He's also a human flashlight. His hair is so blonde it almost glows. And people will ask Steph where he gets his blonde hair and if I was blonde as a child. What? Really? Considering Steph is the only other blonde in our family of three chances are it's from her.

We love swimming together.

Rolling around Disney.

Next, Steph. Zumba and a two-year-old, among a thousand other tasks keep her occupied 25/8. But she takes every day as it comes. She is so caring about our little family and making sure that we are taken care of.

She has an interesting relationship with Zumba. Sometimes it's frustrating, it's always difficult and can be very taxing on her time and energy. She loves it anyway. Kind of like me. She's so good at it and gets amazing compliments that honestly I don't think most instructors EVER get. She's dedicated to teaching and even though at times it can take all of the motivation she has, she sticks with it and puts in the time and effort it requires to be such a good teacher.

Steph is a primary teacher now and she's enjoying it and "her kids". That's what happens when you have such strong motherly instincts. She teaches a group of CTR 6's and is having experiences only a primary teacher can.

So in love.

Then there's me. Just hoping I can continue to fool my company into thinking I have an idea of what I'm doing just so I can keep working with them. Such an amazing opportunity. Great people, great fun but plenty of work too.

I have a shop! My childhood dream was to have a shop of my own when I grew up. And even though I don't feel grown up, I have one anyway. We have a second garage where I've set up my collection of tools; and I love it! It's not extremely pleasant in the summer heat and humidity but I spend time in there anyway. Florida summers won't even keep me from building stuff.

I'm serving in the Elder's Quorum and have really enjoyed getting to know people and making lifelong friends.

I love my family, I love my job and I love Florida. We're so blessed to be having this experience. We miss our families every day but know that we are where we should be.

Soon we'll be posting pics and updates on our house! We've been in our house for almost a year now and have done a few things to make it ours. We also have some (biggish) plans that we hope to get to very soon.  Keep an eye out.

So I started this post a long time ago, and I'm just getting around to posting it.

Back in October, our lives started to feel normal. After buying our home in January, it took us a while to make it our home and feel like we fit in the neighborhood.  We finally had a routine and we were happy.  Then our lives changed drastically. And it happened very quickly. I feel like I'm on the Bachelor when I say this, but this has been such an adventure!

For those of you who want to know about the adventure, tune in! I'm including all details so we can remember it all some day. This all started with Brandon being contacted by a friend he went to school with. He mentioned he had a friend who was hiring a Creative Director, and said it was a great opportunity. Brandon seriously LOVED his job in Utah and wasn't interested, but he decided to go ahead and see what it was all about. He ended up having his first phone interview that evening. From there, he had two more interviews with the VP of the company and then an interview with the President of the company. A few days later he was offered the job! It all seemed too good to be true. The job offered an increase in Brandon's salary, a promotion from Creative Director to VP of Creative, ownership in the company, and performance bonuses every year. We went to the temple and both received the overwhelming feeling that we needed to go to Florida. We still have no clue why, but we feel like we are meant to be in Florida. So we accepted the job and Brandon started two days later. He started working from home, and actually just had his first day in the office at the end of January.

We listed our house for sale the first weekend in November (the weekend after Brandon started his job) and booked flights for the following Thursday to go look for a house in Tampa.

We decided to have a garage sale that weekend as well. We realized that we had a TON of items to sell and it would possibly be one of our last warm Saturdays to do it. So Friday night we literally raided our houses to collect everything we wanted to sell. And it was a success! We sold a lot and made more than we expected.

On Monday morning, we had someone come look at our house and they put an offer on it by noon! We countered to our original asking price, and within 24 hours, we were in contract! Is this real life?!

Our "spider house" halloween decorations

We flew to Tampa that Thursday. We met my parents at the airport in Denver and dropped off Jack to stay with them. He is a lovely travel companion. 

He always has to ride on top of the suitcase, and climb on everything!

We gave them his suitcase, gave him huge hugs and kisses, and continued onto our next flight to Tampa. It was so weird for me to not fly with Jack. It was my first time not flying with him since he was born. We've been on over 30 flights together and I just don't know how to do it without him!

We arrived in Tampa around 7 at night and we were exhausted! We got our rental car, then headed to the grocery store to get snacks for the rest of the week.

Waiting for our rental car.

Our fuel and fortune for the house hunting. It was a LONG weekend.

We saw some awesome houses, and some not so awesome houses. And then we saw some houses that would have been awesome but they decided to cover the entire thing in this gross orange tile. I could not live with that.

Orange tile? No thanks.

High class for sure.

We really liked this one neighborhood and kept comparing all other houses to it. It was closer to Brandon's work, it was gated, it had an AMAZING pool and splash park for Jack, and a playground a block away. It seemed perfect. But they had no inventory homes. We would have to build and it wouldn't be ready until April or May. The lot was great. It felt like a mix between Florida and Idaho.

I would NEVER complain about living here. Seriously gorgeous.

We ended up looking at about 50 houses. I looked all day Friday with our realtor, then Brandon joined us for all day Saturday. Then I looked some more on Monday and I left Tuesday. It seriously was exhausting!

Each one of these papers is a house we looked at.

We fell in love with one house. It was a bank owned and it was seriously a rockin' good deal. More than we wanted to spend but we were willing to pay for it. But we didn't get it. We found out after I had left Florida, so we had to rethink what we really wanted.

 

While in Florida we ate out a lot.  This trip started our "eating out" phase which lasted pretty much 3 months. UGH.

 

Brandon's co-workers were all down there that weekend too, so we got to meet them and relate over this huge transition in our lives.

  

When looking for houses, we saw a lot of lizards, bugs, and even a snake! This one jumped out of the bushes and made me scream like a little girl!

We skyped every night with Jack. It hurt my heart to see him on the screen and not be able to hold him.

 

In Colorado, Jack went to his first movie with the grandparents. Apparently he sat through the whole thing and loved it!

I left and flew to Colorado and stayed with my parents while Brandon was still in Tampa. I flew to Denver all alone and that was the weirdest thing. Just me, a suitcase, and a purse!

I had the sweetest reunion with Jack in Colorado. He got all giddy and excited and grabbed me and held on for a long time! It made me never want to leave him again!

I celebrated my birthday with my family in Colorado. Twice. It was yummy!

Then we all headed back to Utah as a family. When we got home, it didn't feel like our home anymore. It felt uncomfortable. It felt like it wasn't ours. It felt like it was a temporary place we were staying. We prematurely sold our kitchen table and chairs in the yard sale, so we had nowhere to sit or eat. Right before we went to Tampa, we also installed a brand new, huge and nice sink we purchased before we knew about the job. We couldn't return it, so we installed it anyways. We were both so bummed we wouldn't get to keep the awesome sink! But when we got back, we were both totally fine leaving it too. These two things made us realize that we were ready to move.

Our beautiful and expensive new sink

Our tiny table that I oddly miss.

The next few weeks flew by, so stay tuned for more!