Scenic Crest

We bought a house! For years, it's been a dream of ours to move out to the Hill Country. We've looked and looked and looked. In July we decided to start looking in earnest and that we wanted to sell our house. We looked at quite a few houses. Even put an offer on one and then--after an eye opening inspection--backed out of that one. 

We came to look at this house, even though it was pretty far out of our price range. (Seems like it was around $265k.) As soon as we stepped up to the porch and saw the views and the house, we knew we were in trouble. After one walk through the house, we desperately wanted it, and left sad because we knew we couldn't get it.

We put the Sierra Trail house on the market. I kept my eye on this house over several weeks. I prayed. The price started dropping. But they weren't accepting offers that were contingent on the sale of our house. Houses like this do not stay on the market long and we just knew it would sell any day. Again, the price dropped more and we talked to Donna, our realtor, and she suggested putting in an offer since it looked like Sierra Trail would sell. So we did! Turns out they had one more offer, so we had to give our highest offer and wait. We offered more than she recommended, but we did not want to lose the house. We won and were THRILLED! 

Meanwhile we closed on Sierra Trail and moved in with the Sizemore's for a few weeks. Everything kept going wrong with the Scenic Crest house because it'd been vacant for quite a while and because it was bank owned and because things kept not working and breaking. It was a nightmare! Donna kept suggesting we back out of the house, but we just couldn't. There were several times it looked like the whole thing was going to fall through. However, at the end of the day, we ended up getting the house for $225,000 (exactly where we wanted to be), and all of the "major issues" turned out to not be such a big deal once we got in and settled.

We love our house, and as we pull into the driveway each day, we are still in wonder--"I can't believe we get to live here!"

Here are the photos from the listing. We've got a lot of work to do, but we are so excited!

Backdated. Written 2021.

Saying Goodbye to Sierra Trail

We moved into our house at 11310 Sierra Trail in the spring of 2010. We bought it for $128,000. We sold it in September of 2018 for $205,000 in five days. While we are excited for the hill country and small town living, we've grown to love this house, and finally had it almost exactly the way we liked it. Ha ha. 

Here are the photos from our listing. (Note that the super green grass is photoshopped. Ha!)

Backdated. Written in 2021.

Spring Break 2016

The up side of being at a year-round school is that we got a two week Spring Break! It came just in time, and we loved every second of it! Here's a little snapshot...

Aaron brought me a card and a cupcake to work to celebrate Spring Break.
Yes, it has been that kind of a year.

Carson learned how to mow the lawn.

Aaron and I got to squeeze in a few dates during the break too.
He's my favorite.

Since we usually do "that church thing" on Easter, that means we typically have to put off our Easter celebrations with my family off a week or two. This year we went up during spring break and got to spend a long weekend with everyone. It was great!

The kids dyed Easter eggs with Mattie.

And we spent Saturday out at Grandma & Grandpa's for our annual

Easter lunch...

...and treasure hunt!

And we spent time with cousins.

We spent Sunday morning at the church where I grew up, FBC Howe.

On our way home, we stopped to spend the afternoon with Nanny,
and we really enjoyed that special time.

We had time to finally make some progress on our master bathroom.

In addition, we spent a lot of time up at church working on projects. Our sweet kids happily came along and played and helped and hung out with us for long, long hours!

And on our last day of spring break, we had an "upside down" dinner,
with dessert (at Gables) first, and then pizza.

Only 7 weeks left and we are done for the year!

It's Baseball Season

Spring is here and that means so is baseball! Carson missed baseball season last year because we totally dropped the ball (no pun intended). He didn't mind, and he spent a lot of time skateboarding instead (which he loved), so it was all good--but he's happy to be back in the game this season.

This year, he's number 7 for the Braves, and has an awesome coach, Coach George. So far, we've loved watching him play every game! Looks like we're about halfway through the season right now, so there's more great baseball to come!

Carson is #7. He was getting ready for his first game.

Three generations of Baseball.

Kid Quotes: Hair

"You're a boy. You don't understand. If you're a girl, and your mom doesn't fix your hair the way you want her to, you cry. It's a big deal." 

-Abby

Kitchen Remodel

Since we moved in, we've always wanted to remodel our builders grade kitchen, but (as you know) kitchen remodels are expensive. So it's never gotten done.

But the first week of September (the week after I started working full-time), we discovered water leaking out from under the siding on the back of the house. And when Aaron pulled off the siding to investigate, he discovered a water leak that had been going on for who knows how long. So we got the leak repaired and then a day or two later, Aaron swore he smelled mold. I told him it was his imagination. But lo and behold, when he got under the cabinets, he found this...

So, we took out that whole wall of cabinets and called the insurance company. Getting this kitchen back up and running took September all the way to Thanksgiving due to the fact that 1) we did it all ourselves, 2) we never really seemed to be home, and 3) the rare times we were home, we didn't exactly have the energy to get it done.But it eventually DID get done, and we love it! 

I'll try to add some more pictures soon with our completed sitting room at the end, but for now, you get the idea.

Acton Academy

Well, this blog has been pretty well ignored for the better part of a year, so I thought it'd be good to give a bit of an update, and then I'll hopefully get around to back-posting pictures and more details one of these days!

A lot has changed since my last post in March. We are no longer homeschooling--instead we are at a new school in San Antonio called Acton Academy. Our friends, Scott & Sandi, started this school here this year and asked me to be the Guide (teacher, basically). I spent the middle part of 2015 studying non-traditional education and observing at a couple of the Acton Academies in Austin. I love the model and really believe in it. I love that people are beginning to re-think what education looks like and make changes!

School started August 31st, and immediately the kids loved it. They've enjoyed being self-paced and having their own laptops. We've also completed several project based learning "quests" that they have loved--like a gaming quest where they learned all about probability, strategy, game design, and more. Right now, we are working through a Rocket quest where they are learning about physics, space, and much more.

It's been a very cool experience in a lot of ways, but we have recently decided that I'll be stepping down once a replacement guide is found. We completely believe in the school, but in this season of our life, it's not the best fit for us. I underestimated how much me working full-time would change the rest of our life--ministry, family dynamics, etc. So... in the coming months, I'll be stepping down, but it's been a great journey for us all, and I feel so honored to have been a part of launching this amazing school!