It's officially been a full year and a half since I've sat down to write a blog. A few reasons---life has been busy, and I was creeped out by people in a different country viewing my blog. Now that my settings are private, it'll just be for personal record & who I want to share with.

2016 we welcomed Camryn, July 18, at 7:55am. She definitely has completed our family, and is now a fun, diva of an 18 month old!

Corbin is now 4, going on 18. The things he says, are hilarious...and he's definitely developing his own personality & attitude. Some days are harder than others, and some days he's sweet as pie.

2017 was an interesting year. We worked on several home renovation projects. Travis replaced all of our carpet with vinyl plank flooring, we placed new appliances, and he finished the master bath remodel.

Late August we received Hurricane Harvey. It was a storm that was not much of a threat while I was working on Thursday, so I went to the store & picked up a few extra items to have on hand. Then by Thursday evening it was a Cat 4, headed directly for us. We didn't have time to run, nor were we ever planning on running. We were both cancelled from work on Friday, so we prepped the house, bought extra groceries and it made landfall early Friday morning. We hunkered down in our master closet on a pallet, power went out around 4am. So thankfully we kept it much longer than most in our area. Once I could see outside, I was assessing our backyard via window, and I didn't see any damages besides limbs. Trampoline & net were even still tied down and in tact! And then, one hour later, goodbye trampoline! I thought it flew away! But it didn't, it just flipped over, ruining the net. Unbeknownst to me at that time, it was the ONLY damage besides limbs, that we had. Much thanks to God. Our family as a whole all fared really well, considering the devastation other counties received.

We took the no damages, as a sign. We had been looking for land, for the past year or so. We were thinking we could buy a 1-2 acre lot, pay it off & then build our dream home. We searched and searched. We had a list of "must haves" in location. We finally found  a new development we fell in love with. Only, it was land/build package, not just buy the lot. Ok, so here begins the next process...

We meet with the builder of the development, love what we hear & see. Met with our mortgage lender, loved what we heard. Then we approached my parents, with the idea. "So, we're thinking of selling our house and building, something where we will have more room to expand for when/if the time comes that y'all need somewhere to live with more care, we can do that. But if our home sells quickly, we will need a place to live until the new one is complete" Of course they were perfectly up for giving it a try and helping us out. (Of course we pay them rent, and share cooking/cleaning duties). So we were going to do FSBO. Until Travis looked up the paperwork, and sent it to me...I was like, ok...really? We both work full time, have 2 littles (Corbin had added 2 soccer practices and 1 game a week at that time too), when were we going to show our home?! So I went ahead and called a realtor I had heard good reviews on. And boy, was that a wise decision!

Renee McKinney! She's an amazing realtor with Remax. She came over that evening that I called her to look at our house, give us a ball park of what we could list it for. We listed it online and had people interested in it immediately. We then had a huge decrease, had an open house, and then decided to drop the price down to a more realistic amount. We had an offer soon after! We countered and ultimately accepted. A sweet couple bought the house, who have been doing renovations to the popcorn ceiling and other things before they move in.

We moved our lives into storage, 2 bedrooms & 1/4 of a garage at my parents, and the kids have a "play nook". We have finally settled in. Took some time, as it was Thanksgiving weekend when we made the move. Then Christmas, work, New Years, vacations we had planned...shesh. Life, slow it a bit! So we are finally in a routine...Mom & I have our cooking schedules & hopefully it'll be smooth sailing until our home is finished.

On that note, our home! We were very held up by the weather. Since when does it SNOW in South Texas? When the Smith's decide to build a house! haha! It snowed 3" on Friday the 7th, the day we were supposed to begin dirt work & head out for Nashville/Vegas for vacation. Our plane was delayed that day, it was SO cold in Nashville & Vegas was fun fun as always. Nashville wasn't bad either, we went to a Nashville Predators game *totally awesome!* and literally were only there for maybe 10 hours-ish.

Our dirt work began last Saturday, the 6th, they've worked on it every single day...and our foundation was poured yesterday, on the 12th. Yay!!! So, now the time frame begins....4-6 months! Many people say "I'm so jealous!" or "You're so lucky", no. Don't be. We've worked hard, we will have a mortgage, and it just made sense for us to build what we wanted because there was nothing out there like this...and it would have cost more to buy something/alter it to what we want. I hope no one thinks I'm bragging, or trying to show off..I'm genuinely excited and want to just share experiences.

Fewf. OK, back to what I got on my computer to do. I'll update again soon with pictures!