A Team Week 146: Celebrations

This week was another week full of celebrations.  It started off with our return to Wisconsin on July 4th after a long weekend at the cottage.  We arrived home in record time giving us plenty of time to unload the car, play for a bit and enjoy a mini 4th of July celebration in our backyard.

Asher, Avery & I working on Asher's new Lego Batmobile from Uncle Rob & (STB) Auntie Negin.

Asher, Eric & Avery working on our private "fireworks" display.

I love the look of combined caution, joy and curiosity on Avery's face!

When we arrived home on this day, I checked our mail and found this birthday card filled with comics clipped by and personally and individually chosen by our neighbor Marge.   ❤️

Throughout the 4th of July weekend at the cottage, I struggled with the emotions of potentially selling our home.  Although I tried to enjoy as much of the weekend as I could, I really spent the time going through a sort of grieving process as I considered the changes ahead.  There was a heavy sadness as I thought about leaving the house I love along with the amazing memories we made in it, but (thankfully) there were also bursts of excitement (albeit quite small) for what lies ahead.  When the time comes, I will miss the nursery I spent endless hours hand painting while quite pregnant, the annual bloom of our colorful and fragrant Magnolia tree, our custom slat wall and bench designed and built by Eric and I and so much more! One of the things I will miss the most though is our amazing, adorable, thoughtful, loving, grandmotherly neighbor Marge.  She has been such a blessing to us and the thought of not seeing her smiling face across the street from us daily breaks my heart.  I will miss her constant news on everything happening on our street and in her family, her surprises of coupons, silly notes, holiday & birthday cards, hand-picked produce from her gardens and carefully chosen comics in our mailbox and on our back porch and her friendly "hi neighbors" as she slowly walks past our home, along with so much more. We may get a better school district, a bigger yard and/or more storage/living space but we could never find a better neighbor than the one we have now! #myneighborisbetterthanyours

Video: Baby Robby to Come

That night after our fun weekend with family in Michigan, Eric was putting Avery to bed when Avery (completely unprompted) told Eric several times that he wanted "Baby Robby come at my house."  Rob: You're welcome anytime! ;) <3

After the 4th, there were only three more days of work-life for the week, which went pretty much per the norm as we took care of the kids, ourselves and our home...AND Eric also found a little time to fly his drone around town...

When the weekend came we continued the celebrations with my birthday as best we could as we tried to fit in some family moments within time looking for a new home.  At 37 years old, I can't say that I get overly excited about my birthday anymore but Asher and Avery completely made up for that!  They were super excited about my birthday and wrapped up several "presents" for me to open throughout the weekend.  The "presents" were simply items that they found around the home and gave to me, yet in their child-like wonder they still eagerly awaiting the big reveal as I excitedly opened them!

I love how they are both leaning in to see what I got even though it is something that Asher just found around the house and wrapped himself! ;)

Since we had a pretty full day ahead of touring homes, we decided to go downtown on Saturday morning to enjoy a little bit of fresh air and family time at the harbor market before things got too busy.

Then, at around 11am we began our tour of what was to be 6 homes.  I turned out to be only 5, but then we ended up going back to the first one because we had finally found something that we really liked!  The house was in Pleasant Prairie and it really felt like a place that we could call home.  We liked it when we went through it the first time, even though there were a few things that we would change.  Then as we walked around the yard, Eric noticed that there was  medium-sized Magnolia tree similar (albeit smaller) to ours at home.  We both felt that was a little sign of it being "home."  After touring that home, we continued on to the others and by the end of our tours we were still thinking about this one.  Thus, our realtor called up the other realtor (who ironically is a friend of my brother and sister-in-law) and scheduled another showing.  We headed back to the home to look again as we considering making an offer.  While we were there the second time, there were more God-signs that this was the home for us.  First, (and oddest of all), Eric was talking to the neighbor about the home when she said, "I will really miss Eric and Tracy."  Eric looked at her quizzically, and she answered by saying that those are the names of the current owners.  When Eric responded that those are OUR names, everyone literally got goosebumps.  What are the odds?  Then, as we were looking around the home, we realized that the owners were Christians and the husband worked at Trinity.  I called my brother about it and then realized that he knew both of the couple and went to school with the husband for both undergrad AND graduate school at Moody and Trinity.  We went home that night and considered and prayed about an offer.  I can't say that I slept much as I worried about whether or not it was the right the right thing to do, but in the morning (my birthday), after talking with my parents, we both felt at peace and put in an offer.

On Sunday it was my actually birthday and I got more random presents from the boys along with some actual ones that Eric had picked out.  One of which (a cool treehouse Lego) the boys were both VERY excited for me to open!

We spent the day at home and church doing very little.  We napped, snuggled, enjoyed cheesecake and thought about our offer as we waited for an answer (which we knew wouldn't come until at least Monday).

Eric let each of the boys pick out a treat to give me for my birthday. They apparently know be better than I realized!  #caramelm&msareyummy #iamalittlecraycray

It was an okay day, but honestly quite stressful and maybe not the way you'd like to spend your birthday (although to no one's fault).  At one point in the day, Eric discovered some information online that made us worry that the home was very close to a floodplain and suggested that the neighborhood struggles with water.  We stressed that putting in the offer was not the right thing to do, but we still really liked the house and pressed on.  That evening though I had a complete panic attack (like something I have only experienced a couple of times before).  I completely freaked out about the home and realized that Eric was internally struggling the same.  Thus, in the middle of the night we sent a message to our realtor to pull our offer and with that, although very disappointed, I was finally able to get some sleep and conclude our week of "celebrations".