Starting School & Saying Good-Bye

The week after Emmit's birthday was a bit crazy to say the least. We had accepted an offer on our house the week before and made the decision to stay in Greenville for the start of school. We hadn't found a house in Marquette yet, and not knowing where we'd be living when we did find one, we didn't want to just pick an elementary school with the possibility of having to change. We checked into a few rental options and quickly found that we were going to have be flexible if we didn't want to lock into a year-long lease. The week went down something like this...

Monday - Apartment hunting. We found one that would let us do a 6 month lease. We provided all the necessary info so they could ensure we were 'rent worthy' and planned to come back Friday to sign all the paperwork and make it official.

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday - Stacey traveling for work. Colin working. Kids enjoying their last week of summer with Kimmy.

Thursday night - I was back home, and Colin and I were checking out the listings in Marquette. What's this...a new listing?? I called our realtor, and she thought it'd move fast given the location (a neighborhood we absolutely loved) and price. Colin was already going to Chicago for his annual fantasy football weekend so I decided to head north with the kids and check it out myself.

Friday - We signed our rental agreement and were officially the proud owners of a 2 bedroom apartment, for the first time in 13 years! Bleh! Apartment living was the pits...more on that later! Colin went to Chicago and the kids and I made the drive to Marquette. Friday night, the kids and I (and my Mom and Dad) went to Marquette to check out the new listing along with another house we were on the fence about. The new listing was definitely hitting a lot of our wish list as far as a house goes with a few compromises I thought we could accept. I really liked it!

Saturday - I went back to see the new listing again (by myself so I could focus w/o the kids running around!) in the afternoon and with Colin on Facetime. We walked through 'together' =) This was the house. The things we were compromising on we could change (and the price would allow us to afford to make the changes too!) We wanted to make an offer on this house, but found out 2 other people already had as well. The other offers had come in that morning so we had to get it in. I went back to our realtor's office, and we wrote it up with Colin on the phone. Scanning home buying paperwork back and forth to get all signatures in place, fun! =)

Sunday - The kids and I hung out at my parents for the day. We were waiting to hear whether our offer was accepted. At 5:30 pm I got the text...

Woohoo!! We got it. Our offer won out...we still had closing contingency but since we were well on our way with our home sale we felt really great about this. We were closing on our home sale in WI the second week of Sept, and closing on our new home in Marquette at the end of Sept. We had our apartment lined up. Now onto packing and where all our stuff was going between closings cuz it was NOT fitting in the apartment!

Monday - Back to Greenville to get ready for a big week - the start of school!!

Amongst the house craziness, we were also gearing up for the start of school. Ellie loves school so she was pumped to go back - she is a 1st grader this year. Emmit was starting 4K (Pre School, Pre-K, Developmental Kindergarten, many names for it). With a late summer birthday we were giving him another year to bloom =) The weeks leading up to school also included classroom open houses, school supply shopping, and just trying to get back into an earlier bedtime routine after a fun summer.

The elementary school in Greenville staggered the start for 4K, K, and 1st graders due to the size of the school, and of course Ellie and Emmit didn't have the same start days (which I was a little annoyed by). Emmit's first day was Tuesday - he was so excited!

I took the day off, and Ellie and I had a girls morning - getting her 1st grader hair ready!

On Wednesday, Ellie started school then so they both got to go together. Ellie's off to first grade and Emmit to his second day of 4K.

With the start of school, we also had a sad good-bye to say. For the first time in 6 years, we no longer needed full-time daycare. And after 3 wonderful years, we were saying good-bye to our nanny Kimmy. She needed full-time employment and had decided to make a career change out of nannying. We were in transition and getting ready to move. Many tears were shed with this departure...I'm tearing up writing about it! Kim is an extension of our family...she kept our household sane and provided more love for our kids than I could have ever asked for in 3 years. We miss seeing her everyday but know we'll keep in touch. I can't wait for the day when she and Nick have kids...they will be great parents!