First Time Home Buyers

We started the day enjoying this beautiful sunrise...

Then signed a bunch of papers with this awesome team of people...

And now we officially own our first house! (Our friend, Conrad, who owns the title company played with Hudson during the closing and gave him the special hat.)

Our realtor, mortgage broker & rep from the title company helped us so much! It was an absolute pleasure and joy to work with them. We know we don't even realize all they did for us, but we know it's a lot!! Our realtor, Nancy, and her family live in the same neighborhood and have already become friends. We look forward to much more time spent together!

I know it would be more fun to see pics of the house rather than us holding the papers & keys, but I've decided not to post any pics of the outside of the house on the blog (happy to e-mail one if anyone's dying to see it). I will post some pictures of the inside in the next few days. Our plan is to paint a lot of the inside, put in new kitchen cabinets, have the pool resurfaced & a pool fence installed (a safety measure) within the next week. Then, we're moving in next Wednesday!

First Shark Sighting

While playing in the sand on a less crowded beach yesterday, we got to see a hammerhead shark. A man was fishing from the beach not too far from us when we realized he was reeling something big in. We went to watch & he caught a -4' shark. He told us it was the second one he caught this week near the shore. After a couple pictures, he let the shark go and people got right back in the water there.

We've also seen different types of jelly fish, an alligator (from our deck), a sizable snake, countless lizards, and cool looking beach birds. These are all common Florida wildlife so I imagine we'll be seeing many more of them.

For the Beauty of the Earth

After some long days of adjusting to new routines, the beach does a great job of washing away stress & anxiety.

The view from the back porch (called a "lanai" in Fl when it's screened in). Hudson loves looking over the golf course, especially at breakfast when there are exciting lawn mowers & maintenance carts out working.

Chatterbox

Things are going well here. It's felt like we've been on vacation since we're staying in a nice condo overlooking a beautiful golf course, we see palm trees out all windows, we go swimming often & don't have a lot of responsibility here yet. Trent officially starts work tomorrow though, so I guess it'll be just Hudson & I still on vacation. :) We close on our house next week and then lots of work will start with painting, unpacking, redoing a kitchen, getting things ready for a baby, etc...

On a different note, Hudson has turned into a non-stop chatterbox since we've moved here! There is a huge difference in the amount he talks in the last week. It's fun to have conversations with him and hear what he has to say, but it's exhausting. It's currently about a 25 minute drive to our new church and he talked without a pause, the whole way there and back this morning & this evening. Pretty much if he's just with us, he's talking or asking a question. He puts several words together to form complete thoughts and sentences. Once we get around other people he clams up for the most part. It's just amazing how he went from only putting 2 words together to many words together. I should probably start a list of the funny things he says. :)

I haven't taken any pictures, but will hopefully start tomorrow. When I do, I'll give you a glimpse of our life in Florida. 

Way to go Trent!

Trent passed his ordination exams this week & will officially become an ordained minister in May or June! There will be an ordination service at our church in Naples and we'd love anyone who wants to come celebrate with us to come on down. 

The Lord has been leading, preparing & shaping us for this for several years. It is awesome to look back now and see his hand at work in our lives. 

I know several people were praying for his exams so I wanted to give a quick update. I'll update again soon with our life of enjoying the sunny south.

Floridians

After 1200+ miles & 20+ hours in the car, we've arrived in Naples! The last week has been exciting, sad, bittersweet & hectic. Trent's last day at work in Dallas was on Friday. He became very close to the other 2 pastoral interns at our church there, so it was sad to say goodbye. 

The 3 pastoral interns with Patrick (on left), the pastor overseeing them

Patrick, the interns & Amy, the glue that holds the whole program together. She is a dear sweet friend who's also pregnant with her 2nd

Hudson & I spent the week packing & the movers came Friday morning & loaded everything on the truck. By late Friday afternoon, Trent, Hudson & I had packed in one of our cars and set of for Florida.

The drive went amazingly smooth. Hudson looked at books, played with toy cars, sang songs & looked out the window. We did have some flying objects hit us in the front seat from time to time. He knew he would get disciplined for throwing things in the car, but he would do it anyways & immediately remind us to discipline him. I guess when you're bored enough, it's better to take the discipline and get some attention. :) So, we started giving him more attention (reading books to him, singing songs together or talking about everything we saw) when he was being good. We were thankful to be making a big trip with our 2nd child still in the womb rather than having to stop a lot to feed an infant.

We're staying at a condo of one the members of the church for the next few weeks until we close on our house. We've already been swimming in one of the pools & it was great! Hudson exclaimed he wanted to swim like a fish & was anxious to put his face in the water. I'm glad he's excited about swimming (especially since our house has a pool!), but scared to death with all the water around that he'll jump right in. Getting swim lessons is very high on our priority list right now.

Just wanted to give an update on our move thus far. The Lord has definitely answered our prayers and been in the midst of all details of our move! Praise the Lord!

Happy Easter!

The last few days, Trent's mom has been visiting us. We all loved having Nana here...Hudson enjoyed lots of special treats & I enjoyed an extra set of hands packing boxes. 

We took a break from packing Saturday to enjoy the Dallas Arboretum. 

It was absolutely beautiful!

We all left renewed by the beauty of creation