Cross Off The List: Moving Out & Visit to SC :D

Things are quickly getting crossed off the list for us to move back to Spokane, WA.

1.Move Out of Apartment and In to the In-Laws!

Since our last post we have completed the lease on our apartment, packed it up, and turned in our keys! We are now living with Willie's family until our BIG move in June
.

(uncle andy holding owen while dad and uncle philip move furniture out of our old place)

Getting to stay with Willie's parents is a huge blessing and just shows how God's timing works so well. Prior to us even thinking about moving in here Willie's brother, Andy, had undertaken renovating the basement into an apartment. He serves as a missionary in the Sahara Desert a few months out of the year. So he renovated the basement to give himself independence/privacy, while allowing him the freedom to leave and serve with ease.

Just as the lease on our apartment was coming to completion, Andy wanted to start looking for housing somewhere a little more permanent (should he have the need to "leave and cleave" in the near future :P). He generously offered us the apartment downstairs and moved into a room upstairs until he can make his next big move.

We packed up everything on Friday, Feb. 17
Moved everything Saturday the 18th.
Cleaned the apartment and turned in the keys on Monday the 20th
and left for a visit to South Carolina on Wednesday the 22nd!

Needless to say our new home was left a MESS but :) that's ok.

2.Make a much needed visit to South Carolina

(Owen's first time to the beach!)

It was very nice to go home to SC for a visit. This was the first time we had been back since Willie and I got married on November 13, 2010.

This was also the first time all of my family got to see their new
grandson/nephew/cousin ... Owen Nickols. It was a very special time for us.

Prior to the trip I could not see financially how we would be able to visit, but Willie encouraged me to make it a priority for us since we will not likely be able to visit for the next 2 years while he is in school. So we did.

(Cousins meeting for the first time... Aubrey & Owen)

We originally wanted to go around Christmas and had a little money saved for it. My mom also pitched in a good portion to go toward our tickets. Unfortunately, the day we went to purchase our tickets they went up in price $90 a piece - putting them at almost $500 each (which was WAY out of our budget)  So, we held on to the money and hoped for a future opportunity. At the end of January we were still checking ticket prices and they didn't seem to be going down. My mother in law suggested looking 30 days out for tickets - and apparently "28-30" days made the world of difference for us. We had been checking ALL SORTS of combinations of departure/return dates from 2 weeks out - to 2 months out... but when I hit 30 days exactly the tickets went down 50% in price! I'm not sure if this is normal but it was definitely a huge blessing for us. We ended up getting both of our tickets for just under 600 dollars. We are so thankful that we made this a priority and got to see how God blessed it and provided a way for us to go.

Unfortunately we did not get to visit with as many people as we would have liked to but since we knew our time was so short we decided it would be best to spend as much time with family as we could. So, no hard feelings if you heard we were in town but didn't say hello :)

(One big happy family lol ... not sure why but I love this picture)

That 6 days flew by so fast, and before we knew it we were on a plane coming back to Wisconsin. Now we are back in full swing with moving to Washington, which is coming in only a few short months. We have been really encouraged with all the feedback from sharing our story on here, thanks for all the support. I hope to share soon about other things that have been progressing but this post is already long enough :) So, that's all for now.