At the end of August, Mike and I were thinking we were crazy. Life in NoVA was so simple. Predictable. We knew all the parks, playgrounds, restaurants, and neighbors. We loved our life–truly. The only thing missing was close family. We said “are we sure we really should do this??” a thousand times. Each time, we’d come back around to yes, yes, and yes. Now is the time, or it will never happen. Time is something you can’t make more of.

So here we go! Florida, here we come! Well, but first a quick detour to New England. 🙂

In September…

We drove up to visit Mike’s dad (and the Seniors, Beverly, and even GREER!) for Labor Day and had a wonderful New England summer experience. We stayed in Andover at a 2 bedroom suite, which was perfect for our crew, and spent most of our time playing outside:

On the way home, we pulled into a rest stop in Jersey and I struck up a conversation with a dad in a minivan. He was telling me about the merits of the minivan for his 3 kids. As he drove away Caroline yelled, “keep an eye on those kids in the back there–you never know what they’re gonna do!”

Back at home, we did packing, packing, and more packing:

Suelen had a little farewell party with the little ladies:

We enjoyed a lot of fun and silly moments:

And this little guy did a lot of sleeping:

And a lot of growing and being adorable:

Caroline turned 3.5 so we threw her a half birthday party at “the park where we go voting,” complete with half of a rainbow birthday cake:

We said our last goodbyes to neighbors, friends, and family. I was up in the attic packing and heard some commotion and when I came down the ladder, this is what I saw:

I can’t think of a better way to have a farewell party!

The movers came on September 17th. They loaded up trucks for TWELVE HOURS. It felt like the longest day of my life.

We will miss you, Neighbor Jo!

Thank goodness for Suelen who kept these kiddos happy for the entire day:

We said a tearful goodbye to our wonderful home and hit the road, FL-bound, at 11:45 pm.

We spent a quick night in Chester, VA:

We hit the road bright and early the next day and headed for Redington Shores, stopping for a delightful dinner at Louis’s house in Jax. We arrived in our new city late that night. The next day, we saw Kay Kay and Pa and all of us went to the St. Pete Pier. This was happening!

We enjoyed camping out once again at Matt and Tommie’s house. On September 21, two big things happened–I went back to work–end of maternity leave. And even bigger…we closed on our house:

Over the next few weeks, we continued staying at Matt and Tommie’s. We finalized house plans and enjoyed our new pool and neighborhood playground:

On September 28, we welcomed another new cousin, Damian Ruben, into the world!!

Harrison turned 4 months old and went in the pool for the first time! Look how pumped he is.

Whew, what a busy month! On to October!