We have a contract on a house!

Almost 3 years after selling our house, we are taking the plunge back into home ownership (reference exhibit A to the left here). I have to say, it feels very weird.  I have truly enjoyed the freedom of being completely debt free over the past 3 years, not to mention the time saved from not having to fix things and maintain a lawn, etc!  But we have a contract on a house, and we still got an awesome interest rate despite everything going up lately.  Our closing date is set at 7/25/13, so hopefully that should give us plenty of time to get packed and ready to go!  But enough about the future, let's talk about the recent past!

So, let's see how fast I can bring you up to date!  In March, Nicholas' flag football team won the championship, so we have a couple of pictures from that day:

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A couple days later, the kids thought it would be a good idea to make their own popsicles using juice, cups, and butter knives as their handles.  They were actually pretty good!

The next day we left to go on a camping trip for spring break with about 40 other homeschoolers!!  That was the last trip in our RV (can we have a moment of silence, please?), and we had an awesome time!  We didn't get many pictures, though.  Nicole took a few of Nathan chopping wood, which he did a fantastic job of keeping our firewood supply going!  And then she took one of Tim and me sitting by the campfire, and that's about all we got!  Unfortunately we didn't get any of Nicole and her friend Morgan getting lost kayaking on the river for a couple of hours (thankfully we were able to track them down from a road that was near the river and direct them back!).  Here's a couple photos we took:

The campground was about an hour and a half northwest of our house, and on the drive back home we came upon this intersection that makes me cringe every time I see it:

How'd you like to live on that street - Roach's Run?!  What were they thinking?  Doesn't that just give you the willies thinking about it?  "Yeah, I live on a street where roaches have the run of the place!"   I don't think I'd even want to live on Pleasant Plains.  How do I know if the roaches wouldn't meander over to check out life on the Plains?  No thanks!!
But I digress.  Our next big event was another teenager in the house getting a driver's permit!  Yikes!  Here's the picture that is becoming a rite of passage marker in our family:

April didn't have much activity in the photo department in our family.  Towards the end of the month, Nathan got a wild hair to go to the beach, so our whole family loaded up and drove to one of our favorite beaches, Fort Desoto, and spent the day.  Again, not many pictures were shot that day, but here is one of Nathan & Nicole:

This takes us to May.  We started out the month participating in the National Day of Prayer event at Yankee Stadium (their training facility) in Tampa, and a couple days later attending the baptism blow out service at our church with some 450 people taking the plunge!  Tim helped out in the dunking, and it was just amazing seeing so many lives changed by the Lord.  
Nicholas participated in another sport with the homeschool group (basketball), and his team came in 2nd place of all the teams!

They won that trophy 1 week before Nicholas' 14th birthday - can you believe he's 14?  Time is flying!  Speaking of flying, Nicole got a picture of Nicholas flying to the basket during his basketball birthday party at the YMCA.  She also captured a few more photo ops for the momentous occasion (see below).  We even played 4 square where yours truly got in on the action:

A good time was to be had by all!  :-)  And then a couple weeks later, for Memorial weekend, we travelled up to North Carolina to visit our dear friends who have lived there now for about 8 years.  They just bought a farm and moved in a couple weeks before we arrived, so we helped them continue to unpack and get things organized.  Below you will find a few pictures from that trip.  Nicole and Nicholas chilled out in the back on the drive up.  There's a picture of me getting ready to tackle their 3 storage facilities.  Then there's a shot of one of their chickens that I think is so cute!  Nathan was working hard, but also playing hard (what work day wouldn't be complete without a dunking contest, complete with trampoline to catch more air and hang time?).  :-)  And finally Nicole with her 'peace out' pose:

Well, I thought I'd be able to take you up through June, but I am wiped out and must go to bed.  Stayed tuned for a June update, where you will catch a rare sighting of our 3rd born (camera shy Noah)!