Flood 2013

We couldn't believe how high the IL river rose check out these pictures from the Pekin Riverfront. 

Can you see the light posts we would walk all the way out there with the kids.

 CRAZY-we may never see water levels this high again in our life

 

 We are trying not to think to much about moving away from these 2 girls:(

 

Happy 1st Birthday Calvin & Kaden

My best friends little boy Calvin and my nephew Kaden were born 3 days apart so we had a busy couple weekends helping celebrate their 1st birthdays. 

Calvin's theme was baseball and look how cute everthing turned out. 

The big Card fans !

 Even Stella had a jersey

 Delicious cupcakes

 Calvin got a cool new car

 Took him a minute to figure out what he was suppose to do with the cake

 Sissy learning how to play hop scotch

 Kaden's party theme was lil rebel -too cute!

Paw Paw Don with his boys!

 Kaden dug right in

 Ty is such a good big cousin

 He was walking all over the place!  Hard to believe these 2 boys are already one. 

The BIG Move

May 2nd this will be our new home and the best part about it is we are moving back to Bloomington!!  YAY!!  I guess I better go back to January when everything started.  I have worked as a loan officer for Busey Bank in Pekin for 6 yrs and on Jan. 15th we were told the office would be closing in 90 days.  We were all shocked by the news and with it being a small office we are all like family.  It was such an emotional day/weeks, I was the only one in the office that was going to keep their job and I felt extremely guilty for that.  I would have to relocate and they gave me the option that I could either transfer over to one of the Peoria or Bloomington offices.  At first I thought well thats an easy choice I will just drive back and forth to Peoria and maybe work from home a couple days a week.  Then we sort of threw around the idea of how nice would it be if we could move back to Bloomington-we could be back closer to our family and friends. 

 

 That brings us to the beginning of February when Ryan happened to mention that he ran into an old co-worker the end of Dec. when they were out looking at the house listed for sale across the street. I guess they jokingly told him if we put our house on the market we needed to let them know b/c they loved the subdivision and loved the outside look of our house.  So we just thought to ourselves maybe we should give them a call and see if they want to come by and see it-you never know, right?!?  We called them and they were beyond excited especially b/c they had just got an offer on their house and hadn't found anything yet.  We really went into the showing with pretty low expectations-they have a pretty large family and they lived in a huge farm house so I didn't think our house would be big enough for their needs.  Boy were we wrong they LOVED it and made us an offer we couldn't refuse!  I think the next couple of days we were just in shock we couldn't believe that we really sold our house!  We really weren't sure what we wanted to do, we also own a lot in Groveland and we were planning to start building in the Fall of 2013 so we were torn on what was the best decision for our family.  We finally agreed that it only made sense for us to try and find something in Bloomington/Normal or build there.  So the search begins and FINALLY after 4 LONG weeks we found and fell in love with this home.  We have never felt so blessed, I have always been a true believer that everything happens for a reason and you have to trust in God that he will lead you down the right path.  I just never thought in a MILLION years that in 1 year we would go thru so many changes.  We are very excited to start the next "chapter" in our story!!

Hello Spring

I know every year by this time we are all very anxious for some nice weather.  Finally spring has arrived so what better to do than spend the day outside riding bikes,

 going on long walks

  watch our best friend Katie's soccer game

practice t-ball

enjoy a refreshing adult beverage

in the 6 yrs we have lived in our home we have never seen a snake but this year they put in a new road and there are snakes everywhere.  YIKES!!!  These are not small snakes either we are talking like 2-3 foot long bull snakes. 

 The kids think its pretty cool and of course either want to drive down the road or walk to see if there are snakes on the road everyday.  Mom not so much I'm absolutely terrified of them.