Southern Illinois part 1 and settling into VA

 We arrived in Chicago on June 22nd, and Nathan’s parents picked us up from the airport and we headed down to Herrin. Loving the pretty midwest sunset. 

The next day the twins came by to see us. It had been 4 years since we last saw each other in Palestine.  Happy reunion!

And later the rest of the crew came. Everyone caught up, played outside, and played basketball video games.

The next day we went to the Jolliff’s. Abigail gave Eliza a doll so they could play together.

The Jolliff’s have a big barn on their property that they converted to a basketball court. Everyone enjoyed playing basketball throughout the summer in the barn.

It’s also a roller skating rink :).

Grilling out for dinner and fun to all be together again.

Nathan, Eliza, and I left the next day to go to VA for a couple weeks to start getting the house settled, buy another car, register my car, and get some work started on the house. The boys stayed in IL with Mark and Betty and had a really fun time with them and the cousins those couple of weeks. This was the vacation bible school they attended their first week there.

The Jolliff’s took all the kids to a Cardinal’s game in St. Louis…twice! The first night it was rained out after they arrived, and they had to go back home….

And they came back the next night for the make-up game. The rain delayed the game again, but it passed and everyone had a great time.

Another day they went to Boo Park. Coming here was always a highlight for the kids when we would go to Salem, but now Mark and Betty live close by in their new home.

Happy 4th of July!

Baseball, shirts vs. shirts :) 

Pool time and lots of cousin fun those couple weeks!

While they were having fun, we were busy (having a different kind of fun) getting settled. Eliza was happy to see the house!

Our first dinner in the house.

Alvey Elementary where she and Benjamin will go to school

Reagan Middle, where Caleb will go to school.

Visiting our first home in Haymarket, 16103 Pitner Street.

We got our house power washed one day, it needed it!

Nathan bought a mower and got to work. He had his work cut out for him with the yard and put in a lot of effort this summer to get our grass healthy, trim lots of trees and bushes, and do landscaping.

Before shots

Small landscaping project

We didn’t have any furniture in the house yet, so Eliza would nap on the floor in different rooms. We stayed at the house working during the day and would go to the hotel each night.

Eliza enjoyed playing at some parks and adjusting to the humid VA summers!

Enjoying ice cream at Swirlies, our favorite place in town.

Nathan and I decided to paint the garage before the work on our house started the next week, so we did that over a weekend.

While we worked, Eliza kept all the trees and bushes well watered with her water gun.

And took lots of naps all over the house.

This is our sun room, where we would eat our meals. The chairs were the only thing we had in the house at this point.

This little guy would visit most evenings. 

The following week work was going to start on our house, to refinish the floors, add wood to the sunroom, swap our kitchen appliances, redo the kitchen backsplash, and paint.

Demo day…

The teams worked really efficiently. They sanded down the wood and in the coming days would apply the new stain and top coats.

They applied different color samples on the floor for us to choose from.

Once we picked the color, we started heading back to IL to celebrate Sam’s 16th birthday the following day, and Caleb’s 12th birthday a few days after that. It was a very productive couple of weeks to start getting settled in our new home, and the boys had a great time in IL while we were away.