Oh, hey there! Remember me?? It’s been a minute, but I’m still here!
Like most people I’m sure, I found the last year to be quite overwhelming {in the moments that it wasn’t a total dumpster fire}. With all the constant changes happening, I really needed to slow down + focus on things right in front of me. Unfortunately, that meant my blog needed to be put on the back burner for a while. Now that we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, I’m ready to come out of hibernation.
These are a few of our big life highlights to catch you up before we dive right back in…
We’re Building a House!
Our biggest news: In February 2020 we broke ground on building our new dream house after months of delays! It’s been a labor of love, years in the making, but we finally started to see this dream of ours come true.
We found out the hard way that building a custom house, and all the time, appointments + decisions that come with it, is not easy during a pandemic. What should have been about 9 months of construction has turned into 14 months {and counting}. More on that later. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing, but we know it will be worth it! I’ve been posting about the process + progress on my Instagram feed, if you want to follow along: @shutthefrontdorr.
One Year of No School
We pulled the kids out of preschool the first week of March 2020 and went into quarantine + lockdown like everyone else. They haven’t stepped foot back into a school since. It has been challenging for everyone, to say the least, but they have been absolute troopers with all the change thrown at them the last year.
Everett was supposed to start kindergarten in the fall of 2020, and he was SO EXCITED, but when school started in August, we just didn’t feel comfortable sending him yet. Our new school district gave families the option to do 100% virtual for the year, however, we knew that would come with all sorts of challenges for our family. We feared it would sour his experience of school before he ever started. We decided to go the “homeschool” route until we move into the new house and he could be in the classroom full-time. We hope he can at least experience *some* of kindergarten though and start to meet some new friends!
We Sold Our Old House
Initially we thought our new house would be finished early fall, so we put our house on the market the first weekend of August. We were prepared for it to take up to 2-4 months to sell, so we moved up to the mountains temporarily. It seemed like a better option rather than dealing with the stress of showings + keeping the house spotless with two small kids. {You guys know kids leave a trail of crumbs wherever they go somehow.} But then to our surprise, our house ended up selling in the first few days! We headed back + forth quite a bit over the next month to pack up, then moved out over Labor Day. It was emotional to say goodbye to the house we brought both of our babies home to, but we are so ready to make new memories in a new house together!
We Love Life in the Mountains
We have been living in the Rocky Mountains now for the last 7 months. I never thought we’d be here this long but we have absolutely loved it. It’s honestly hard to imagine moving back to the suburbs and “city life” after this. The kids have had such a ball seeing elk, deer, coyotes, foxes and bears right outside our window. We’ve enjoyed golfing, swimming, hiking, fishing, snowshoeing, sledding, ice skating and everything in between while living here the last 3 seasons.
Every time I think “It doesn’t get much prettier than this…” somehow it does. Summer was amazing. Fall was breath-taking. And winter has been showing off with all the beautiful evergreen trees around us flocked in snow.
Here’s to 2021, friends! Onwards + upwards!
