Our next BIG adventure!

So - I know many people already know this, but....we are moving! And we finally have some exciting things to share! We bought 8 acres of land in McCutchenville, Ohio. The land has several buildings on it and a huge hill. Tim and I have been talking about building a home for us since we got married and we have been working on the plans ever since, even though we weren't sure where or when it would happen. Once we had our two little squirts we realized we were going to quickly outgrow our current home. Eventually, it made sense to look for a piece of land near our family and Tim's job in northwest Ohio. While I have loved living in Columbus for the last 10 years and there are many things I will miss about it, I am very excited for this next chapter in our lives! We just finalized the purchase of the land a few weeks ago so the next steps are:

1. Renovate one of the existing buildings on the property to become our new interim apartment. (Tim is primarily responsible for this :) ) The building used to be a children's resale business and already had electric, a bathroom, laundry hookups. Tim and many of our family members are working on putting up a few bedrooms, installing cabinets for a kitchen, and renovating the bathroom so it has a bathtub/shower. It is a bonus that we will be living rent-free and so close to our new home, making it much easier for Tim to work on the construction while we are just minutes away :)

2. Move out of our home in Columbus (list it for sale) and then move into our new interim home (see step 1). I have been working very hard to pack things up and my parents have been amazing in that they have taken L&L for the past few weekends to give me some alone time to actually accomplish something! As you can imagine, I get little to no work done running after them! We are planning on moving very soon!

3. Finalize our home plans...they are really close, we just need to make sure have a few final decisions  made. We also want to make it to the Parade of Homes in Columbus for any last minute ideas we might want to use!

4. Break ground and start building!! Hopefully sometime in July.

5. Move into our new home (goal = end of 2013)....Ok so I missed a few steps here, but this post would be too lengthy if I put in all the gory details. I will try to post through the summer/fall updates and pics as we get through this.

I am excited/nervous for everything that is going to be happening over the next 6 to 12 months! It's definitely going to be fun to be able to build our own home, but I'm sure there will be many challenges along the way. I'm staying positive because I know this is such a great thing for our family!

Our new home will be 10 minutes from both Tim and my parents' home, and we'll be close to many relatives. Also, it is 10 minutes from Tim's job. This will be such a great change for him, as he has been commuting to NWO since he moved to Columbus 5 years ago. I know it has been hard at times to make that drive and spend so much time on the road, so this will truly be a great thing for him! I am planning on keeping my current job as an accounting consultant out of Powell, Ohio. I can do my job remotely much of the time, and while I will need to travel back to Columbus for client meetings occasionally, I'm looking forward to having a reason to make it back down here. As I mentioned before, there are many things I will miss about Columbus, so it will be nice to still have it be a part of my life! I'll be sharing more updates soon, but just wanted to finally let you all know some of the details!! I have a few pictures below of our land and interim apartment.

  

Hill on the front of the property

View of the front yard/valley

We have a barn :)

Tall Grass

Home Sweet Home until we build our new house!

Driveway/parking lot by the barn and buildings

View from the top of the hill

View of the entire property from the top of the hill

Springtime Fun!

We have been spending a lot of time outside and with friends lately! I just wanted to share a few pictures and details of all that we have been up to!
Mother's Day
We spent time in New Riegel with both of our parents and families for mother's day. We had some really good food, and got to see our mom's! Also, Tim and L&L were very good to me on my 2nd mother's day! I received several homemade gifts (which I LOVE) and a few charms for my pandora bracelet. I also spent Sunday afternoon with my little squirts...don't know what my life was like before I had them!!

Gifts for Mommy!

My mom, L&L and me

Skyping with Aunt Alicia!

Tim and his mom with L&L 

My special little men!

Visit with the Siebenallers
 Growing up, we spent a lot of time with our cousins, the Siebenaller's. We have 5 kids in our family and they had 4 boys. We have remaining close over the years and now that we are "all grown up" with our own families, we try to get together every once in while, when we can. We are spread out all over the U.S., with Aaron and Angie living as far away as El Paso, Texas. So, recently Angie and Bryan & Kim and kids were in town and they all stopped by to visit! Bryan and Kim have 4 children (ranging from 5 years old to 6 months) and Angie and Aaron have 1 child, Athen, who is one month older than L&L. We don't have a large house, but we do have a swing set, and there is a park in our neighborhood, so with 7 children at 5 years old and younger, it was quite an event. It really is very fun when we are able to get together and catch up. It's amazing how many of us all have kids around the same age! I have some pictures from our get together, and a few flashbacks :)

3 Double Strollers!

All the kids looking!! (this wasn't the first picture we took :) )

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Sometime in the 1980s

Siebenallers & Kimmets

Henry's Baptism & Family 10K
I know there is a separate post  about our weekend together, but wanted to include it in our recent event-filled month with lots of family and friends! It was so great spending time with the Macks and Kimmets in Cleveland, and getting celebrate a very special little boy!

Trip to the Zoo with Grammie
While I have been very busy with work and things going on in our lives, I did take a half day last week to hang out with L&L and head to the zoo with them and my mom. It was so much fun! They loved the animals, especially when we got to see the birds and they flew right up in front of us. There was a lot of warnings to not touch them :) They also really liked the fish in the aquarium, lots of bright colors and they swim right up to you!It was really nice to have a morning out with the boys, but it got really warm out, so maybe next time we should hit a pool!

This one is a great pic! I love it when they hug and kiss!

Visit with Old Friends
My very good friend Josh, that I have know since we were 5 was in town this week! We spent a very fun night together along with my other BFF, Sara, at a friend's wedding. It has been ages since I have gone out and been able to spend time with both of them, and it was a TON of fun, just like old times (which means the next morning wasn't as fun ;) ) We also all got together along with our other college roomie, Laura and had a "kids" party. Laura has a little boy that is the same age as L&L and a 2 month-old little sweetie as well, so we all had a get-together at our house. It's always fun to get together and catch up, and fun seeing our kids play as well!

Now...at the beginning of the night!

End of the night, we are all looking a little tired!

Then....College :)

A family that runs together....

Well we all did it! Several months ago, my family decided to sign up for a race together since we had all gotten healthier and fitter over the last year. My brother and sister-in-law (and new little nephew Henry!) live in Cleveland so we all signed up for a race - either the 10K or Half-Marathon on May 19th. It was really cool having a bunch of our family run a race (longer than they typical 5K) together, as some of us had never run that far before! Both my parents had run their first race last fall with Tim, my boys and myself  for the March of Dimes Night Moves 5K in Columbus, but they had never run further in a race, so it was great that they were willing to sign up and run, especially since before last year my mom had never run before! I can only hope in 20+ years I can be in as great of shape as they are! (Not to mention it was my mom's birthday on Sunday!!!) My younger sister A, (who's live in Virginia and is a very talented Graphic Designer) has also recently done some amazing things, including running in her first race (a 10K at that!) in under an hour, and losing more than 70 pounds. My brother C, ran the fastest time among all of us but A came in right behind him! My sister-in-law S, and her mom ran the 10K together, but an important thing to note is that she just gave birth 14 weeks ago to her first child! I can tell you when my boys were 14 weeks old, I would have never gotten my butt out of bed at 5am to run a race, especially if they had been sleeping at the time, so I am really proud of her! My other sister B, (yes we have a LARGE family :) ) ran the Half Marathon with her boyfriend and they both did great as well...I ran a 1/2 a few years back, and it is a hard race to run!

So that leaves me. I am not a distance runner. I usually "endure" running as a form of exercise as I much prefer other forms, like fitness classes, yogasu, or doing steps or something that isn't so monotonous as running in a straight line for - ev - er. I think it's because I typically get bored with running, partially because I haven't done it consistently enough and haven't been in great shape before, leading to what I call wogging (read walk + jog = wog). I would say I typically in the past have jogged so slow that it could be considered walking :) BUT.....I am happy to say that I actually ran the 10K race this weekend and hit a goal! I have been hesitant to set running time goals in the past, most of the time my goal is to finish. However, my combination of food nutrition/health (thanks to willpower and Advocare - ask me about it if you're interested), as well as being in better shape now than I have ever been gave me some confidence to actually set a goal. I was hoping to run between a 10 and 11 minute mile pace (in the past it's been closer to 12) and finish in under 1hour, 6 minutes. So, drumroll please.......my time was 1:02! I used my GPS watch and it put me at a pace of 9:57 miles, which made me feel great! As mentioned above, I'm not a great runner and not fast at all, so this pace was a pretty big accomplishment for me! I think I was able to run at this pace because I had been training with the jogging stroller (which added some resistance to my workouts), cross-training with boot camp and yogasu classes so my muscles are toned, and I used some racing supplements from Advocare including spark (which is an energy drink that contains amino acids) and O2 Gold which helps with oxygen flow during exercise. I think I also could have benefited from some gel pouches during the race as I did have a little fatigue around mid-way through, however that will have to be for next time.

Yes - did you see that right?  Did I say next time? I am thinking I would like to keep doing some more races in order to have goals to work towards and keep me motivated. I am also thinking about doing a Phitatholon in July - my current gym Melt Hot Fitness is doing this race - Phitathalon - together on July 27th. I typically don't do races that include obstacles, but it's a group thing, and everyone is so motivating there that I think I'm going to do it (yikes!), so wish me luck!

Anyways - just wanted to pay tribute to my amazing family and their accomplishments this weekend. I will also mention my husband who is not a runner stayed behind and took care of my little munchkins while we were running, which was almost a race in itself since they got up at 5am when we all did! I have a few pictures posted below from before and after our race! I also put a few pictures up from the rest of our weekend festivities since it was my nephew Henry's baptism as well!

Pre-Race Getting ready!

Pre-race Pic - Mom, S and A - some amazing ladies in my life!

Group Shot Post Race

The Half-Marathoners D and B!

Mom and Dad Post Race - So proud of them!

Baptism & weekend Photos 

18 Months and Growing!

My little men are now 18 months old! I can't believe we are well on our way to the terrible twos...well the tantrums have already started, does that mean they will end earlier as well??  We had out 18 month pictures with my cousins' wife Stephanie Metzger (Stephanie's Creations Photography). She does a great job as it is definitely a challenge to get two very active little boys to look at the camera and smile.  Overall, the boys are moving right along, developing and doing new things each day. They are starting to get very rowdy and ornery as well. They like to tackle each other and me and their dad, but they have a propensity to pull hair...hard. We've resorted to having isolated time-outs in their cribs when they pull hair, because the light time-out in the hall-way results in giggles and no lessons learned. As I mentioned in my previous post they don't say many words. They can now say Eddie and they attempt to say the words Hi Duck and Hi Dad. As many of you know we have many geese in our neighborhood and they LOVE them. So I call them ducks with hopes they will start saying the word duck...and I like ducks more than geese :) Also a recent development is they now bump fists if you say "bust em" :) It's super cute!  One thing that I am struggling with is letting them feed themselves with a spoon/fork. They really like to but they aren't very efficient at it :) So they get bored/tire and decide to stop eating before they finish their food. If I feed them, then I can quickly shovel it in and they can be on their way back to playing. It's also cleaner. But, I'm working on letting go....even if it's hard....Love my littles, enjoy the pictures!