Things. Have. Happened!

Helllllllloooo!! (Mrs. Doubtfire voice). 

I dunno... I just felt like saying that.

Anyway, it is so totally update time. I'm going to make this fast though because honestly, details can be boring and my attention span is short. So, first of all, my surgery went as smoothly as we could have hoped for, and I am recovering really well. So in a few weeks, this will all be a distant memory! Thank you all so, so, so, so, so much for your prayers and support during that time. I am so grateful to God for seeing me through that.

Secondly, it's official. I am now a resident of Virginia!! The move went off without a hitch. Well, actually, we did need a hitch to tow our car. But other than that one necessary hitch, it was an otherwise totally hitchless event. Our new home is absolutely gorgeous, and every morning, when I look outside, I have to remind myself that I actually LIVE here. I keep thinking I'm just visiting or on vacation or something. We live right on the river, and yes, it's time for pictures. Pardon the mess... we just moved, people! ;)

Hubby and Gem outside the house. Back of the house.

Fam room area

Dining room area. Hubs working on his brand new computer. Kitchen in the background.

Okay, so now that you can see a little sneak-peak of the kitchen back there, let me just talk about that for a minute. I am .OBSESSED. with my new kitchen. Seriously. Sometimes I just go in there to hang out. Stare at the inside of my oven. Wash my hands. Caress the counter-top. Just kidding about that last part. ...not really. But anyway, it's a brand new kitchen. Fresh new tile. All new energy-efficient appliances. New cupboards. Granite counter-tops. Gigantic stainless steel sink. Seriously, you could probably give a baby elephant a bath in there. Possibly even an adolescent elephant. 

Yes, it's raining outside, but no one can rain on my parade of kitchen joy. It's just beautiful.

And it is a really huge room... I may add an island in here at some point. Right now, I just have some extra shelving and random stuff going on over there, but hey. At least there are sombreros.

I also really need to get curtains in this kitchen asap because it's so creepy at night when you can't see out and have a ridiculous imagination like I do. I'm pretty sure I've already envisioned roughly 17 different stalker/axe murderer/lunatic clown scenarios while standing in the kitchen at night.

Okay, so I've been holding out on you. As gorgeous as the kitchen is, it doesn't even come close to the beauty that is our backyard. Our backyard is a river. The Lafayette River to be exact. This is the view from the back door of our house. (Which is the kitchen door, which means I get to look out to the river a million times a day as I hang out in my awesome kitchen.)

:

Sunset. Picnic table compliments of my FIL.

The dock! And seriously, I'm not exaggerating... this picture was taken from the threshold of our back door. 

So it's almost impossible for me to stop taking pictures out here. Especially at sunset!! What's really cool about this is that the water is brackish which makes for extremely fertile breeding ground for all different types of fishes. We hear the fishing and crabbing off this dock is top notch. So operation buy a fishing pole will very soon commence. 

Lots of geese, ducks, and cranes out on this river.

Here comes a goose to say hi to my family!

I don't even have to edit these pictures, it's just that gorgeous out here.

Me and my little Gem. She's waving hi to all of you, beautiful readers!

So the other really cool thing about where we live on the river is that directly across from us is the zoo! Which is cool for a few different reasons:

1. No one will ever build a house over there so our view will always just be all those trees, which makes it look so awesome and naturey all the time.

2. Sometimes you can hear random animal noises and you get to play the game of guess which animal made that noise!

3. Maybe they will let me babysit an adolescent elephant some time so I can really see just how big my kitchen sink really is. Ya think?

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend! I know Gemma enjoyed herself. Rocky and I were making s'mores, turned our backs on her for 5 seconds to roast our mallows, and I turned around to this glorious sight:

Of course I had to get a picture of her mischief before we hosed her sticky self off.

It was also 97 degrees out, so we justified this activity as serving a dual-purpose.

And Gemma loved every minute of it.

Once again, thank you all for your love and prayers for my family during this transition period. Praise God for bring us to this beautiful new home! We are so looking forward to our new life and ministry here.