By the end of July, Nathan received word that he had been hired. We were officially moving to Corpus Christi. Time to do the big thing we had been putting off for 4 years in order to sell the house…the kitchen. Within the first week of August, we gutted the remainder of cabinets and furdowns, placed a cabinet order, and had all new sheetrock hung. Then it all just stalled out thanks to a cabinet back order that took 2 months to come in! The massive island, huge sink in the mudroom and my instant pot were sanity savers during that time! This also meant listing the house would get pushed back. Oh well. Times of covid.

We busied ourselves the rest of August with packing non essentials and taking loads 7 hours across state to storage. During that time, we made the most of beach fun and visits with Grandparents.

September kicked off with taking advantage of Labor Day weekend to haul some outdoor items to the family property in Rocksprings for safe keeping. My goodness we have really accumulated a lot of crap! But we enjoyed a couple days at the property and around Kerrville as what felt like would be our last family trip for a while.

Nathan moved down to start work September 13th and we kicked off Weston’s birthday fun shortly after that. At his request; his best friend, his brother and he enjoyed a game day at Grand Slam followed by Rounders Pizza and a sleepover.

A few days later, we were headed for the coast to meet up with PawPaw for our dove hunt weekend, and to celebrate Weston with Daddy. We rented an awesome kitchenette suite and a beach buggy in Port Aransas and had a blast being tourists.

Archer came as an additional “bird boy” this year for dove hunting and kept his momma thoroughly entertained. It seems, though, he is hooked and looks forward to this September already. Good timing as Weston may be coming as a hunter in the next year or so!

Things started to get strained as we were still waiting on cabinets to be installed thus holding up listing our home. But I busied myself with meticulously cleaning every space in the house, staging and taking pictures for listing purposes. Finally, on October 20th, the cabinets went in. On the 22nd, Nathan came into town and by October 24th, we had the kitchen completed and the house listed for sale by owner.

Halloween was a wonderful break from reality in the way that it was an absolutely NORMAL holiday. Probably the single most normal day of the year! The kids dressed up, trick or treated door to door in Grandma’s neighborhood, and we hung out with friends. Absolutely perfect.

The beginning of November meant opening weekend for deer season, and with little movement on selling the house, we headed back to the coast to send Weston with Daddy for a hunting trip to Rocksprings. Ashlyn, Archer and myself stayed on Dad’s boat in their absence and participated in a trash cleanup and enjoyed more beach time.

On November 12th, my patience had run out on dealing with spam callers, scam emailers and people asking if I would owner finance/rent to own, so we listed with a realtor. Then we planned Archer’s birthday. He decided he wanted to go fishing for his birthday, so armed with a new spinning rod and reel from Grandma and Grandpa, back to the coast we go! I mean, there are worse places to always be visiting, but by now I was sick of the drive. Regardless, we had fun and Archer got a taste of saltwater fishing.

Our return from Archer’s birthday was rough. On November 23rd, I came back to ETX with an ailing Skye and she passed via euthanasia at our vet. Healing from this is ongoing and maybe I’ll be able to say more about it another day.

We did a fish fry at Grandma’s for Thanksgiving and then attended a wedding in Houston at the beginning of December.

By mid December, my patience (see a theme here 😉) had run out again. Nathan and I were both fed up with the back and forth across the state. The time and money we were spending to maintain our family over the last 3 months was frustrating. Also frustrating was being stalled out on things the kids were accustomed to. Dance, baseball…a place that could feel like home…. SO within a week, Nathan found, bought and secured a spot for a 30ft travel trailer that all 5 of us, a cat, a dog and a lizard could call home…..for now.

We spent a week in the trailer, which basically felt like a camping adventure, and we were on our way back to ETX to spend Christmas with Grandma. The week was filled with all kinds of holiday joy and we crammed in as much friend time as possible. At one point there were TEN kids around my dining table decorating cookies! A priceless memory.

When we returned to our little trailer in Aransas Pass, we came better prepared with necessities from the house and threw ourselves into learning how to be “full time RVers.” NYE was spent playing UNO and eating s’mores gathered around the dinette and that was a wrap on 2020.

Everyone has a 2020 story. I started the year out feeling like we were golden. We already homeschooled, we already liked avoiding crowds, grocery store shortages weren’t all that extreme, we had a thriving garden and a freezer full of meat.  Sure I missed state parks by mid year, but really we were handling the times of covid well. Our story for 2020 won’t be about a pandemic, but rather trying to relocate across the state…during a pandemic. Kicking 2021 off in the situation we are in now wasn’t at all what I had in mind for our future as we rung in 2020, but isn’t everyone saying that at this point? So here’s to keeping on keeping on.

-Lindsay

2020 was a weird one, y’all. And everyone has a story out of it. I’m going to tell ours in cliff notes style with this post.

While we were wrapping up our tri state camping trip, Nathan tested with Exxon for a position at their new Corpus Christi plant as the beginning of a “let’s pull on this string and see what it leads to” venture. And, really, if wasn’t for that developing into more, we probably would’ve come out of 2020 with little tale to tell. Haha

With the rest of March, we managed to purchase 12 new chicks before they went out of stock nation wide and had new windows installed downstairs completing our big house purchase for the year. Or so we thought.

With more and more closing down by the day and the craziness that we were witnessing in big cities starting to reach our small ETX towns, we were forced to stay home more and more. But, never fear! Digital age to the rescue! The kids started participating in a weekly art class stream amongst other interesting streaming programs and made all kinds of masterpieces. Thankfully, Archer and I were able to make a Hobby Lobby run 2 days before it closed down for a month’s worth of supplies!

In April, boredom got the best of me and I started tearing into our downstairs guest room and transformed into an amazing master suite. I really enjoyed the retreat space it created for Nathan and I. We no longer walked out of our bedroom into generally a chaotic mess of the craft/classroom and the kids had the upstairs bathroom to themselves.

By May 1st, I needed a change of scene and time out of the house to keep me from working on it more. Lol! I was getting tired, but couldn’t just sit and rest with so many projects going on at once that my ADHD created. We jumped on the PERFECT opportunity to be the first guests at my former boss turned friend’s rental condo on the Comal River. What a way to pandemic travel, eh? We stayed 2 nights at Froh Haus (check them out on Facebook!) and had a fun and restful time.

When we returned, our friends that we hadn’t seen since the end of February threw Ashlyn a surprise birthday party and I’m pretty sure that was the best day of the year for her.

Mid May, I built the countertop for the massive kitchen island myself and the girls performed their recital routines for Ashlyn’s number one dance fan.

At the end of May, Dad was relocating for his temporary assignment on the Corpus Christi project and Weston and I had the exciting opportunity to be his crew on passage of the “Mother Ocean” to Port Aransas to serve as his residence! Absolutely amazing and empowering experience and as a result, I’ve become addicted to sailing YouTube channels. 😀

On my birthday, Nathan found out he was selected for an interview for the position he tested for 3 months earlier (thanks corona for dragging that process out), and I guess you could say things got real! I started working on wrapping up house projects without going into debt just yet, because that would be pointless if he didn’t get the job. I also experienced my first emergency haul to the ER with one of my kids! A replacement door that was still leaning against the wall, got knocked over by some kids that weren’t supposed to be playing in that room and it fell squarely on Archer’s head. He received 5 staples like a champ and Hospitality ER in Tyler was amazing. Everything turned out just fine, but I don’t think we’ll forget the sight of that much blood coming out such a little dude for quite a while.

In June, miraculously, baseball resumed and for 2 months Weston enjoyed a whirlwind season with his team placing 1st in district and playing some competitive ball at State in Waco. He played catcher for the first time in a few games and while we thought he was pretty good at it, he didn’t like it too much. I guess I haven’t met many boys his age that like all that gear. The state tournament itself was a wonderful reprieve from reality. We rented a massive, secluded house with 2 other families and the outdoor facilities at the ball park made life feel pretty damn normal. Our boys didn’t place and they took it hard, but I love me some summertime baseball regardless.

Nathan’s interview took place mid month in Corpus Christi, so we decided to make a family trip of it renting a condo on Corpus Christi Bay. It was a rushed and exhausting trip as we learned just how far the drive is with 3 kids and the 2 nights we gave ourselves sent us back more tired than when we went. But, Weston found his biggest hermit crab to date and Archer got a taste of surf fishing. And Nathan felt like his interview went well. All we could do was wait some more.

We even managed our annual meet up vacay with my bestie and her family at the end of June. We rented a house on Lake Whitney and had a fantastic time soaking in the clear water and getting drug around the lake on their toy. A little bit of Sahara Dust hanging in the atmosphere made for interesting sunrises and sunsets.

July wrapped up baseball and we enjoyed another trip to Lubbock to visit family. The cousins were thick as thieves, we had tractor rides and Ashlyn learned she loves ribs. As long as Uncle Travy cooks them.

Our first half of the 2020 experience wasn’t too bad! We altered, adapted and overcame pretty well. But there’s even more curve balls to come starting in August…

-Lindsay