Downtown Wilmington

At the time of this entry, this if Philip's favorite!

In an effort to end my drought here in my own corner of the blogosphere, I realized that I should make the official announcement....Our family is moving to Wilmington. Philip has been appointed by the Bishop of the UMC to plant a church in downtown Wilmington. We are both very excited and both very sad to leave Roxboro. In the seven years that we have lived here, we have grown unbelievably attached. It's hard to believe that this time 7 years ago Ryan was born and we put our house up on the market in Wilmington. We heard news of that we would be moving to a town I'd only ever heard of. I google searched Roxboro and discovered that it had 2 Food Lions, 1 Super Walmart, 1 Lowe's Food and a MOPS group. That was about all I knew. Now seven years later, just today, I went to that said Food Lion and within the short 15 minutes that I was there I ran into 4 people that I knew. So, needless to say, it will be sad to move away.
To Wilmington we return. We have now made three trips to Wilmington. We have traversed many miles searching for the home that we would like to set our roots down in. Looking for signs of where God would want our family to be, where he is leading us to begin this new chapter in our lives. Our realtor has taken us through big and small, turn key and 1950s with no updates. We have laughed; we have oh and ahhh; we have cried (OK maybe just me); we have dreamed; we've envisioned; we have unlocked many doors of peoples' homes who are desperately trying to sell in this buyers market. We will make one of these sellers very happy whenever we can decide on a home. The kids have been great about this whole thing. This is their second trip with us to look at houses. Every house we look at, they love and want us to buy!

Spring Break

After being plagued with the stomach flu for about a week, the kids and I hit the road to Topsail. We were excited to meet my sister and her kids there. I am so thankful for the beautiful weather and lots of fresh air. We shared a week of fun times and unfortunately a few germs. My sisters kids seemed to pick up a mild case of our stomach flu and my kids picked up a mild case of their germs. So after a week away, we spent another week at home recovering from various illnesses!

Writing Contest

We enjoyed a fun afternoon at Raleigh's, Marbles Children's museum courtesy of Ryan and Emma's hard work. Last year, they submitted a story for the PBS Writer's Contest. After the award's ceremony, we enjoyed our time at the museum.

Happy Birthday Ryan

Ryan somehow turned 7 last week. Even though, I was definitely in denial that my little fellow is getting bigger, we some how pulled together a small party in his honor. His desires were simple. He wanted his friends to come to the church playground and eat cake and ice cream. 
 
We were glad that the weather held out and that the kids did a lot of playing because it was a chilly March day.
 
We added a kickball game into the mix as it seems as though this is tradition for our family! Ryan has really done a lot of growing up this year. It's been a blessing to see him grow in maturity and responsibility. He is still a carefree and happy boy to be around. He enjoys his free time, playing with his siblings and is always up for ice cream. He still dreams of living in the wild west with a farm and lots of animals. He will most certainly have lots of dogs when he grows up. Ryan has a quick mind and can easily remember details about events gone by that I scarcely remembered happened. He's willing to lend a helping hand and enjoys making people smile.