Our Thumb Sucker

Our little guy is way too old to suck his thumb, but we can't get him to stop. Inwardly, I still think its adorable!!!

Marion Indians Baseball

 

Grady and Trace

Grandma Sue and Grandpa Wayne came to watch

Fan Club

Trace has enjoyed being a part of the Marion Indians Travel Baseball Team. He is the catcher and Trevor is one of the coaches. Trace is a great little athlete and so fun to watch! Most of his tournaments are in the Cedar Rapids area, but one of the tournaments was in Des Moines, so we made it extra fun with a stop at the Cheesecake Factory! Yummy!

Spring Soccer

We've had fun getting to know the Richey family this season.

Trace's Team

Our little man

Kianna's Team

Kianna and her awesome coach

Mercy Me & Jeremy Camp

 

This lady with a huge hat sat right in front of us...

It was SO hot outside!

Two of my favorite artists, Jeremy Camp and Mercy Me, came to Cedar Rapids to the new outdoor arena. Mercy Me sings "I Can Only Imagine" and "Even If", the latter which came out during Kaylee's AVM rupture. He told the story behind why he wrote the song, which was when his son was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. It was a very hot, powerful night of worship!

Look Who's Mowing

Kaylee learned to mow the grass and we are so excited to have a new helper!

Pool Time

 

Chloe, Keara, Kaylee and Brittney

During the summer we get a pool pass and spend most of our Tuesdays at the pool with Angela, Chloe and Zach Flender. We love our Tuesdays and this year, Kaylee has a few extra friends at the pool. Kianna often does too, just didn't get a picture.

We are Moving to Florida!!!!!

   

Little did we know when we moved back to Iowa, that 2.5 years later, we would be moving again. Last September, Rockwell Collins announced to the world that they were being acquired by United Technologies Corporation (UTC). This came as quite the shock to us, given that Rockwell is the largest employer in Cedar Rapids and had just acquired B/E Aerospace the previous year. We were told that only the executives would be affected by this merger, however given that Trevor is an executive that provided us with little relief.

The new headquarters of Collins Aerospace, was announced earlier this Spring, as being in the West Palm Beach, FL area. This came as quite a shock to us, as we had guessed the new headquarters as being in Charlotte, NC. It took awhile to get our heads wrapped around moving to Florida. However, given the fact that not everyone was coming out of the merger with a job, we instead decided to be grateful. In fact, Trevor has been offered a job he is really excited about, as VP of Strategic Planning and Analysis. He will be working for people he has worked for in the past and really respects. He is also trying to bring in Dion Hayes to work for him again. The Hayes are our dear friends who currently live in Wylie, TX. We're keeping our fingers crossed that they will move to Florida too. The more we research the area, the more we are comforted my the fact that it appears to be a pretty awesome location right on the Atlantic Ocean and Intracostal Waterway, with great beaches!

We prayed many prayers that God would slam the doors shut if we were not meant to move. However, despite our prayers God has kept the doors wide open. In fact, he has made things pretty smooth overall. A lesson I have been learning is that sometimes God takes us away from a "good" situation so that we can be in a "great" situation. I'm praying this will be our "great" situation.

The company flew us to Florida in May to check out the area. Our research led us to Jupiter Christian School. The public schools are rated well, but are larger than we prefer. We toured the school in May and Kaylee shadowed another student while there. The school appears to be a great fit for our family and in fact is very similar to Lenawee Christian School in Michigan, which we all loved. Jupiter Christian is pre-K through 12th grade, has competitive sports, great academics and class sizes of about 60-75 kids per grade.

Due to wanting to be in close proximity to the school, we have decided to focus on homes in Jupiter, Florida. Jupiter is a very family-friendly, coastal community that officially is the northernmost suburb of Miami. However, that is just a technicality as Miami is an hour and half away. Jupiter has a population of approximately 60,000 people. We hear there are lots of snow birds in the winter and that the population increases significantly. It seems that no one is actually from here, but everyone has moved here and LOVES it! We hope we will too. It is also home to the Florida Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals Spring Training.

The company has generously provided us with a fully furnished rental house from August 1st to October 31st. The coolest thing about our rental house is that it is located on an island called Jupiter Inlet Colony. We can see the Jupiter lighthouse and intracostal waterway out our front window and are a block's walk from the beach. Did I mention that Olivia Newton John and Kid Rock both have homes on the Inlet? The home itself is nothing fancy.  However, it has been fully remodeled, has 3 bedrooms and an office, has its own pool and accepts dogs. Score! We will be living it up for 3 months on the Colony while we wait for the merger between Rockwell and UTC to be official.

We are kind of stuck renting until the merger is approved by the government, as we can't afford two homes. Most people aren't moving to Florida until the merger is official. However, it is important to us that our kids start school at Jupiter Christian on August 15th. Therefore, we plan on remaining in Iowa for the summer and then making our move to Florida in early August.