update on the last 6 months!

It’s been close to 6 months since I’ve written a blog post. Sorry guys! That just means this will be a super long blog to get everyone up to speed. First and foremost, Brad, Owen, Dakota and I have relocated to Moses Lake Washington and Brad is going back to school to pursue aviation. There is a community college here called Big Bend that has a program that Brad can complete in about 2 years( 1 ½ if he feels he can accelerate his flying).
With that said, we successfully put our Laurel house on the market and within 10 days, we had an offer, we accepted and we closed on our house on September 15th. That was a 45 day closing! We also managed to make a pretty penny off of the house, so that has helped us out a little bit. (More on this later)


At the end of April, we joined the rest of the Ireland clan in California for a 4 day cruise from Long Beach to Vancover BC. It was great to spend quality time with everyone, have nice meals and play in the pool. What was really great is that we didn’t have any cell service, so we weren’t distracted. Just quality family time.

Once we were back in Billings, Brad and I started our new jobs(on Brads birthday, May 5th). He was working for a place called Passages (sort of like a government run halfway house, but locked down). I found a job at a local retirement community working in the memory care unit. We had put Owen in daycare and shortly after we found a very nice young lady who came to our house to watch Owen while Brad and I worked. We had a nice work flow and schedule going on.
Owen and I made Brad something pretty cool for Fathers day. I actually found this little project on pinterest and I was pretty impressed with how it turned out. Brad was pretty surprised and Owen was proud to give it to him. ☺

The 4th of July came and went with nothing to report. Life was pretty status quo. Brad was having some thoughts about going into aviation and how we were going to pursue this. We had some conversations and at the end of July we decided to put our house on the market and get ready to move back to Washington. I welcomed this move because I was lonely where we were. Yes, I had friends out there, but I think I was really homesick. I have such a good relationship with my parents and there is nothing like the friends you grew up with. Owen’s Godparents live about 20 minutes away from Brads parents, and that’s only 4 hours from door to door.
We loved living in Montana, but there wasn’t anything for us there that would help us survive and grow. The lifestyle is wonderful, slow going and friendly. The weather was ideal, the cool weather and guarantee of snow during winter. What we really miss is no sales tax. That’s something that I don’t think we will ever get used to. Silly Washington! My parents are a 3 hour drive away which is wonderful. It happens to be a Smith Christmas this year, so we are hoping to drive over the mountains and spend the holidays with my side of the family. This means that my mom and I can carry on our tradition of going to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Nutcracker. I am 3 hours away from being in my big city, the waterfront and my hometown. My dad said that he will be out at our house more often because there are good fishing opportunities here in Moses Lake and the surrounding areas. So if that means that Owen gets to spend more time with his Grandpa Smith, I am all for it!
So we packed up our belongings, put our house on the market and waited for the perfect buyer to walk through. This happened about 10 days AFTER putting it on the market!! Talk about good luck for us! We went back and fourth a few times with negations and what not, but we made it happen. To get the house up to selling standard however, we had to complete quite a few projects around the house. It was my job to paint the windows and the trim around the entire house. I also primed 80% of the house with 2-3 layers. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but it probably took me a solid week to do all of that painting. While I finished that, Brad finished the wall in the 3rd bedroom, stained the back deck, and did other chores (like the tedious task of picking up paint chips.). Before we sold it, we had to put a new roof on the house and the garage. I was sad to see it being sold after putting all of this time and effort and money into this house. It looked 150% better than when we bought it. When we bought the house, the siding was not only two different colors, but the majority of the front was horizontal siding that was white and from the front door to the left was a light yellow going vertical. The roof wasn’t in its best shape and the front yard was in dire need of some attention. Brad and his dad spent some time laying SOD in the front yard and it helped tremendously. They also built a new front patio with some nice stairs. They built an entirely new wall in the 3rd bedroom with a better window in it, so it kept the heat INSIDE the house. We stained our back deck, which we should have done when we bought the house because it looked so much better. It was a good first home for us.

Owen is going to be 18 months old in two short days. Talk about time flying by! He has a few solid words, but is all about the babbling. He can complete different tasks such as “go get your shoes” or “Please put that back!” lol. He LOVES his oda (short for Dakota . . . which was his first word). We are starting to make the trasition to a twin size bed, which is proving to be more difficult that I probably imagined it would be. We don’t want to put the crib together because he has outgrown his mini crib. So until he sleeps in his “big boy bed”, he is sleeping in his pack and play! Owen loves to read books and play with his dulpos. He can throw a ball for Dakota and loves to drive his cars up and down her while she is sleeping.

I am pleasantly surprised how well he did with this big transition we just made. First, we cleared our Laurel house of most of our things ( to show the house ), then started packing. Grandma Ireland was nice enough to fly out to get Owen so Brad and I could finish some projects around the house without him. That lasted about 7 days before I missed my little boy so much that I had to be done helping and go to Washington to be with him again. Brad drove out a few days later and we were all reunited at Brads parents house in Yelm, wa. While we were there, Brad and I made a few trips over to Moses Lake to find a place to live. It was proving to be very difficult. After a solid two weeks of looking, we found a 3 bedroom house that would fit us quite nicely. It’s actually a little bit bigger than our laurel house and it’s in a nicer neighborhood. Brad is enjoying learning to fly and I am enjoying being closer to family. So far, both sets of parents have been out to visit a few times. My mom plans to spend her birthday out here with us, and then we will drive over the mountains to spend Halloween with Brads side of the family.

There you have it. The last 6 months of our lives in a few paragraphs.