how much can you cram into one weekend anyways?

Just in case our birthday weekend wasn't full enough - you know....

Isaac's birthday Friday

Isaac's birthday party Saturday

Luke's birthday and party Sunday

Isaac soccer game Sunday evening

We decided to throw in a little something extra and signed a contract on a new apartment Sunday night.  Matt was leaving the next day to go out of town and it was the only time to do it!  

So as of Sunday at about 8:00pm we were holding the keys to an apartment six floors above our current home!  We are still so bummed to be moving.  And we have so much work to do on our new place.  

But it's going to be a great spot for us and we cannot believe that God provided something in our building! Rentals are very hard to find in our apartment complex (it's almost all lived in by owner) and in the 5 years we have lived here we have not known of one other unit in our building (total of 36 units) that was available for rent.  Until last Wednesday when #802 was listed - and we looked at it that evening, entered negotiations, and signed the contract four days later!

But it does need some work!  a LOT of work!  Like a kitchen, and bathrooms and flooring and lighting and .... well, we hired a contractor!

The rom below is a bathroom-to-be!

It's almost exactly the same size as our current home but laid out a little differently (although the hallway and bedrooms and identical, just mirrored, of our current home).  I'm so thrilled that we can add a school room off the dining room and the workmen came this week to remove a few walls and now there are new ones to build and we hope to move in by the end of May! whew!

We have worked with this contractor before and are grateful to have someone we trust helping us.  And I'm not looking forward to the move, or all the leaky pipes that will need fixing and the myriad of other problems that will undoubtably show up (every Asian move has left me pulling my hair out in frustration at the shoddy construction quality and I am sure this one will be equally frustrating but), we can't stay here and if I had to go anywhere I would want to stay in this building!  so here we go :)