A New Job, A New Baby, A New House, A New Adventure

This is a summer of "new". First, Austin accepted his new teaching position at Dike New Hartford, which starts next week already! He's finally been able to get into his office to start organizing and getting ready for the school year. 

Next, our new baby. :) It's certainly been an adjustment with Jacob around but I think we're really getting the hang of things as new parents. It's crazy how quickly he seems to be growing too! He's a big boy and just keeps getting bigger! He's had more awake time too and really enjoys play time on a couple of his play mats. He's quite the vocal baby and I just love listening to all the different noises he's making. Austin even caught a sound on video the other day that sounded like the start of a laugh! Too cute! I love that he's becoming more playful and responsive. But I don't want him to grow up too quickly because I'm still really enjoying my cuddle time with the little man! 

Then, last weekend we moved into our new house. We found a cute two bedroom home to rent in Reinbeck, just ten minutes south of Dike. While the house is a little small, we couldn't beat the price for a two bedroom house with washer and dryer and a single stall garage! I actually hadn't seen the house before we moved on Saturday - Austin was the only one to make it over to see it before we signed a lease. So when I first walked in, I was a little nervous about the size. But now that we have our stuff in and pretty much all unpacked, I'm loving it more and more every day! We left a lot of stuff in boxes and in storage in the garage since we don't plan on being here long. If Austin thinks this district is a place where he can see himself long term, we're hoping to really save up some money this year and hopefully look into purchasing a house of our own next year. 

The move on Saturday went great though! We had a lot of help from family and we greatly appreciated it all! It took us only a couple hours early Saturday morning to load up the trailers (which everything just barely fit!) and finish cleaning the apartment in Oakland. We were on the road before lunch! We made it to Reinbeck early afternoon and started unloaded. Most of the stuff went straight to the garage until we could get the furniture moved in and then figuring out what exactly we wanted brought in the house. We also had to do some cleaning of the house before bringing too much in. That was a little stressful but nothing we couldn't handle! 

I'm not quite ready to post pictures of the inside yet... still need to do some cleaning and organizing, but below shows the outside of the house. Not too bad! :) 

Now that we're back in Eastern Iowa, we ready to start our new adventure. But I have to say that this has been a lot all at once and it's been a little overwhelming for both Austin and I. While Austin is trying to prepare for a new school year at a new school, I've been looking for a new job. Then we're trying to get settled into a new house all while taking care of a new baby and trying to figure out our routine. That doesn't sound exhausting at all, does it? :) But we're figuring it all out and every day it gets a little bit easier.

So just a quick update for now. More soon as we continue to get settled into this new adventure!