Remember that time we almost went insane?

The last few months have been nuts.

We sold David's chiropractic business in Philadelphia and started the process of saying goodbye to a city we never intended to live in but ended growing to love. We already miss the city, our friends, and our church there.

Goodbye breakfast with some of our favorite people in Philly.

We made two whirlwind scouting trips to Durham, North Carolina. David's parents and sister live there (or, here, I guess I should say), and early in the adoption process we started thinking it would probably be a good idea to live near family once the kids came. Now that the kids are here, we know it for sure! We toured schools, looked at houses, checked out work opportunities, and did lots of driving around the area. Just in case you're wondering, four months post-adoption is most definitely NOT the best time to make a major move.

On our visits to NC our kids got to meet some of their new cousins.

We celebrated our first Christmas as a new family in our half-packed house in Philadelphia.

 

The day after Christmas, the moving truck was dropped off in front of our house. Over the new few days, we packed it to the seams. Imagine sitting on your suitcase to get it to zip... we did the moving truck equivalent to that.

My dad flew to Philadelphia, helped us with the last bit of truck loading, and helped* me drive the kids out to Chicago. (*By "helped," I mean that he did 95% of the driving). 

A goodbye visit with PopPop before leaving Philly.

David went to NC to start work, and the kids and I spent the next 10 days or so with my family in the Chicago area.

First snow! I'm so glad the kids got to experience snow before we moved south. We did it all... sledding, snow shoveling, building a snowman, and making snow ice cream.

Joseph wanted to go sledding every single day. Even the single-digit temperature days.

 

Bowling with Grandpop is a good way to get four teenagers of the house... after 3 weeks off school... without their dad around... in 8 degree weather. Yes kids, we CAN play another game, and another, and another.

I woke up one morning and came upstairs to see Joseph and his cousin Elias snuggled up together reading. Looks like maybe they should trade books.

Stephanie knitting with Nana.

Uncle Justin built a fort in the basement with Joseph and Alfredo.

After a fun and special 10 days with my family, the kids and I piled back in the minivan and headed south. We stopped at the Chicago airport along the way and picked up a very welcome passenger/co-pilot for the 13-hour drive to Durham. (That would be David.)

Did I mention David is a superhero and somehow, in between moving, figuring out how to be a parent, and re-modeling a house, he has managed to start a new business? Introducing Precision Chiropractic.

We moved into a furnished rental house in Durham, NC, for a month while we waited to close on our house and get a jump-start on some of the major work that needed to be done to make it liveable. I found the place on Craigslist, and the person we subleased it from just so happens to be from Peru! It also just so happened that her parents were visiting from Peru the week before we showed up, so this woman we never met was kind enough to cook us a traditional Peruvian dish and leave it in the freezer at the rental house!

You can't spend all your time moving, working, cleaning, painting, and starting at a new school. Sometimes you need to take advantage of a 60-degree day in January and go for a family bike ride.

We closed on our house and started cleaning it withing five minutes of receiving the key. The brief back story: while we were in Durham house-hunting a couple months ago, someone mentioned that the owner of the house next door to David's parents never seemed to be home. We happened to see her in her driveway one day and accosted her: "Hi. We heard you're never home and we know your house isn't listed for sale, and please don't mind the two Peruvian boys who just rode their bikes through your lawn, but are you by any chance interested in selling your house?" Blink. Blink. "Um. Actually... yes." It turned out to be a very frustrating and emotionally-charged negotiating process. (Note: use a realtor next time.) But in the end, the house is ours, and once it's fixed up it will make a great home for us.

Our house is in no where near in photo condition, so I thought I'd post this one we can all drool over.

Looking for a good time? Let your teenagers paint their own rooms.

I can now confidently tell you that while seeing someone step off a ladder directly into a brand new can of paint might make a hilarious scene in a movie, it is not at all funny in real life.

We still have a lot of work to do on the house, but at least it's liveable now. It feels so good to finally be in a permanent place.

Hooray for living next door to family! David's parents have been immensely helpful, feeding us, housing us, hauling our junk around, cleaning and repairing our new house, spending time with our kids, and generally helping us maintain some sanity.

So here we are, starting a new chapter of life. Frankly, we've started too many new chapters recently, and both David and I are ready to slow the pace and try to figure out what normal looks like. Nearly every day I think about this line I read in an article written by another adoptive parent: "Adopting an orphan isn’t loving them, it’s just making the decision to start loving them."

So here we are, living this crazy and oh-so-different life. Learning to love our new kids, figuring out how to be a family, and painting walls.

We hope to not do this again for a very long time.