Goodbye Tennessee. Hello Alabama.

January was a wild and crazy month. After almost 2 months of waiting, we moved to Alabama! Everything happened so quickly, I don’t think I have had much time to process it.

If you’re new here…

You can check out our wild journey in these posts:

Finally Moving to Alabama

I’ll be real with you. When we spent all those years looking for a way out of Florida, Alabama was never on the list. I don’t know what I was expecting, but Alabama has exceeded my expectations in spades. It is beautiful here.

We toured several houses with our realtor. And we closed on the first one we ever found online. Sometimes you just know. We walked in and it felt like home. The neighborhood has the aesthetic I love. And the house has a basement (a complete non-negotiable in my book)!

Life in Alabama…

As I am writing this, we have been in the new house for 2 weeks.

We spent our first night in town at a hotel, and – no kidding – a tornado touched down about 15 miles from us. The storm that first night was horrendous. A hail storm came through around 12:45am and woke all of us up at the same moment. Stu describes it as if we were all cats: terrified and clinging to the ceiling. The hotel lost power for several hours. The big kids were justifiably terrified. Remy slept through the entire endeavor. There was a moment of fleeting panic that crossed my mind… Was moving to Alabama the right decision?

I am SO glad we picked the house with a basement. Some of our Alabama friends have warned us that March-May is nasty. Great. Awesome. I foresee many nights of restless sleeping on the couch.

As for the house, we could not be happier. We have unpacked most things. I have a few boxes of kitchenware to go through, but that’s probably because I have an obsession with collecting kitchen items – dishes, coffee mugs, baking dishes, any small appliance on the market… etc. And my “kitchen” is spread out over the kitchen cabinets, the dining room, shelves in the garage, and multiple boxes in the basement. I feel like I might need another hutch in my dining room. Hmmm.

We ordered some new living room furniture. Actually, we furnished most of the main level. Mommy and Daddy even got a new bedroom set. It all matches; we feel like total grown ups. Rooms-to-Go was fantastic.

The big kids are homeschooling right now. Riley has been online all year in a STEM school, so we just kept him enrolled in that. Reagan is currently at home, working with me. Although she wants to begin public school ASAP. We are working through the enrollment process. I expect she will begin soon. Remy is driving everyone crazy. He misses his school, and homeschooling with a toddler around is WAY more difficult. He is all over the place.

We found a fantastic church. The moment we walked in, we felt comfortable. Reagan immediately made friends with some of the girls in their youth group. Stu and I had planned on visiting several local congregations before deciding on one, but after we left the first Sunday, both kids said they wanted to be at this one.

Since moving to Alabama, we could not be happier. It sure feels like our Sweet Home. I am looking forward to making lots of memories here.