what's up weekly. (weekend update. POST TWO!)

Okay, now on to the BIG post - the one where I tell you about our travels and the selling of our house.  (If you didn't see the first catch-up post, you might want to start here.)

Our house was open for showings beginning Friday morning, and we just wanted to leave for the weekend so we didn't need to worry about having people in and out, and trying to keep the house clean, etc.  So we gathered up the kids and our things and spent the weekend house hunting in our new town and enjoying our new church family.  

Unfortunately, we left the house at 8:30 in the morning on Friday, but the place we were staying wouldn't be available until 4:30.  Since the drive is only about 2.5 hours, we knew we would have to kill a lot of time through the day.  We started with breakfast from McDonald's so I didn't stink my house up by cooking breakfast (Lord forbid), then the kids ate in the van with Todd while I ran into Target to buy Rocco some new shorts.  Then we headed over to Shelter Gardens to walk around.  We hadn't been there as a family in a long time, and it was so fun.  Walks at Shelter feel like a Very Van Voorst thing to do.

Attending school in the one-room schoolhouse.  (I'm a bad student - I'm listening to voicemails and nursing a baby when I'm supposed to be listening.)

See? No one likes being tethered to a desk all day.

Ophelia's first thumbs up.  She's growing up so fast.

After that, we loaded into the van and drove to Boonville, which is the town we would visit each weekend in the summer of 2020 when Columbia was requiring masks and closing down playgrounds.  We have a couple parks there that are near and dear to our hearts, so we played at one playground for a while, then grabbed some lunch and went to a beautiful spot on a bluff to eat lunch overlooking the river.

Lolo the Eternal Extrovert made friends with a high school/college gal who was there hitting softballs.  One thing led to another and all the kids got the opportunity to hit the ball a few times.

She apparently found the world's largest dandelion.  It was her moral duty to enjoy every second of it.

This hill is deceptive - it is incredibly steep.  The kids all love it.

I, on the other hand, experienced some kind of vertigo or something and turned all "Liza Minelli in Arrested Development."  I got stuck at the top of the hill and couldn't get up without help.  But I'm still young and normal, I swear.

After lunch, we got back in the car for the long stretch of our trip.  I was hoping the kids would nap, but no one did.  Not even Ophelia.  Everyone was happy and no one was melting down, but still.  When we got to town, we spent a couple hours visiting with friends before heading over to the house where we would be staying.

NBD, Rocco only TAUGHT HIMSELF TO RIDE A BIKE WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS.  You know, the way kids do on any random afternoon.  Scrappy Doo, I do love you.

After our time playing with friends, we came here to land for the weekend.

Isn't it cute?  The sister of a friend let us stay at her house all weekend and she went and stayed with their parents.  It was wonderful and so generous - it was a great fit.  The upstairs bedroom even had a little playroom under the eaves that was full of toy kitchen stuff and dress up clothes!

We got settled there, then left for the monthly dinner and psalm-sing with the church.  It was so fun, but made for a very long day - we didn't get the kids in bed until close to ten, and no one had napped.  BUT!  We got a really solid offer on our house that evening - full price, cash! Praise the Lord! - so the day ended on a high note, literally and figuratively.

We started our psalm sing out on the grass...

...but had to finish it inside because it suddenly started downpouring.

I can't figure out how to embed it, but if you'd like to see a short little video of the psalm sing, you can watch that here.

Saturday morning, we started a little slow, then after breakfast drove to St. Joseph to start house hunting.  There were more options and better prices there, but we realized we didn't want to live that far away from Leavenworth.  I mean, if we are going to be moving to be part of the church community, it only makes sense to live in that community, right?  So we went back to Leavenworth to see houses there, but the prospects were pretty dismal.  Lots of mold.  Lots of split levels.  One house had a wall that literally looked like a cartoon character had taken a large bite out of it.  (We call it the Sandwich Bite House.)  

Saturday night, we drove to Lee's Summit to have Sabbath dinner with friends, so it was another day of no naps and late bedtimes, but we had a blast.

Then on Sunday, we went to church and were going to do a little more house hunting, but the kids were so exhausted and not feeling well, so we just left for home instead.  

So, that was a very full weekend update: we sold our house in twelve hours, got a great offer and have a close date of August 1.  We didn't find a home to purchase yet, but now the clock is ticking!

I will give you a rundown of the rest of that week in the next post...