All Moved In

Well, we're back at New Tribes Bible Institute for our second year of training, and it is so good to be back! It's strange how a place where we only lived for nine months can feel so much like our home now, but it does. 

On that note, I think Ivy is a little confused about our "home"...Over the summer, every time we would pull into the neighborhood of the house where we were staying, she would start saying, "Home! Home! Home!" We would say, "Yes, Ivy...this is our home this summer." Then when we pulled out of the driveway a few days ago to drive back to Michigan, I told Ivy, "Ivy! We're going home today!" She looked confused, pointed back at our "summer home" and said, "Ivy's home?" We told her, "Yes, that was Ivy's home this summer...we're going to our old home now, in Michigan." Then on the way to NTBI, we stopped at McDonald's for lunch. As we pulled into the parking lot, she pointed to the building and said with a BIG smile, "Ivy's home!!" "Um, no sweetie...McDonald's isn't our home." :) 

But anyway, it feels like home here to Aaron and me. (And the kids have adjusted SO well!) We aren't in the same apartment we lived in last year, though. We made the move from our apartment on the third floor to a different one on the second floor.

I'm so excited about our new apartment for MANY reasons:

1) It's much bigger
2) It's much BRIGHTER (lots of windows)
3) We have our own bathroom
4) We have three bedrooms instead of two
5) We have to climb less stairs to get to it
6) It's cooler (it's hotter up on the third floor)

But there are also a few reasons that we're going to miss our old apartment:

1) We aren't neighbors with Frieddy and Johanna anymore
2) We aren't on the same floor as Nathan and Rachel anymore
3) I won't have as much contact with the single girls anymore (We had a LOT of talking time in the communal bathrooms last year!)

But overall, we are thankful for more space this year with our three kiddos! Here's a little tour of our new place...

This is our "front door." Most of the families here hang a curtain like this in their doorway so that we don't have to keep our doors shut all the time, but we can also have some privacy. It also helps cool the apartment down because a breeze can blow through the apartment if our windows are open.

When you walk in the door from the hallway, the dining room is on the left,

and the kitchen is on the right.

I love my big kitchen! It has so much cupboard space and also a big pantry.

If you walk past the dining room/kitchen area, you go into the living room.

Here's our studying area in our living room.

To the left of the living room is one bedroom that Ivy and Israel are sharing. 

There is actually a little bathroom attached to their room that is perfect for storing their clothes since there is no closet in their room. (We're not using this room as an actual bathroom.)

If you go to the right out of the living room, there is a hallway that leads to our bedroom, Abel's bedroom, and our bathroom.

Our bedroom is a lot bigger than the one we had last year,

and it has big windows

with a great view of the front of the school. There's a neat area with lots of trees and benches out front.

Here's Abel's room...

where we had to do some improvising. Since we have the changing table in Ivy and Israel's room, I used this shelving unit that is supposed to go in a garage to create another changing table :) 

And since we were short one nightstand, I decided just to use a tub of the kids' clothes as a nightstand. It may not win an aesthetics award, but it's functional. (see picture above) :)

And finally...our bathroom:

with a BIG bathtub

and lots of storage!

So that's our new home! 

Now we're getting packed up to go to a camp for the next few days for some additional training. It kind of seems like my life is filled with packing and moving right now, so after the camping trip, it will be nice to just stay in one place for awhile! :)

It's good to be back.