Another New Home

We arrived at the Missionary Training Center in Missouri on Monday. We are already missing our Indiana friends and family very much, but we are also so excited to be here.

And I am very relieved to say we are all unpacked and settled in! Unpacking is not one of my favorite jobs in the world. (Neither is packing, now that I think about it...) 

There are only two items that I cannot find anywhere: our tub of newborn girl clothes (in case we adopt a baby girl in the next year and a half) and my Mei Tai wrap that I use LITERALLY every day to carry one of my boys in. I'm going crazy trying to figure out where in the world it could be. (Rachel N... I may be coming to you to ask to borrow one soon if I can't find it!) :)

So all in all, it was a good move. Everything else is accounted for. And the kids did decent (not great) on the 10 1/2 hour drive here. 

We had tons of GREAT help during the move. Aaron's dad drove some stuff down in his truck and spent a couple of days with us,

and my parents came along also to help us out for a few days. I cannot say just how grateful we were for our parents' help! We couldn't have done it without them.

And we missed Aaron's mom so much!! (But she had a very valid excuse to stay home...Aaron's sister is overdue to have a baby, and she needed her there!) 

Nathan's parents came as well and pulled a trailer full of our stuff and Nathan and Rachel's stuff, so we were all very well taken care of during the move.

So here's a quick little tour of our very NICE new home (it is even better than we ever expected!). Almost all of the furniture is borrowed from the MTC, which is so great. That means we didn't have to haul all of our furniture here!

This is one of the roads leading into the Missionary Training Center. Our apartment is in the building that you see to the left.

Here's a view from the front of the building. Our door is the one all the way on the left. Our neighbors right next door are a really neat family from Washington. They have a little boy named Judah who is right between Israel's age and Abel's age. I foresee them all playing together a lot in the next year and a half. :)

Our kiddos already love our new place. I'm so thankful for their flexibility as children. It doesn't seem to faze them to get a new home every few months or so!

Here's our living room/dining room/kitchen as you walk in the front door.

And another view of the living room from the other direction.

The kitchen is SO nice...dishwasher, island, nice countertops...it is definitely the nicest kitchen I have ever had in any of our homes!

To the right of the kitchen is a half bath,

and a nice big pantry.

If you keep walking through the kitchen, you come to the laundry room/office area. 

Aaron and I both have our desks in there with our computers, 

and we have a couch as well for when we want to watch movies on our computer.

The stairs to go up to the second floor are straight ahead when you walk in the front door. (This is probably the ONLY thing I would change about our apartment if I could...I would want carpet on our stairs. I foresee many painful falls and tumbles on these hard stairs from our kiddos!)

At the top of the stairs, there is a little hallway that goes straight ahead. 

This leads to our apartment's back door. 

Right out the back door is this nice firepit area,

and a nice playground.

Rachel and Nathan's apartment building is just up the hill from the back door as well!

Our upstairs has three bedrooms. We decided to put all three of our kids together in one room (which they absolutely LOVE),

and we made the second room a toy room. If we do get chosen to adopt a baby, this will become his/her room.

Further down to the left of the stairway is a full bathroom (I am SO much more grateful for our bathrooms now after spending one year using a communal one at NTBI!),

a huge linen closet,

and our bedroom

with TONS of closet space.

The entire campus of the MTC is absolutely GORGEOUS. All of the roads are dirt and gravel, and there are hills and trees as far as you can see.

It is right on the shoreline of the Lake of the Ozarks.

We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be here, and we want to thank everyone so very much who prayed for us through yet another transition!

There will be more to come in the new few weeks about our new "normal" in our everyday life here at the MTC. :)