Hello, Jackson!

A few days after Christmas, Matthew and I left Kyndall with my parents for the weekend while we flew up to Jackson on a house hunting trip.  It was my first trip to Jackson, so I was looking forward not only to finding a house, but also checking out the town that I would soon call "home".

We flew direct with Southwest out of Panama City and into Nashville and then drove from Nashville to Jackson.  Since the PC airport is super small, we over accounted for the time needed for parking, security, check-in, etc.  This left us with about two hours of waiting.  So, I pulled out my laptop and we Skyped with Kyndall and my parents!  I had only been away from her a few hours but already I was missing her.  I love technology!!

 

The moon was SO pretty once we got above the clouds

We spent the next day and a half looking at house after house, with a little browsing through Jackson in between.  But there wasn't much time for that since we were on a very tight deadline to find a house!  We woke up on Saturday morning to see snow flurries in the air!  A nice surprise for this Florida girl!

You can't see them very well in this picture, but they were there!

See them??  Those aren't raindrops, it's snow!

 

We looked at several houses and ultimately felt like we made a good choice in calling this one our home......

We were pretty confident with our decision, though we agreed to sleep on it and make our final decision on Sunday morning before flying out.  We went to dinner that night and then Matthew took me up to his new terminal and showed me around.

(These bare and boring walls are now happily adorned with family pictures, arranged by yours truly!) =)  It definitely needed a woman's touch!

Matthew's brand new company car just sitting in the garage waiting for him!  So exciting!

 

The next morning we made one more visit to the house we had chosen.  For many, many reasons we unanimously decided that it was NOT the house for us!  I loved it, but there were just too many things I wasn't comfortable with.  So, frantically (with only 3 hours until departure time!) we called a realtor about this house and ultimately decided it was a perfect choice!!!  We couldn't be happier!  It's two years old and in a great neighborhood with lots of young families.  It's also only about 4 miles from Matthew's terminal, which is an added bonus!

 

The next few pictures were taken on my cell phone, so they aren't the greatest but you get the point......

One of the deciding factors was this nice big fenced backyard!  Something the other house didn't have.

 

I've never had a formal dining room before, so I immediately envisioned this one with a beautiful new table with plenty of seating for all of our family when they visit, a lovely matching china cabinet to store all of my fine china, portraits of our family on the walls and maybe even a nice rug to accent it all.  REALITY : It has become our playroom!  There are toys wall to wall and probably no hope of an elegant formal dining space!  Oh well, such is life.  I figure I'll have plenty of years to enjoy a nice formal dining room once my children are no longer children and someday I'll long for the scattered toys cluttering my house as I navigate through them.  So for now, this room belongs to Kyndall!

 

I've also never had a garden tub.  I was so excited about this one!  Again, I envisioned a pretty mirror on the wall, monogrammed hand towels hanging from the racks, even some fancy candles in the corner of the tub.  Yet again, this has been claimed by Kyndall herself!  There are rubber duckies and foam letters scattered throughout the tub, a bottle of baby soap on the ledge, and leftover soap suds from her nightly "bubble bafs".  ...........Sigh............

 

We left Jackson feeling confident about our choice and excited about our upcoming move!  Kyndall was very happy to see us when we returned to Tallahassee and my parents said she did great!  Successful trip all the way around!