Fair's Fair

I grew up in Minnesota, Home of 10,000 Lakes and The World's Greatest State Fair.

Every year I looked forward to the giant slide, the corn dogs, the roasted corn, Sweet Martha's Cookies (Bonnie, who is your hook up and how do I get included on that delivery list?).  That fair was the best.  We've made it back home for the fair a couple of times, but I've been seriously missing a good fair.

When I found out that the Arizona State Fair was right by Minnesota's on the Top 10 State Fair list, I knew we had to go.  And this week, I got my fix. 

Oh man.  It was a good, good day.

Post Fair Review:  Not as good as the Minnesota State Fair.  Too much breading on the corn dogs and not nearly as much to do.  BUT, the kids had a ton of fun getting to play games and ride the rides so it was an overall success.  Just keeping "Go Back To Minnesota In August For The Fair" on my list for 2015.

Our New School Space

I'm still gushing over our new place.

I know, it's probably getting old.  I mean, you know I really am loving where we landed.  But I can't make any promises as to when I'll quit wanting to share it with you.  I always love peeking in other families homeschool areas.  So today I'm showing you ours!

When we first decided to move to Scottsdale we knew we'd have to give up some square footage in exchange for the exact area we wanted to be in.  I made peace with that and did a major clean out of our school supplies.  It's kind of nuts how much stuff I had stock piled in the closets at our old house.

Flash forward to where we live now.  We did give up a little space, but not nearly as much as I had thought we would have to.  We even have an extra room that would be perfect as a school room if we decided to use it for that.  However, Andrew staked his claim on that room so school is happening at the dining room table.

And I love it. 

Really, really love it. 

But only because I got creative with our storage options.  As much as I want to be one of those homeschool moms that is totally OK with her house looking like a place where kids are learning and creating all day, I'm just not.

During the day, our kitchen/dining room area is covered with projects and notebooks and library books.  There are pencils and markers and dry erase boards all over the place.  But when we wrap up our last formal subject, I need this space to be clean and clear of all clutter.

So here's how I'm making it work.

We do school mostly in our kitchen/dining room.  It's a big open area with an island and a built in desk.  There is plenty of room for us to all spread out and do our own thing without being on top of each other.  There's a lot of natural light which I love. 

If you look close in the picture below, you can see Gabe outside.  We are putting in a screen door so I can leave the sliding glass door open.  Now that we are done with triple digits, I'm expecting we will move most of our school outside.  We just need a table out there.

I almost didn't bring our big bookshelf cabinet.  It was a custom build for a very certain space and I wasn't sure if I could make it work after the move.  I'm so glad we ended up bringing it.  We put the base in our dining area as a buffet type table.  And the cabinets are perfect for school.

On the left I have all of our curriculum.  Gabe's on top, Josie's on the bottom.  These are the books we use on a regular basis.  The right side has our sensory tubs and other manipulatives that keep Gabe busy.  Beads, lacing, letter cards, and Playdoh are his current go-tos.

I gave myself a drawer to keep all of my things or materials for art projects we are doing soon.

And the other drawer is for all their supplies.  I ended up finding a basket that fits perfect for the pencils and scissors that I just pull out and stick on the table during school then put it back at the end.  It has made it super easy to clean up.

I hijacked a wall in Andrew's office for their bulletin boards. 

This works great since we pretty much just hang stuff to show him.

I also used the bookshelves in the office.

I put the kid books on the bottom shelf so they can grab them easily.  I want to get a bunch of globes to put on the top.

I'm using one cabinet of the bookshelf to hide my notebook hoarding problem.  Not quite ready to admit I need an intervention here.  Seriously though, notebooks were .05 cents last month!  How could I not grab a billion of them?

Paper, learning posters, dress up, and bigger art supplies are all stored in this drawer system in the corner of the office closet.

And a shoe organizer holds all of our other random supplies on the back of the coat closet door. 

Another thing I almost didn't bring was this dresser.  We decided to use it as a TV stand and I love it.  It makes the room feel cozy for some reason.  Plus it gives us a ton of storage.  We haven't used up all of the drawers but this is where I'm keeping puzzles and games.  They used to be stored on a top shelf of a closet so it's been fun to have easier access to them so we can use them more.

Our kitchen has this desk area.

I claimed this as mine, but Josie usually props herself up right here.  It's nice since I can get stuff done in the kitchen and still be totally available if she needs me.  We are using a few online tools right now and this is a great space for that.

I'm so happy with how great this space works for school. 

We are getting to be all together and still not have school stuff all over.  It's the best of both worlds! 

When It Rains

Yesterday morning I woke up to the sound of rain falling.

I laid in bed as long as I could just listening.  Eventually Gabe's cries of hunger overpowered the patter of rain and I rolled out of bed to find the best kind of puddle in the backyard.

The entire back patio was covered in three inches of water.

Now I know that even though we moved here during the monsoon season, these rains are about to be nonexistent.  So out we went to make some rain filled memories.

Our puddle fun was cut short when we realized there was an equally large puddle in the kid's bedroom.

In under a half hour, a good two inches of water had smuggled it's way into the house.  Goodnight, cleaning up water is stressful.  We got it up though and moved on with our day.

We headed out to explore all the road closures (I don't know, it sounded interesting) and were amazed to see our park literally covered in water.  

Like, covered.

And our bike path was under 6 feet of water!

6 feet!

The city is set up to where water that isn't able to be absorbed by the dry ground flows into The Wash and into the Salt River.  It was very cool to drive around and see the water gushing towards the river.  Andrew decided we couldn't let this sudden river go unused so we hopped on our bikes and did a little littering in the name of fun.

He even explained a bit about buoyancy to us so I'm totally counting that as a science class.

* the water behind them in these pictures is usually just grass

Phase: No Longer Homeless

Last week we decided to stop looking at houses until the end of September.

And it was a good idea, no point rushing when we still had six weeks before we had to get serious about moving.  But even though we quit emailing each other potential rental houses, we were both secretly still looking.  Slowly creeping through neighborhoods, hoping those neighborhood watch signs didn't mean the families were calling the cops on us.

Which is exactly what I was doing when I drove by a guy hammering a "For Lease" sign out in the front yard of a cute little house.

I circled around and waited until he left before hopping out of the car to scope it out.

And instantly I fell in love.

I called to get the info and did a little squealing when I found out it was in our price range.

Three days later, we signed the lease and a week from today we will get the keys and move in to our first Arizona home.

The house is perfect.

Like, it meets every single item on our original wish list.  It was just renovated so everything is new and clean, it has a huge kitchen, everyone gets their own walk in closet, and it has four bedrooms which means we can still have an office/school area!  And to top it all off, the lot is huge.  One of the big downsides to our move was losing the ability to send the kids outside like we could at the house in Georgia.  But while we don't have 33 acres for them to explore, we do have a large, fenced in backyard complete with a pad to ride bikes and a sandbox to dig in.

It's in a quiet, well established neighborhood and, get this, four minutes from my Mom's door to mine!  If you've been paying attention, that means Starbucks is still dangerously close.  We have sidewalks and two parks within 1/2 a mile.

To say I'm excited and happy is a gross understatement.

I was pretty sure we were going to have to settle for a house that didn't quite feel like us.  I'm not sure why I felt that way since God has laid this entire move out so smoothly for us.  I feel like this is just another confirmation that we did the right thing by stepping out and following our dream.

obsessed with this little desk!

kids both love their rooms

my closet!!!  Yea, MINE.  Andrew has his own which may save our marriage.

We get the keys next Sunday and the plan is to paint the bedrooms the colors we want and then set it all up before we actually move in.  Since it's so close to my Mom's, we felt like we didn't need to live with boxes all over.  We will see if I can hold off, I'm pretty excited!