Town home sweet town home

I had been promising people I would post pictures of our town home and kept procrastinating taking pictures because I was either unpacking boxes or had messy rooms and was embarrassed to show. Now it is my honor to present to you all our town home that we are renting for a year.

This is our boys room, I recently put away the play n pack for Ali since he is now in Tommy's old toddler bed. Tommy of course still likes to sneak out of the room in the middle of the night to sleep in his sisters' room, he is still used to sleeping with them from when we were living in Utah.

Here is our entertainment room where we sit and relax for tv time, girls doing homework, naps, guest visitors, etc..

Here is the outside of our townhouse and front door, we love the brick design. It's been a good home for us.

This is the front of our town home, we got convenient parking spots for whoever wants to visit *hint hint ;) We live across the Occoquan Bay Wildlife Refuge. There are a lot of boats that are parked at this bay, it almost reminds me of the bay I saw in Seattle. It's a beautiful bay.

Here are our stairs going upstairs to all three bedrooms, a lot of stairs to climb everyday!

 This picture is kind of blurry but thought i add it to show where the stairs go to upstairs and to the downstairs.  Our kitchen is behind Keona as you can spot the kitchen table and chairs.

 The master bathroom's jacuzzi.

 This is the master's bathroom, it isn't too organized so pardon that. :D

 The nice thing about this townhouse is we have the washer and dryer on the second floor which is the same floor as our bedrooms. Easy to transfer clothes back and forth.

And here are the last stairs (more stairs i know) that go to our front door which is on first floor and our garage as well which is behind the stairs. It is also the same stairs I fell down on, ooof it hurter. We will be putting down stair treads thanks to our landlord's approval today, yay!
Anyway I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures I posted at last, ah i feel a huge relief I finally posted this blog. Good night! :-)

It's all good

I always love when fridays come because then I don't have to share my family with school or a job, I get them all to myself. This weekend we decided to go to the mountains, we went to Catoctin mountains for a beautiful scenery drive. We drove through so many beautiful countrysides with farms and homes of variety sizes, got deli sandwiches, we passed the Appalachian trail, and went to the pumpkin cannon with corn maze which we touched eight years ago when found out I was pregnant with Keona. We had such an amazing time and we enjoyed every minute!

I seem to be having trouble downloading the rest of the pictures of this weekend :( I shall try again later with the hubby's help. This week-end was too fun and now it is sunday night getting ready to start a new week. It was pretty amazing going back to the corn maze where 9 years ago Adam and I went with some friends of ours Don and Miriam on a beautiful scenery drive to the corn maze and pumpkin cannon. We walked around the maze and I felt weak and tired, was not feeling good at all so Adam ended up pushing me around in Eva's stroller while she was on my lap. Later that week went to a doctor appointment and found out I was pregnant with our second child, Keona Christine Schafer. Who would have thought 9 years later we would find ourselves back at that corn maze with three more children. It was pretty surreal with Adam taking a picture of Keona by the corn maze makes it one of the most amazing things that happened to us in our lives. 

In church today as Adam and I were sitting in sunday school Brother Eric Spanbauer was teaching us about the difference between having just a spirit and having spirit along with a body, talking about the pre mortal life and the war in heaven. What struck me was when we were just in spirit body we felt no pain, i turn to Adam and I was thinking how amazing would that be if we were no longer in pain. Then after that talked about how we never experience full joy if we hadn't come down on earth to get bodies or have children. If i had to start over again pick having just a spirit body or come down to earth to get a body, I would do the the latter even though my body has so much pain and getting older i don't regret all we have experience and have. We have four beautiful and amazing children and a live that keeps us on our heels and an adventure in every corner. We have the good life and these trials we have just makes us stronger and helps us rely on our God even more. We have a bumper sticker on our van I love to always apply to everything we do "It's all good!" 

The change

I had been wanting to update my blog for awhile and finally tonight I decided to just do it. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the last time I was on my blog was in December of 2012, that is just rather sad! Anyhow, I'm glad to be back. So to my family and friends if you see me on here, I say HI and miss you all!

It has been two months about since we've moved out here to Woodbridge, Virginia. I had forgotten so much about the east since the last time we were here back in 2004 when Eva was 3. I had forgotten all the bad traffic on I-95, how green and vast it is out here, the humidity, the variation of race, etc.. It is a very interesting place to be. In the beginning it was difficult for Eva and I to be out here so far away from all the families and friends we've had for so long. Now we are at a place where we can actually handle the loneliness and being in a new place, it's changing us and seems we're accustomed to being here. The only thing that I'm struggling with is everything is up in the air at the moment as we are unsure where we will be living in the next few months.

I typed this awhile back and didn't do this posting so gonna try again, I've missed blogging so much.   I can't believe we have been here in Virginia for four months now, summer is over, and the girls are back in school.  I am now getting used to being here in the east know the usual routes to take our girls to their schools, to take hubby to the Virginia Railroad Express and to the Franconia metro as a backup if miss the VRE train, know the routes of getting to Target, Walmart, Ikea, etc.. Adam and I had been worried about Eva starting middle school because wasn't sure if it was a good school but it turned out to be an amazing school. She raves about everyday how great her teachers, classes, and friends are. She also joined the volleyball team where her team takes such good care of her and calls her "short stuff." Keona started 3rd grade and she made three friends whom she loved introducing to me every chance she gets. She loves her teacher Mr. Salamone, she is enjoying having him.

Things haven't been going so well concerning my health or Adam's. It's kind of ironic when we celebrated my birthday on Sunday and I made a wish before blowing out my candles on the yummy chocolate cake Adam got for me. I wished for our family to have good health because I was so tired of all these health issues with each of us. Right after cake was cut I was getting ready to sit down then all of the sudden the chair disappeared from under me and felt a whack on my tailsbone. I writhed in pain and could not speak to any of my family and had to sit on couch to gather my strength again. It was a horrible pain and I am still struggling to be able to sit so have to be careful how i sit or getting out of the van.  Keona felt horrible and kept telling me sorry over and over again, she was trying to warn me beforehand that she was trying to trade chairs so I could sit in the rocking chair to be more comfortable. It was too late as I sat down too fast. Birthday wishes I like to think they come true but it is only superstition granted to us with a blow. I like to think this was the last health issue we will be dealt with for a long time but knowing us it it short-lived. We just deal with whatever comes, come what may.

Ali is a trooper after what happened when he fell off the swing at Keona's elementary school playground, he will wear his cast for three weeks which is better than the last time he wore a spica cast which he had to wear for two long months back in winter of last year. The doctor said he can even walk on his cast which will help him heal faster. But gosh that boy has a sensitive body that he breaks bones easy, I sure hope this is the last bone he breaks pretty please for the love of Ali please!!!

Tommy is doing his usual adorable 4 year old dialogue, he keeps me entertained every day, I love that kid!!! I haven't done the preschool homeschool system yet and I keep saying I am going to do it tmmw or the next day and it never happens. I need motivation and a schedule since new at this whole thing, it tends to get overwhelming as I don't know what or where to start even though i have tons of information to teach him. I am trying to grasp motivation out here and the need to exercise as well, so many things i want to accomplish and so little time in the day when the boys want my undivided attention.

And then the bugs, always the bugs that are and is an issue right now in our household, I've pretty much decontaminated our entire townhouse and we still have them fruit flies. I need to exercise patience and wait for them to be wiped out. I hate the feeling when a bug comes around my hair or face then I become itchy, I try to clasp hands together to kill them to no avail. Annoying pesky things please disappear already! Love our townhouse but man it is hard to keep clean but then our house in Utah was hard to keep up as well. I think it is just a mommy thing to feel.

Adam is kept busy with his job and it is nice for him to finally have a full-time job that he's been waiting three years for. I am so happy for him and proud of him even though we had to move all the across the country. It was the right move for our family and we already can see how much it has drawn our family closer even more now. I miss the west and hope someday we will go back, it may not be Utah but at least someplace closer to our families and friends.

It's so nice to be back on here on my blog and then to see what my friends and families are up to. I hope to keep up more now that I have a laptop (Adam's old lapttop from school) to type on anytime and on our comfortable couch instead of at the computer desk. :D

Adios until next time when I will actually post pictures of our townhouse in which families and friends have been curious to see. Sorry I've been a bit slow in that area, been delaying due to unpacking boxes still and rooms that seem to always stay messy.