Monday morning, Steven and I left at 4:30 to head to the airport. I had a short layover in Memphis (and left from a gate right next to where Steven and I left on the way back from Mexico), and was in Charlotte by 11:15! Kim, Kelly, and Ari all picked me up, and we stopped by Chick-Fil-A to get lunch and brought it back to their house. Kim told me all about her pregnancy and labor... I called Steven that night and told him we are going to have to adopt all of our children because I do NOT want to go through some of that! ha! We spent most of the day hanging out at their house and catching up. We watched "The King's Speech" that night. Ari is SUCH a good baby. I think I heard her cry one time all day. She's so cute, has dark blue eyes, and smiles in her sleep.
Tuesday we picked up Kim's boyfriend, Tristan, and went to the mall. On our way, I heard a beep on my phone that I had a new voicemail. Steven had just called me but I hadn't heard it ring, so I called him back. He asked me some questions about how to use coupons on toothpaste. It seemed a little weird, because obviously he knows how to use coupons! He then said, "oh, and by the way, Lisa called and we got the house!" We were SOOOOOO excited. God has been so good to us! We got to the mall and checked out a couple stores, then headed back to the house for dinner. Kelly and I spent that and the next two nights at Steven (their brother) and his wife Amber's house because they had some other family staying at their house.
Wednesday, Kelly and I picked up some donuts from Dunkin Donuts and brought Kim one, too. We hung out at the house, and I got a call from Steven that he and Lisa had e-mailed me all of the papers I needed to sign, and to sign them and then fax or scan them back. It was quite stressful printing out the 23 pages, signing and initialing at the right spots, and then trying to get it all back to them! Mr. Litfin really did most of the work for me... all I did was the signing and he took charge from there. He first was going to try to fax it, but hadn't used his fax machine in a while so he thought it might take a while to re-figure out how to do everything. So we decided to scan everything and e-mail it back to Lisa. Finally all of the pages had been scanned, when we discovered that they had been scanned wrong-side up, so we had just scanned the BACKs of all of the papers! So we did it again, right side up, and went to send it in an e-mail but after 5 minutes of it trying to send, it came back and said the attachment was too big. So we had to scan everything AGAIN, but half and half this time. We finally were able to get it to Lisa. That night was Kevin's confirmation at the Catholic church.
Thursday Kelly and I stopped by Cindy's consignment store that they are in the process of opening. It is looking good! Later that day, after Amber got off work, we went to Ikea. I don't know if that was good or not... it was definitely a bittersweet experience, ha! It was sweet because it was one of the most amazing shopping experiences of my life, it was like a magical world. But bitter because the one closest to us is in Chicago! And because I had only brought a carry-on bag that was already full, so I could only buy SMALL items. But all in all I am glad I went and I hope they bring one to St. Louis or Kansas City! We left with the mentality that they were not going to buy anything, but I was going to buy a shower curtain (since I knew we got the house, I wanted to get a shower curtain!). And we left with everyone buying a couple of things!
Friday we went to Asheville, about 2 hours away from Charlotte. It is on Kelly's way to college and they hang out there a lot, so they wanted to show it to me. It was a really cool, artsy place. We had lunch at a pizza place and went to where the Biltmore estate is (you had to pay to see it, so we just drove on the Estate).
Saturday afternoon we went bowling with Mr. Litfin and Kevin. Kelly was the Toe Fairy, Kevin was Confirmandor, Kim was Kimbowl, I was the Missourian, and Mr. Litfin was The Dawg.
After bowling, we went to a coffee shop until I had to go to the airport around 5. The flights back went smoothly- the layover in Atlanta was 2.5 hours long but it was still fine. In Atlanta, I ate at the food court where Steven and I ate at Qdoba on our way to Mexico! And this is the first trip I have ever taken where NONE of my flights were delayed! :)
The trip was great, I'm so glad I was able to go and meet Ari, and spend time with my "second family." Kelly and I had some good talks at night, and I hope that I was a blessing and encouragement to her and to Kim!
It is good to be back. I have more to write about yesterday and today (we are getting our house inspected today at 1:30!) but this is already a long post!
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