Life in our New Home

Emilie warming up.

Emilie hamming it up!

Cozy kids!

Thought we had a wing walker, but it's just the harness.

Daniel is loving living near the airport!

Building model airplanes together.

Abby, Margaret, & CJ Stricklen came over one Sunday after church for our first sleepover.

Margaret

Monday evening the rest of the Stricklen clan joined us for dinner.

Molly, Mary, Callie & Me

I think Daniel was being Trigger for Will.

Chris & Patrick

The ever present paparazzi.

Mary & Abby

I thought CJ had a good time at our house until I saw this picture :~)

Will and his trusty stead, Trigger.

Cute Little Rascal!

More sidewalk art by Emilie.

Febe picks her room.

I have always wanted to have a table set up with a puzzle going on it, but for lack of space we never have. One of the first things we did was set up the card table in the family room with a puzzle on it. Right away we went through the few puzzles we owned. Patrick and Sadie went out one night and bought a couple of puzzles. I posted on Facebook what they were doing and next thing you know we are the proud owners of MANY puzzles, thanks to a friend's garage sale she told me about on FB. I think this is our third completed puzzle and we've only been in the house four weeks.

Emilie wants to place the last pieces.

I don't know if you can see it, but there is an outline of the Statue of Liberty made by several puzzle pieces within the puzzle. I think they found three or four of them in all.

Putting in the last pieces.

It was a very hard puzzle.

Getting Settled In

The long awaited pictures of the new house...

Here is my ever faithful husband putting up blinds. There were absolutely no window coverings and a lot of windows.

There were also no light fixtures in the house except for the hall and the bathrooms.
Can't say that anymore :~)

We tried to find something different, but ended up buying the same light fixture for our new dining room that we had in our old house. We still liked it!

The pool and Daniel's new job. He enjoys it. He pretends he is steering (driving?) a gondola. It has still been too cold to swim, but we are hopeful it will be warm enough soon.

Cleaning my dining room table and chairs :~)

I missed you old friends.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's unpacking we are doing (lame, sorry)

Our own beds!

We emptied the goose neck trailer and delivered it to church the next day. The Dischers then filled it for a run of their things up to their new home in Missouri. Patrick, Ed & Peter took the load up and came back through Tupelo, MS for the rest of our things from storage.

That's some fireplace!
The family room is our favorite room.

Cedar walls.

The one window with no covering ~ 51 " and needs to be special ordered.

The Dischers came over to help us unload the refrigerator, dishwasher, coffee table, 2 end tables, sofa table, sofa, love seat and chair we were blessed to find on Craig's List from one person.

The living room. It will be a while before we make this room our own.

The Dischers blessed us by bringing pizza for lunch.

Two sweet friends.

Paul in his adorable pony outfit, riding on a pony :~)

Paul playing Jenga

"I'll restack them."

Here comes the refrigerator.

Peter bringing it in.

We ended up getting some chicken from Publix and enjoying two meals with the Dischers.

Careful, Grace!

EJ enjoys a chicken leg.

Thanks, Peter for your help.

"Hello there!"

"WOW! That's a really big closet!"

I miss my friend.

Working on a little puzzle and watching a movie.

A beautiful sunset.

Emilie and her trusty stead.
I have always wanted a large driveway for the kids to ride bikes and do chalk drawings. The Lord keeps blessing and blessing :~)

Febe adjusting to the new house (yard).

Playing Chinese Checkers in the family room.

What is that amongst the boxes and things in the garage?

Why it's Febe Cat all snug and warm and settling in.

Being Silly

After the haircuts, the children were attacked by a man-eating, octopus plant outside the beauty shop.

Emilie Donates Her Hair

Emilie has made her first donation to Locks of Love.

It had gotten quite long.

Mrs. Williams prepares to make the cut. She cut Sadie's and my hair when we made our first donation almost seven years ago.

Sweet!

She donated 12 inches of hair.

The Latest News!!!

Well, after a two and a half year search of the entire country for a new home for the Franklin Family we have finally found our new home! Smack dab between where we started! Yes, I grew up in Arcadia, Patrick grew up in Lake Wales, and we are now living 40 minutes from Arcadia and 30 from Lake Wales ~ Avon Park, FL.


Patrick is now working with Modern Woodmen Fraternal Financial and we needed to find a home near Hwy 27 so he could serve the Sebring/Avon Park area. We began searching back in November. We drove all over these two towns and looked at nearly 30 houses. Too far out, too small, no yard, too high priced, terrible neighborhood, perfect! ... contract pending :(... Then we found one with four bedrooms, large garage, family room, living room & dining room, with 1/2 an acre, out of town, but close to stores, nice neighborhood, decent price... we made an offer... we were getting desperate... sorry, going to auction.


So guess what we did? We got up early and drove to Orlando for the auction. There were about 130 houses on the block... the one we were there for was 12 from the bottom. Hours later the bidding started... opening bid... 1st bid, 2nd bid, Patrick raised his number... do I hear $5,000 more?... sold to the highest bidder!!!! What?! That's us! We won! Unbelievable and for less than we had originally offered. Thank you, Lord!


Now the waiting. The seller (a bank) had 15 days to accept or reject our winning bid. Merry Christmas! We received news on December 23rd that our bid had been accepted. Now we had 45 days to get our financing. Here we were with an excellent credit score, ZERO debt, a good paying job, and a fare amount of cash in the bank, but the bank decided that Patrick hadn't been at his job long enough. Maybe if we jumped through this hoop and turned in this paperwork, maybe they'd loan us the money. We jumped. We got the paperwork turned in and then more hoops were required. All along the deadline loomed. The seller kept pushing us to close in 30 days (Jan. 22nd). A miraculous technicality was used. The seller didn't sign the contract until January 4th, so we had a little more breathing room in our deadline ~ Feb. 17th was the final date.


January 20th the bank denied our loan, but told us if we did this or that, maybe they still might loan us the money. Oh Lord, what are we to do? Then another in a string of miracles. Dear friends of ours heard of our plight and graciously offered to loan us the money. Praise the Lord! February 11th we signed the papers and took possession of our new home!

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

We are busy unpacking now. Patrick took a trip up to Tupelo to get our stuff out of storage. The Lord's timing allowed us to help our friends the Dischers carry a load of their things to their new home in Missouri and then have help from Ed and Peter to load our things in Tupelo and unload them back here. Pictures will follow soon.

A Star is Born!

Daddy had to go up to the local coffee shop/bookstore today to access the internet on his work computer and he invited Emilie to tag along. A local celebrity, Luke Wilson, was there performing and apparently, Emilie got into the act.

Here she is sneaking her way up to request he sing a song she knows.

Next thing Daddy knows Emilie has a microphone and is joining Mr. Wilson in the song.


Take a bow

Luke and the Little Lady