All Kinds of Celebrations Over Here

The very bottom portion of this post (a giveaway – hooray!) is written in partnership with Warner Bros. Pictures.

When I first started blogging in 2008, 100% of my posts were written during a spontaneous free hour where I could sit down and unload a handful of “life happenings”. This post feels like a blast from the past where I find myself sitting in bed at 5:56 a.m. typing away because I have so many exciting things bopping around in my head that my fingertips are just dying to crank out. Welcome inside a writer’s brain; It never seems to shut off. 🙂

Where am I? Madison, Alabama at my parent’s house. Jamie is checking out a new crossfit gym, and my parents both just left for work. Hadley and Sadie are home in Kansas being spoiled and loved on by my in-laws.

Why am I awake if the girls are in Kansas?! Haaaaa, because I’m a freak and cannot sleep past 5:03 a.m. EVER.

Why are we in Alabama? Ahhh, did you see my news on social media on Saturday? 🙂 I can’t stop smiling about it. In case you missed it, Jamie got a job here! In my hometown! Doing his dream job! I can’t wait to share more about how all of this has played out over the last few months (it’s a great story), but fast forward to say that we have at least three conversations a day about how much in disbelief we are that we’re actually going to be Alabama residents again in just a few short months. We’ve both wanted this for a couple years now, so we are feeling pretty darn fortunate that the biggest piece of this ETS puzzle (a.k.a. transitioning out of active duty army life) has fallen into place so beautifully. It isn’t lost on us the magnitude of how great this blessing is. I thought I might do some big cutesy picture/announcement thing about moving back to Alabama, but realistically I’ve had zero creative energy for something like that. A selfie with “excited” faces seemed sufficient in sharing news that we’re still bouncing off the walls about. Thank you for being excited for us! <3

So we flew down to house hunt because we would love to do a door-to-door move from our Kansas home to our new Alabama home. Granted, still working on the whole “sell our Kansas house” thing, and if the weather would get above flipping 10 degrees and stop snowing every other day, we might have a chance at selling. 😉 Our realtor said that homes around our price range and the price range right below ours have only had an average of 2-3 showings each in the last 30 days, soooo… that sucks. BUT! We’re having our 5th one today that my in-laws are graciously taking care of for us (i.e. cleaning and getting everyone out the door!), so we have every finger and toe crossed and a multitude of prayers being sent that the right family comes along at the right time… and if that family came today, that would just be super. 🙂

HEY!  Guess what! Today, January 15th, is a really special day in our little world. Today we celebrate seven years married! Would have loved to have done a whole blog post blabbing about all things Jamie and marriage and how much I still have all the heart eye emojis for him, but we have this whole MAJOR LIFE TRANSITION going on, which just feels so typical “real life” at this seven year point. 🙂 Seven years ago at this very moment (it’s now 6:46 a.m. by the way – had to pause this post to chat with my sis on the phone about this house hunt junk – ha!), I was waking up in the most beautiful beach house surrounded by all eight of my bridesmaids and my parents. We had an amazing, stress-free day getting ready, and at 3 p.m. I walked down a massive flight of wooden stairs (getting my huge dress stuck three times while Jamie was standing at the “alter” smirking, quietly telling people not to laugh so I wouldn’t get upset lol), met my dad at the bottom, and then walked down a beautiful sandy aisle to my groom.

Our day was perfect, and I’m very grateful for these memories that make me giddy to just type out and think about.

I love you Jamie DeSpain. Happy 7th anniversary, and cheers to 70 more. <3

Also.. house hunting. It’s kind of (okay, really!) hard this time around. We have our sites set on buying a house we can stay put in for many, many moons (compared to buying our last two houses when we knew we’d be there 3-4 years TOPS), so when we think of all the things we want our forever house to have, the list is approximately five miles long (God bless our realtor, Chelsea.) Something is going to have to give, and it’s not going to be the school system (hooray for one of the very best in the state but booooo for that fact making the housing prices really high compared to surrounding areas. Oy.) Wish us luck! Today is going to be a doozy regarding the tough decisions we have ahead of us.

And what’s a random, free-write kind of Monday without a giveaway! A really stinkin’ sweet giveaway! At least I think so. 🙂

This Friday, January 19th, 12 Strong hits theaters. Warner Brothers is giving away a $50 Fandango gift card and zip-up hoodie to a Whimsical September reader. Please use the rafflecopter widget below to enter. Good luck! The winner will be announced Wednesday.

Ready to go ahead and purchase tickets for a showing this upcoming opening weekend? You can do so here.

Here’s the hoodie the winner will receive in addition to the $50 gift card. 

Here’s the trailer! (Looks soooo good! Jamie has been waiting for months to see this movie.)

Enter using the widget below! PS, open to US mailing addresses only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway