One Big Holiday

The past year and a half since our last post have certainly brought about much change. We hope you will forgive our gap in posts, but a brief summary of the time will perhaps explain some of our negligence. Ben's firm closed their Pawley's office at the end of July due to COVID slow down with projects. After a search around the region, he secured a position with McMillan Pazdan Smith in Greenville, SC. Johanna's firm has an office there, so she was able to transfer. 

The need to sell our house in Pawleys set off a mad dash to finish our lingering renovation project. In the span of just a few months, we were able to finish the exterior of the house, finish the kitchen addition, completely gut and remodel the master bathroom, replace the upstairs flooring, and build the second floor deck. By November we were ready to list the house and as expected it sold within the first week. We were quite proud of the final result and really hated leaving our modern Pawleys house. 

After a few visits to Greenville, we were able to find a wonderful house in a neighborhood that is super kid friendly. This was one of our main requirements, along with 4 bedrooms (spoiler alert for later in this post). As soon as Christmas was over, the final push for packing began. We ended up closing our Pawleys house in the morning and drove to Greenville to close on our new house that afternoon. 

In our first month in Greenville, Jackson was able to experience his first snow. He thought it was tons of fun, until some snow got down his jacket. Then it was too cold and time to head inside for hot chocolate! 

We made a trip to Kentucky in February to pick up Ben's Maker's Mark bottles from his bachelor party trip in 2013. The rest of the spring was spent unpacking, exploring Greenville, and watching Jackson grow into an amazing little toddler. Both of our jobs have been extremely busy all year. Clients are catching up from the pause in 2020. In May, we went to the PGA Championship in Kiawah with Tony, Brian, and Katie. 

Phil!

In July we took our first big family vacation to Gatlinburg. We had an action packed week and Jackson still talks about our trip. 

In August, Jackson turned three with an awesome pool party. He is growing up so fast and his personality is full of laughter and empathy. For Halloween he was Cat Boy from PJ Mask and Ben was the villain, Romeo. We also took Jackson to his first Clemson game, or as he calls it the "Go Tigers game."  He had a ton of fun and still talks about it all the time. Looks like we have a future Tiger on our hands!  

Even with all the fun, the biggest event this fall was preparing for the arrival of baby #2. We converted the fourth bedroom into a beautiful nursery and mentally prepared Jackson for having a little sister. He was incredibly sweet during the whole pregnancy and would always ask how baby Hollis was doing inside mommy. 

Hollis arrived promptly on schedule on Dec 24th, which made Christmas quite special and different this year. We even had Santa delay coming for a day, so we could all be home with Jackson for "Christmas" morning. She has been a very chill baby and Jackson has been a gentle big brother. It was quite special closing out what has been an incredibly busy, stressful, chaotic year by completing our sweet family of four. 

Stay tune for hopefully more frequent post of our adventures in 2022!

Spring reopening

We had another couple over for drinks this past Friday. For us it was the ceremonially breaking of the ice if you will. They are from a bigger out-of-state city and were in town visiting her parents. The invitation was extended, followed by the long pause of hesitation. Was this a safe idea? As it turns out some social interaction, with appropriate distancing, is just what we needed. We chatted away on the patio while Jackson ran around the yard playing. What a beautiful Spring we are having this year.

It is said the air has become drastically cleaner over some of the largest cities in the world. People in the Indian city of Jalandhar can see the Himalayan mountains in the distance for the first time in 30 years. While we might not notice cleaner air here, I have noticed the quietness. It is almost jarring to hear a commercial airliner pass over now. That is not to say it has been all quiet, but rather different noises have filled the air. Noises I would rather hear, like neighbors saying hello as they pass on the street or the sound of my son’s laughter as he explores our yard. I am also hearing neighbors working in their yards and tackling those dusty to-do list. The birds have been talking a lot more lately. Without us drowning them out maybe they are catching up with friends as well. 

None of this is to say that real suffering doesn’t exist right now. There is much financial and political uncertainty out there. If we allow ourselves to be sucked into the news, we can believe this is the worst of times. I’ve seen too much grace over these past many weeks to believe that. As things begin returning to the “new normal” as it is being called, we have many decisions to make as a community.  Some are practical changes, slight changes in behaviors, but others I feel will take much longer to work out. As our friends left in proper Southern style, invitations were extended to come try this storied barbeque joint near their house in Memphis. 

We accepted without hesitation.

Kitchen Addition

Unfortunately it has been sometime since our last post. Life has been busy. We have acquired a new dog, which will be the subject of his own entry soon. We have also begun preparing for the kitchen and mud room addition onto the house. For those of you that know us well, this has been a project in the works for some time now. Our original design was priced out by a local contractor and came in way over budget, like double. But no worries, nothing like blowing the budget to prompt creative thinking. The new design addressed some of the issues with the original plan and ultimately turned out to be a more functional design. The price also came in on budget.

 

We have purchased our new appliances. I know that seems backwards, but the 4th of July sales at Home Depot were too good to pass up and nothing like the pressure of knowing a huge shipment of appliances are arriving in 90 days to motivate you to get going. Ben finished the plans and they are in for a permit with Georgetown County. He has also been preparing the backyard for construction by finishing the demolition and clearing a path for the construction crews. Johanna has been finalizing finish selections and laying out the cabinets.  We hope to break ground by the end of the month and make significant progress over the next two months. 

Stay tuned for weekly updates.

Addition will come out 12' from the back of the house. 

Current state of the back of our house 

Early sketch of our re-design