Happy 4th and our trip to TN!

Happy 4th!! We have so much to be thankful for and there are so many reasons this holiday is so special. My family has always been big on celebrating the fourth of July. I have grown up and can't remember a 4th of july that I wasn't at the lake. We have a lake house on grand lake and the fourth of july is my FAVORITE time to be there. There are so many people there and several firework shows. Its my happy place. But ever since I went to college and my bother has gotten older, we haven't gone as much. I am hoping when things calm down-it isn't like we have been busy, that we can make more trips up there.

So today is our first day to be home and not have anything planned. We have this week to relax and then starting thursday we both have bachelor/bachelorette parties that last all weekend, then we leave for our trip to Mexico! So we are enjoying these next few days and being at home. We had some opportunities come up to travel, just close places, for the fourth and we both just wanted to stay home.
So today, we hung out with family, my brothers birthday is on July 1st, so we have always incorporated our fourth of july celebrations with his birthday. This afternoon we grilled out and spent all day out at the pool. The perfect relaxing day!

Now let me back up a little and tell you about our trip to Tennessee! Overall it was a success and I loved getting to be there knowing we were going to be living there in a month! We have been 3 times in the past two years, but I never wanted to get my hopes up and start looking for houses, etc. So this time since it was official, it was neat to see everything in the perspective of "home". We were there for 3 days and we have been going back and forth on renting and buying. Literally y'all it changes everyday.  We finally decided we wanted to for sure rent. It just makes so much more sense for number one, we aren't stuck there in 3 years with a house we own and second, because we have no idea where mitch will be placed for residency.
 Well when we got there we had some rental houses to look at I will just say- they were awful! I mean, we understand that we have owned some nicer houses and we were not planning on getting something very nice- i mean its a rental and we will have very little income so we knew these wouldn't be super fancy by any means. But they were flat out awful! They were gross and even Mitch wasn't a fan. We are both very realistic and not picky when it comes to finding a house. We are okay with something older and small, but we sill remember that we will be living here for 3 years. So we want it to be comfortable and home to us.  My mom was with us and it was so nice to have another persons view on it. She agreed- they were all awful! So went went to plan b- buying. We called a relator we had been working with and spent the next day looking at houses to buy. All of them needed work, which we normally like, but we don't have the time. We wanted something move-in ready and there was little to nothing.

So on the last day, a guy randomly called us on a rent house he had, we looked at it and loved it. If it was ours to own there are def a few thing we would change, light fixtures, etc, nothing major. Overall we love the layout of the house and we are super excited. We all sighed a sigh of relief when we saw it. It was our last option and we were just talking about what in the world we were going to do if it wasn't nice. So after a long stressful few days-- we have a house in TN! I am so excited and we are on the countdown until we make the big move!