Moving Yet Again

Come mid-June, we are moving yet again. But have no fear..we're not going far, just 15 miles down the highway a little further south in Charlotte.

When we moved to Charlotte, we quickly had to find a place to live as our house in Nashville rented very quickly and we needed to be out. After a whirlwind trip to look at places, I finally found a place that met our needs on paper. Once we got here, we realized that our neighborhood wasn't quite the best and the townhouse lacked a lot of storage. Luckily we only signed a year lease and surprisingly that year is almost coming to end.

As only God could do, He has orchestrated such a cool story. We attend the Church at Charlotte, where I have joined the HOME club, a mom's group on Friday mornings. One of my friends in the group is named Brigetta; she and her husband just bought a new house. The house they are currently renting belongs to her inlaws. Her inlaws are now looking for new renters...and guess who they are!!

I'm so excited about this house! It's bigger than what we are in now, has a 2 car garage, screened in back porch, huge fenced in backyard, etc. Also it's in a GREAT area and within walking distance to many great stores, including Target. (Jeremy says this could be dangerous!) A huge bonus too is that it is closer to all our church friends..no more long drives to hang out! And the best part of this......the rent is cheaper than what we are paying now!

We are so very grateful in how the Lord has arranged all of this. We are soooo looking forward to moving...is it June 15th yet?

One Step Closer

We have renters!! After only a week and half on the market, our house has been rented! Not only has it been rented, but they are renting over what we originally needed!!! Thanks to our awesome realtor we will be receiving enough money to cover our mortgage and the property management fee. Praise the Lord!!

Really we have to praise God for just how He has worked through out this whole process. First, He provided a new job very soon into the process. When at first it didn't seem like a reasonable offer, He made it possible by having the owner offer Jeremy more money. He used a realtor friend to give us good advice and help us decide to rent to save us money. We then got a great realtor that helped promote our rental, allowing it to rent in just 1.5 weeks. While we have one more step (finding a new place to live) we know that the Lord will provide there as well.

Now the packing process begins! If anyone would like to come help, it would be greatly appreciated. :) I believe we will pull out of here the last weekend in June so if you would be willing to help us pack it all up, we would love that as well. :)

Moving on Up

As if we didn't have enough going on in our lives, we decided to add one more thing. We are moving!
Last week, Jeremy was offered a web designer position at a design agency in Charlotte. He's excited about narrowing his focus (he did web & graphic design along with photography) and the opportunity to work in a small firm along with other designers (right now he's the only one).

There are many great things about this move:
1) More money! :)
2) Bigger city with more to do and more to choose from
3) Closer to Jeremy's family
4) Close to both our brothers and so many friends

We are sad though that we are moving farther from my parents (and they are too!).

As far as the move, we are not sure when it is going to happen. Jeremy is to report to his new job on June 7th, just 2 short weeks. Of course, this is really fast and we have a house here. He is going to have to without us at first and stay in my brother's spare bedroom. As far as Owen and I, we will stay here until we can rent the house out. After talking to a realtor, it looks like the best thing for us is to rent out the house instead of trying to sell it. Since we have only owned this house for a year and half, we don't have a lot of equity in it. We're afraid that we would not break even in the sale so we are going to hang on to it for a while. This also will allow us to be together as a family quicker. Homes here are taking over 6 months to sell at the least and we really just don't have 6 months with the new baby coming.

To help with the renting process, we have found a property management group that will help us. They will collect the rent and be on call for an issues that would come up. Once we rent our house, we can rent a house in Charlotte. Because Charlotte is such a big area, we need the time as well to figure out what area we want to live in.

We are really excited! The Lord has proven faithful in providing Jeremy a new job and we know He will bring us through the rest. We are so thankful for how fast and easy this job search has been this time. Please pray for us that this transition time will be really quick and we can be together as a family as soon as possible.

A Year in Review

One thing I love about keeping up with a blog is that I am able to go back and see how the Lord has worked in our lives. 2008 was an amazing, exciting, but also hard year for the Cox family.

The year started off hard as I was in the midst of a major discipline problems in my classroom. I was constantly upset and frustrated for a handful of males students. Later the situation would escalate and led to many conferences with my principal. She would later give me a poor review and ask a behavior specialists to come in to assist me. This was by far my hardest year of teaching.

January also brought the beginning of Jeremy's job search. We started off by following a lead to Charlotte. Though we were offered the job, we feel very confident that we were not supposed to be there.

February brought the best news of all...we were expecting our first child. The blog the next few months was potporried with updates on my belly and the baby growing inside of it.

May brought a month of graduations. My brother graduated from ASU and Jeremy graduated from seminary. It was a huge milestone for both of them! We celebrated by taking a family trip to Williamsburg, VA.

This year was also the year of weddings. This summer we went to 8 to be exact. We were really excited for all our family and friends but it was exhausting..and expensive!

I spent the summer sewing and preparing for Owen's arrival.

Jeremy searched and interviewed for jobs all year and finally at the end of July accepted a job at Nash Community College. The job was not church related and was back in my home town...totally different than anything we imagined. We were grateful for the Lord's blessings and now can see how His hand worked through the whole process. (Jeremy is now enjoying his new position and have adjusted to life in a small town.)

In July we also celebrated our 4 year anniversary. It was our last one kid-less!

August brought a new teaching position for me. I moved into a specialist role as a technology teacher. It was an awesome position and perfect for the state I was in (big!).

September brought the early arrival of our beautiful baby boy. He is such a joy in our lives and we couldn't imagine our lives without him now. As you know, his birth was easy but the days following were very hard. He is now healthy and strong and growing like a weed!

October 31st we bought our first home! We feel like such grown-ups now! We spent most of November unpacking and organizing.

The holidays were great and we enjoyed all of Owen's firsts!

What an amazing year! We can only praise God for His many blessings and provisions. I can't wait to see how the Lord is going to work in 2009! Happy New Year!

Our Move

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update...my time is taken up by a sweet 6 week old now. 6 week old...can you believe it!? I'll try and update you on what's been going on with us over the last few weeks. It may take a few posts so check back again.

Friday, Oct. 31st we signed our life away and became 1st time home buyers! I agree with my friend Courtney that I thought it would feel more momentous as I signed the papers, but it really was uneventful. The walk through though was very cold.. 48 degrees to be exact b/c the power company hadn't turned on our electricity yet; it took them until 2 pm to get there, but that's another story.

Friday afternoon we went home and finished packing. Our good friends the Flemings came to help us pack up the truck. We thought we had more help but sadly no one showed so the 4 of us packed the truck until 10 pm. Saturday morning we packed the last minute things and I sent Jeremy on his way as I finished up the cleaning.

I arrived at our new home around 1:30 and some amazing friends had already unpacked the whole truck. Thanks goes out to the Williams, Adams, Langstons, and my parents. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent unpacking the kitchen and arranging the living room so we could have a place to sit.

The last week and half have been spent unpacking boxes in between feedings and taking care of Owen. The downstairs is done (ex. for pictures on the wall) but we won't talk about the upstairs. :)

We love our new home and are excited about such little things like a dishwasher, a fireplace, etc. I'm still getting adjusted to living in a house and living in Nashville. I miss knowing my neighbors. I miss having Alyson right through the wall and her and her kids knocking on the door every afternoon. I miss Moe's. It's going to take time.

Halloween

Ok so I am waist high in boxes but I wanted to post a few cute pictures of Owen from Halloween. We really aren't Halloween people because I've never liked scary things. I hate scary movies, being scared, monsters, etc. so Halloween is not my cup of tea. Because we were moving and packing all night, we didn't bother getting Owen any kind of costume. He did however have a cute Halloween outfit that my mom bought him. Dad said he looked more like a convict. See for yourself! I'll post more later about the move. It was quite an adventure.

House hunting

Jeremy started his new job at Nash CC this week and has made it through a whole week. He seems to really like it, yet it is very different from his old job. For one, he has his OWN office... it's about the size of a closet but hey it's an office. SEBTS crew, you'll be glad to know that they are older and not as much fun as you. They are sweet people though.

Since Jeremy is working in RM now, my parents asked us to watch the dog while they were in Hawaii (rough life I know). So we're hanging out for about 5 days in the "City on the Rise" and trying to get a taste of what it would feel like to live here. As posted earlier, we are still trying to make a decision on whether or not we should move here or continue to commute from Wake Forest. Part of the decision making process has been to see what kind of housing is available here. Yesterday I met with a realtor and she took me out for about 5 hours while Jeremy was working. We saw about 8 houses and narrowed them down so when Jeremy got off work we could take him to look at the best ones. He liked all 3 we showed, which makes the process even harder. We're going to see some more on Monday, when our realtor gets back in town.

I have to admit that this makes me more excited to live in the area. The houses were in a quaint but growing little town right outside of Rocky Mount called Nashville. By looking in Nashville, I don't feel like I'm living where I grew up, which makes moving to the area a little easier. Monday we're looking in an another area called Red Oak, which is really close to Jeremy's job. Please continue to pray for us as we pray through where we should be. I don't want the excitement of getting a house to interfere with the Lord's will for us. If we are supposed to be here, please pray that the Lord would reveal the right house and that the whole process would go smoothly.

Goodbye Southeastern

Friday was Jeremy's last day as a staff member at Southeastern. They celebrated him on Thursday with a lunch out and Friday they played one last round of speed PIG (don't ask..it's a random game they made up) even though it's now against school rules. When asked if he was sad, he said he wasn't. I think he is just excited to start the next phase of his life. We are very thankful for his job at Southeastern while he was a student; it helped paid his tuition, insurance, and the bills, for which we are forever grateful.

Next step, Nash Community College. Jeremy starts bright and early Monday morning. They are repainting his office that day so he's not really sure where or what he'll be doing that first day.

Many of you have asked what is the latest on our living plans. This weekend we were in RM for yet another wedding, so we took the time to ride around and scope out areas. We will be house/dog sitting for the rents starting on Thursday while they are in Hawaii (I think I got the raw end of the deal). We have contacted a realtor and hopefully while we are there for few days she is going to take us around. We feel like we will have a better idea of what is available after going out with her and will also give us a better picture of where we need to live. Again, we wouldn't make any kind of move until Owen is born.

Please continue to pray for us as we seek the Lord's direction.