Home Owner Again?

Yesterday Jason and I closed on our house again. When we purchased the home 3 years ago we didn't think that we'd become permanent residents of Georgia. That being said, we quickly outgrew our 3 bedroom/2 bath home and have been weighing our options for the last year. We really want to be close to Emory (Jason has a 10 minute commute) and stay in a good school district. After we considered all of the factors it seemed most prudent to tear our house down to the foundation and rebuild it to a size that would meet our needs. Kind of hard to believe that that was the best option isn't it? The end result will be a lovely 2 story, 6 bedroom/4.5 bath with a huge playroom over the garage (one of my personal favorite features). As for now, we are just getting settled into our rental home and demolition is set to begin next week. We are trying to focus on the end product and not the pain in the interim right now.
So yesterday we signed a much larger mortgage and there's no turning back! We'll keep you posted on the progress but hopefully spare you the myriad of details that we will be forced to address.

Our Little Swimmers

Swimmer Backs


Jackson's Take Off


Kate's Take Off

Jackson and Kate swam on the Barracuda swim team at our local swim/tennis club in Atlanta this summer. It is unbelievable to think that a year and a half-ago neither one of them would put their faces in the water! Kate was the youngest swimmer on the team (still being 3 when the season started) but she was a trooper. While she may not have set any pool records she certainly set a few Hansen family records not the least of which being the youngest child to swim freestyle and backstroke. Jackson, however, did set a few records and wowed the coaches. Although he is by age a 6-U, he was asked to practice with the 8-U kids after the very first practice. That is a much tougher workout but he did fantastic. At the county swim meet finals Jackson's freestyle relay team took 3rd place. He also took 4th place for the individual backstroke and 10th place for freestyle. While these are wondeful accomplishments he and his parents were most proud of another award. At the swim team banquet he received the obligatory trophy, medals from his races and even a Barracuda towel for finishing in the top ten in 2 or more races at the county finals. But better than these awards was the Coaches Choice award that Jackson was given. The coaches choose 1 boy and 1 girl to honor each year. They said that they chose Jackson not only for his great swimming skills but also for his enthusiasm, good attitude and overall how much they enjoyed working with him. Jackson was beaming and still is enjoying carrying his plaque around the house. Although swim team has ended for the summer, we are still hitting the pool and having fun just playing without the drills!

Hilton Head with the Worthens

Motley Crew


Hansen Crew


Happy Children

One of our fun summer vacations was a trip that we took with our dear friends the Worthens. Our paths first crossed in Ann Arbor, Michigan when we were in graduate school. It is hard to believe that when we met them they only had an 8 month old and we were newly married without any children. Those times seemed liked a distant memory however, as we corraled our collective 7 children with accompanying gear each day back and forth to the beach. Things couldn't have gone more smoothly though and we loved every minute with them. It just made us wish that we lived closer...

The Fourth of July

Big Finishers


Big Thumbs Up


Wild Men

The Fourth of July began with Carolyn running the Peachtree road race with her friend Anne. It truly is an event more than a race. How many "races" do you know that have over 55,000 runners and include beer and Krispy Kreme donuts along the way? (This of course, does not imply that Carolyn partook of either!) After the race, the family went to Shoal lake for some boating with friends. Lesson learned for the day was, "Do not kite higher than you are willing to fall". Confused? Let me sum up. When you see a new contraption called the tube kite, run away! It has the potential to hurl you up to 30 feet in the air while being pulled by the boat at 45 mph. Carolyn, being the smallest to try it and therefore the one to fly the highest, had a nasty near death experience as the tube flipped hurling her toward the water from 20 feet in the air . After the numbness and neck pain went away, she managed to enjoy the rest of the day though. We had a blast watching the kids on the regular tubes and even Kate was yelling, "hit it" and "faster". Although the kite tube has been banned from our household, we are all for skiing and tubing again soon.