hurricane creek.

justin somehow found this really interesting place called hurricane creek right outside of town. one morning he made asked me to go with him and Millie.

it was such a beautiful place, except for the empty cans and other litter. Millie almost died she had so much fun. there is something about a lab...she can't get enough of playing fetch and swimming. we pretty much had to force her to leave after about an hour of playing.

such a great morning with my family.

taste test.

life with the karls is always interesting.

justin loves diet sunkist...and i wanted to know if it was worth the money to buy that rather than the publix brand. so last night we decided to do a blind taste test to see if we could really taste the difference between the two.

our verdict: i liked the publix brand because it was less carbonated. but justin preferred his staple of diet sunkist.

glad we got that settled. like i said, life with is is always interesting. 

happy weekend everyone!

our home!

today our new house passed the home inspection with flying colors. ah, now all we have to do is actually close on it and the house is ours! completely surreal, but we are so thankful for God's provision during this entire process.

[excuse the oddly placed ladder on the house, i hope that was the home inspectors]

[excuse the baby pool, i hope that wasn't the home inspectors]

we fell in love all over again as we walked around the house. i would show lots more pictures, but it was packed with their belongings as they are beginning to move out their family plus you can't really see the true beauty of the house. 

we are enthralled with furnishing and decorating this house as our own. justin is already fantasizing about hours and hours of landscaping...and if you know me at all you know that yardwork is not exactly my favorite thing but i am still excited because it is our own!! 

thanks for praying and encouraging us during this process. we are closing at the end of july and moving in the first week of august.

4th of july.

hope everyone had a great holiday.

 justin and i had a quiet weekend in town. we started packing up our summer house...which is making this whole "we are buying a house" thing a reality.

we spent the 4th with some friends from church, the tuscaloosa symphony orchestra played at the amphitheater and ended with an amazing fireworks display!

it rained most of the afternoon, but were so thankful that the clouds cleared up and rain stopped before the show.

no longer homeless.

welllll, big news from the karl family.

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!

the past few weeks we have been searching tuscaloosa and northport for a place to live. the rental market was crazy. most of the places we would live were already filled by other tornado victims or the prices were inflated...just because they could and people would be forced to pay.

...so we looked into buying a home. which completely scared me to be honest. but we felt like it was the best option for our family and God had put us in a situation to afford a house.

after looking at many many many houses we thought we found the perfect house, until the contract got messy and we walked away from the house yesterday. but we had a peace from God as we stepped away from our "dream home" and our real estate agent actually found us our true dream house yesterday afternoon. it actually wasn't on the market yet, but we got a peek at it and fell in love. we are so blessed to get this house and are excited to have our own place!!

in a two-hour span we had one house, cancelled that contract, found another house, put an offer in on that one and were accepted. what a day. praise God for working through this situation.