Well after 2 full years in San Diego and the west coast we decided to move back “home” to Charlotte! 

We have had some really fun times on the west coast with visits from family and friends to have their fun summer vacas on the San Diego beaches, to Disneyland, legoland,Sea world and everything in between. 

We bought a fixer upper and completely remodeled it which was an experience of a lifetime and even had a baby here. 

But it has come time to move back to what we consider our home…… Charlotte!

Despite us moving from most of our extended family we never did fill grounded here in San Diego. It just wasn’t for us. Everything that the southeast offers and Charlotte in general we surely missed these passed 2 years. 

An opportunity came knocking when the hospital I had worked at called and asked if I’d consider returning.  After 6 months of phone calls and discussions it is becoming reality!  Our trip starts the 1 St of June and we will all be heading back east in spurts but within a week be all together in our home we were able to purchase as well when we get there!

So here is to the many memories of what San Diego offered us these 2 years! It has been great, a good learning experience and our family unit is even closer because of it all. Our kids are so excited for the move and Dan and I cannot wait. 

We will send a blast email with our new address once we get settled and on the ground! 
And by all means………y’all invited anytime!!!

D

It has been a bit of time since I posted. Life I guess! Busy days and working nights lead to blogs left unattended. I decided to make this one short and sweet with some pictures of the family and friends. 

We drove to Phoenix for thanksgiving and hit the Wintering and Speier side all in one. We got to see some close friends too! Typically our Phoenix trips are event filled since there are so many to see but we had fun and kids enjoyed their time too. They are troopers in the drive and only 6 week old Wesley did great too!

People always ask Dan and I how we travel and do it with the kiddos. I think the answer is…… We just do it! We commit to making the effort despite worrying about the 5 hour drive and since we started them traveling at an early age they are all great in the car! They entertain themselves with books, writings and games. Gianna also helped with little Wesley in the back too! 
So here is our trip in a nutshell…… 

Little Jason Maschue holding Wesley😘

Yummy smores with the wintering fam 

Nona and the cousins! 

Aunt Britt getting her full of chubby guy     

Our favorite camel Clyde!! 
  

Lili holding Wesley for the 1st time! 

For Christmas we enjoyed the time as a family and had Travis Stephanie  and Charlotte make a New Years trip! 

Kids enjoyed their break playing with new toys and warm fires with no school!

Some fun times with neighbors and friends…..

 
Our Goddaughter little Charlotte   
    

La Jolla sunset with cousin Charlotte! 
    
    
    
  

Thank you uncle trav and aunt Steph for super cool pajamas!👍🏼❤️

Adele learning to skate!
    

Melia our 5 th daughter!! Our neighbor who is 12 and comes over every day! We just adore her! 

    

Cooking our favorite Wintering cookie recipes! 

  
Our little dancer Adele   

Vivs turn this year!    

This had to be captured. Tolton cracks us up!

Thanks to Aunt Ronda for the best stockings ever!!!     
    
 

Classic moment with Mama G. Wilhelmina couldn’t handle Santa this year! 

Source: We Stand Up to Fight for Life and Humanity

Our little Will is 2! Amazing to think just 2 years ago she was born in Charlotte late on the 24 th of October.  She sure has blessed our life with her fun attitude and spunk!

 tTo give an example this little girl has no problem talking to the Home Depot workers, Costco crew or any parent at the kids soccer games. 
 
   
We celebrated with the neighborhood crew that know and love her as the youngest little scooter rider on the block! Mama g and Aunt Cheri joined in on the festivities! 

We love you little will and hope you have a great year ahead! You already love your little brother and are showing such care to his arrival 😉  

October 3 rd at 12:23 am we were blessed with another boy! Wesley Martin came into this world a few days early than what we anticipated due to his mommy having a pretty bad pneumonia. Nonetheless all the prayers paid off and this big little man came to us safely and healthy!

Wesley is named after my dads father Wesley Speier and Martin is after St Martin de Porres.

He weighed 9lbs 4 oz and 21 inches long. Daddy announced his arrival and I can say I was expecting another girl honestly so I was quite surprised.
As you can see from the photos these kids are elated about another brother especially Tolton!
God is good and we are most thankful for yet another blessing in our life.

we closed on May 11 th and the work began. Our goal was to have it all done by our move in date June 8 th. contractors and subs thought we were crazy. But when you are pregnant with 5 kids and a woman it is pretty impressive how you can get these guys to get working and efficiently! It was all done by June 15 th except for painting and some final touches! So we lived through not having a kitchen for about a week but all said and done we did it! 

Dan headed up what was needed to be done first. Renting a 6 foot dumpster was a must and so the demo began. Ripping out flooring all carpets.Baseboards and a lovely mirrored wall. Chandeliers came down. Old fans and the entire kitchen demod. 

   
    
   
These are the before pictures. So all the pink and blue carpets and popcorn ceilings were taken out. The fireplace was torned down carefully to expose the old brick too.  

    
   Now for the demo pics! 

   
    
    
    
 Now for the remodel pics. 

 Kitchen-cabinets,countertops and gas range! A must:)    

     
    
   It was worth all the craziness and the busted jobs. The things dan had to redo ( all the caulking in the world!) I don’t think we would do it again though.  A full remodel is a ton and we haven’t even touched our backyard! 

So we have officially been in San Diego a year and after asking our landlords if they wanted to renew our lease they told us that they actually are moving back in! So that made us decide given the rate of rent here in his crazy town we would look to purchase a home!

So after 73+homes we physically walked through 5 offers 2 that we pulled out of during escrow we finally found a home! 

After walking through so many homes and flips dan and I realized if we were going to make anything work it would need a bit of TLC. Little did we realize we were about to remodel an entire home! 

I plan on getting some good shots soon so I can show the before and after shots!

Oh and admist my lack of blogging we have some other exciting news! Baby #6 with bless the wintering home sometime around October 8th!

Kids are quite excited! 

we had a really nice Easter this year.  Cole came in town and Justin and Brittany newly pregnant and boasting of newlywed energy joined us in Easter baking and dying eggs! 

Kids sure had a treat. Christ has Risen! 



Well it has been forever since I posted. I wanted to get our Christmas pictures in here but life just keeps getting in the way. 

To keep it brief and to the point we did Christmas at our place and the Wintering crew came as well as the Cali Speiers. It was a real beautiful one. Dan once again did it up with the Christmas dinner and having Dad. grandma Katie. Uncle Cole, uncle Justin and Aunt “honeybee” aka Brittany, Mama G aunt Coreen and uncle Alec was all the kids could ask for! 

It was so nice to spend Christmas with both sides of the family! We also got to watch Uncle Alec play against USD and make the winning shot! 

Here are most all the pics in no specific order! 



Justin finally tied the knot!!!

We welcomed Brittany into our family on Dec 13 th 2014 and the wedding was sure fun. Seeing the Speier and Pagninis as well as meeting the new side to the family sure was an event filled weekend. 

Here are just a few of the pictures from their wedding! Congratulations Justin and Brittany! 

Travis. Steph and Charlotte





they love eachother