The Spin Cycle Diaries: July 2016

Hi there! My name is Kristian. It's been so long since I actually posted anything I figured I should reintroduce myself. Y'all! Life has been a whirlwind at our house! So much has changed and I really don't even know where to start in catching you up.

Well, I guess I'll first say we still have 5 kids. All of them have survived since last August and the Lord hasn't blessed us with anymore! Thank you Merciful Jesus!

So, we started the past school year off homeschooling the older four while our little firecracker, Rabina, went to public Pre-K. I love homeschooling and it was going really, really well until October. In October, our world was flipped on it's head.

First, let me explain that Lance and I had been in the process of looking into different business opportunities. We weren't very open about it, but we heavily considered buying an existing business up in Blue Ridge, GA. Thankfully, things did not work out for that, but it did help get us going in the right direction. I had done some research on a new type of entertainment called "escape rooms" and we were very curious.

This may not seem related, but Lance and I FINALLY were able to get away for a real anniversary trip! Way over due! We decided to go to California, and well, with so much awesomeness to see we decided to start in San Francisco and drive down the coast to L.A. It was such a great trip! We had a blast.

The day before we flew out of L.A. we decided to try one of these escape rooms. Apparently we didn't even pick a good one, but OH MY WORD we had the BEST TIME! You know how when you go somewhere like a museum or an aquarium, you fork out a ton of green for tickets and then when you leave you assess your experience and kind of feel a little cheated? Well, we felt the exact opposite of that when we left the escape game. We loved it so much! It was the only redeeming value of our stay in L.A. in my opinion.

So anyways, on the flight back to Georgia, we talked about the idea of starting an escape room business in our hometown of Columbus. How would we go about it? Where would we put it? Would people even come? Lance was of course the more logical one with more reservations, and I was the one saying "LET'S DO IT!"

I won, so as soon as the plane's wheels touched the ground we hit the ground running. Honestly, it's all kind of a blur, but we opened Escape This Live on December 5th! And guess what? It's been a success! People love it, and we are having so much fun with it! We opened our new location in Uptown (aka downtown) Columbus in May and we have been steadily growing. I'm so glad we took the plunge despite our reservations.

Okay, so back to homeschooling... we quit. Yep! We quit homeschooling and put the kids back into public school in January. I just got so busy with the escape room that I couldn't keep a consistent schedule. It was such a hard decision to make, but I know it was the right one for all of us. All the kids did so well. They have made me incredibly proud! The girls have come so far. It's really unbelievable.

We also hired a wonderful nanny for the kids. Rylee has a heart for India and adoption, so it was such a great match. She does wonderfully with the kids and Rabina hasn't run her off yet. Ha!

And to add more chaos to our lives, we moved houses. I swear I'm a glutton for punishment. We moved into a MUCH larger house than our previous one. I feel like a flippin' queen, because I have my very own bathroom that I let Lance use sometimes. The children are forbidden from crossing the threshold of it. It's so great. It was a little bitter sweet moving in, because the house actually belonged to our good friends who moved away. It took me a couple of weeks to stop feeling like I was living in someone else's house.

Well, that's pretty much the gist of everything without writing a novel. I'll leave you guys with some pictures to complete the summary. :) (Sorry, but they are so not in any kind of order!)

Until next time (year)! - K