Monday, June 14, 2010
Samm's articles of faith
Samm has been working really hard to memorize the articles of faith before we move. She was really worried that she wouldn't make it because we do one a week as a family and with Josh and I being gone so much we couldn't be there to help her. Grandma stepped up though so she could be sure and get her award on sunday. If you want to see her recite them check out Betty's blog.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
House adventure aka nightmare
So, did I ever mention that we sold our house? I didn't think so. Well, we did. And then we didn't.
It happened really fast. This girl showed up the last possible day for first time home buyers credit and loved our house. She was cute and clean and absolutely perfect to take over all of our hard work.
Everything went really smoothly. We did have a list of things that needed to be in better working order, but even that wasn't hard to take care of.
The day of closing was set for the day after we got back from our cruise, so we opted to pre sign before we left just in case something happened and we didn't get back in time.
Closing day came and went and we talked briefly about how our house was really no longer ours and we celebrated by going to a movie.
The next morning I got a horrible phone call. The closing never happened! I felt like I was going to throw up. Long story short. The lender approved her for a loan that she was never even close to qualifying for. The bank caught wind of what he was doing and fired him, and then called her that morning to tell her she was no longer approved. I feel almost as bad for her as I do for us.
Anyway, we weren't really sure what to do, but the broker said that she still really wanted the house and asked if we would be willing to do a lease to buy type thing. It's not really what we were hoping for, but at least it's something so we said yes.
Then, Thursday at 4:00am Josh and I hopped into the car to drive 15 hours up to Michigan to find a house for us to lease. We've never rented anything other than an apartment before but we didn't think it would be that difficult to find something. We were stupid.
A nice nurse at the hospital felt sorry for us and hooked us up with her friend who is a realtor. She felt sorry for us too, and dropped her entire day to help us. Unfortunately there was not a lot to look at. Everything was either about as big as a box, in a bad part of town (sometimes both) or way out of our price range.
Then finally, the last house we went to was in a great neighborhood, big enough for a family, and only slightly out of our price range. So, we made them an offer and prayed prayed prayed that they would accept it. And we waited. And then we came back home because we still hadn't heard back from them.
Sometimes faith is a very hard thing.
At 9:00 tonight we finally got the word that they accepted the terms of our lease and signed the papers!
Unfortunately even with the reduced rent, it's still more than we can afford so we are working on ways to cut back. Things like scratchy toilet paper and dates to the park have been discussed. One of the big things we will have to do without though is the Internet, and it makes me very sad. And scared kind of. What did we do before the Internet?
I don't know if I will have any time for blogging in the next couple of days, so I guess I will say goodbye right now. I'm sure that I will go through withdrawals for the first couple of weeks. I will miss my morning blog reading. I'm hoping that I can make a weekly trip to the library to use the Internet there just to feel like I'm staying somewhat connected.
Anyway, it's the start of new adventure for us.
It happened really fast. This girl showed up the last possible day for first time home buyers credit and loved our house. She was cute and clean and absolutely perfect to take over all of our hard work.
Everything went really smoothly. We did have a list of things that needed to be in better working order, but even that wasn't hard to take care of.
The day of closing was set for the day after we got back from our cruise, so we opted to pre sign before we left just in case something happened and we didn't get back in time.
Closing day came and went and we talked briefly about how our house was really no longer ours and we celebrated by going to a movie.
The next morning I got a horrible phone call. The closing never happened! I felt like I was going to throw up. Long story short. The lender approved her for a loan that she was never even close to qualifying for. The bank caught wind of what he was doing and fired him, and then called her that morning to tell her she was no longer approved. I feel almost as bad for her as I do for us.
Anyway, we weren't really sure what to do, but the broker said that she still really wanted the house and asked if we would be willing to do a lease to buy type thing. It's not really what we were hoping for, but at least it's something so we said yes.
Then, Thursday at 4:00am Josh and I hopped into the car to drive 15 hours up to Michigan to find a house for us to lease. We've never rented anything other than an apartment before but we didn't think it would be that difficult to find something. We were stupid.
A nice nurse at the hospital felt sorry for us and hooked us up with her friend who is a realtor. She felt sorry for us too, and dropped her entire day to help us. Unfortunately there was not a lot to look at. Everything was either about as big as a box, in a bad part of town (sometimes both) or way out of our price range.
Then finally, the last house we went to was in a great neighborhood, big enough for a family, and only slightly out of our price range. So, we made them an offer and prayed prayed prayed that they would accept it. And we waited. And then we came back home because we still hadn't heard back from them.
Sometimes faith is a very hard thing.
At 9:00 tonight we finally got the word that they accepted the terms of our lease and signed the papers!
Unfortunately even with the reduced rent, it's still more than we can afford so we are working on ways to cut back. Things like scratchy toilet paper and dates to the park have been discussed. One of the big things we will have to do without though is the Internet, and it makes me very sad. And scared kind of. What did we do before the Internet?
I don't know if I will have any time for blogging in the next couple of days, so I guess I will say goodbye right now. I'm sure that I will go through withdrawals for the first couple of weeks. I will miss my morning blog reading. I'm hoping that I can make a weekly trip to the library to use the Internet there just to feel like I'm staying somewhat connected.
Anyway, it's the start of new adventure for us.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Graduation/10 year anniversary trip
I'm sorry if you were expecting to see pictures of our cruise to the Mediterranean. Apparently I forgot to mention that our plans changed a little. We didn't save up enough for that one, and we couldn't justify taking money out of savings so we decided on a cruise of the southern Caribbean. Check back in about six years for pictures from Europe.
So if you are still interested in hearing about vacation, he it goes.
Getting to Puerto Rico was quite an adventure in itself. While we were going through security in Tulsa I noticed that the lady in front of me wearing a skirt was getting a pat down. So I was prepared for it as soon as I went through also wearing a skirt. I made a mental note of that.
Then as the flight crew was getting everything ready for take off, they discovered that one of the overhead bins wouldn't stay closed. I was so sleepy from getting up at 4:00am that I didn't really see everything that happened, but I do know they had to call someone in to fix it which delayed us for a while.
Fortunately we made our connecting flight, but some time into it (once again I was sleeping) An announcement came on that there was a medical situation and they asked if there were any nurses or Doctors on board. We were pretty far back though and about 10 nurses jumped up to help so Josh just stayed in his seat. We never did find out what was wrong with the old lady, but we had to sit tight once we landed so a medical crew could come on board and whisk her away.
We didn't have any problems getting to the ship, thank goodness.
On board was pretty cool. There was tons of stuff to do. This picture was taken at our first stop, Curacao.
The indoor pool where Josh and I spent a lot of time after getting burned the first day at the outdoor one. We even went tanning the whole month before to prevent that.
The food was all fantastic, but my favorite part was the deserts.
Every night they had a different chilled fruit soup option on their appetizer list and I am hooked. Watermelon was my favorite, but this strawberry one came in a close second.
Josh made me take this ridiculous picture.
An island shot of Curacao. They had this really neat floating bridge that they opened and closed when boats came through. Of course I forgot to take a picture of it.
I don't remember what island this was at, but that is our balcony that Josh is standing on.
My favorite island was Dominica. Pronounced Domineeka. It is a jungle island, and is absolutely beautiful. We took a tour up into the mountain, and then hiked a little ways up to some waterfalls. Dominica is a volcano island so it has cold springs and waterfalls and hot springs and waterfalls
There were a bunch of land crabs on the hike up.
So if you are still interested in hearing about vacation, he it goes.
Getting to Puerto Rico was quite an adventure in itself. While we were going through security in Tulsa I noticed that the lady in front of me wearing a skirt was getting a pat down. So I was prepared for it as soon as I went through also wearing a skirt. I made a mental note of that.
Then as the flight crew was getting everything ready for take off, they discovered that one of the overhead bins wouldn't stay closed. I was so sleepy from getting up at 4:00am that I didn't really see everything that happened, but I do know they had to call someone in to fix it which delayed us for a while.
Fortunately we made our connecting flight, but some time into it (once again I was sleeping) An announcement came on that there was a medical situation and they asked if there were any nurses or Doctors on board. We were pretty far back though and about 10 nurses jumped up to help so Josh just stayed in his seat. We never did find out what was wrong with the old lady, but we had to sit tight once we landed so a medical crew could come on board and whisk her away.
We didn't have any problems getting to the ship, thank goodness.
On board was pretty cool. There was tons of stuff to do. This picture was taken at our first stop, Curacao.
The indoor pool where Josh and I spent a lot of time after getting burned the first day at the outdoor one. We even went tanning the whole month before to prevent that.
The food was all fantastic, but my favorite part was the deserts.
Every night they had a different chilled fruit soup option on their appetizer list and I am hooked. Watermelon was my favorite, but this strawberry one came in a close second.
Josh made me take this ridiculous picture.
An island shot of Curacao. They had this really neat floating bridge that they opened and closed when boats came through. Of course I forgot to take a picture of it.
I don't remember what island this was at, but that is our balcony that Josh is standing on.
My favorite island was Dominica. Pronounced Domineeka. It is a jungle island, and is absolutely beautiful. We took a tour up into the mountain, and then hiked a little ways up to some waterfalls. Dominica is a volcano island so it has cold springs and waterfalls and hot springs and waterfalls
There were a bunch of land crabs on the hike up.
The steam is from where a hot sulfur spring comes up and mixes with a cold stream.
The boiling sulfur water
Bananas grow abundantly there. As do avocados and nutmeg.
The boiling sulfur water
Bananas grow abundantly there. As do avocados and nutmeg.
I don't remember the name of this cool tree
These African tulip trees were my absolute favorite.
Wouldn't you love to have this in your back yard?
A view of the city
Josh kept taking pictures of me so I snuck one in of him.
Our last stop was at St Thomas and we spent the whole day at Magen's bay. Apparently it is one of the top 10 beaches in the world and I have to say it was gorgeous. The perfect setting to sit and read
These African tulip trees were my absolute favorite.
Wouldn't you love to have this in your back yard?
A view of the city
Josh kept taking pictures of me so I snuck one in of him.
Our last stop was at St Thomas and we spent the whole day at Magen's bay. Apparently it is one of the top 10 beaches in the world and I have to say it was gorgeous. The perfect setting to sit and read
More of Josh's picture taking.
We both had a fantastic time, but like always I was ready to get back home by the end. The return trip was excruciatingly long. They dropped us off at the airport at 9:30 in the morning, but our flight didn't leave until almost 4:00. And, by the end of the week I had completely forgotten about not wearing a skirt to the airport, so I got anther pat down in Puerto Rico.
There weren't any broken overhead bins to delay us on the first flight, but there was some stormy weather heading into Chicago so they wouldn't let us land for 20 minutes, and we only had 30 minutes to catch our next flight. Fortunately though our flight leaving Chicago was delayed a little bit also due to the weather, so we didn't miss it. Our luggage missed it though, which is the second time in a row that has happened to us.
I didn't really care about the luggage though, I was just so happy to be back with the kids. I missed them so much the last couple of days that I went in and woke up Samm and James just so I could get a hug and kiss. I didn't dare wake up Macy at midnight, because I wasn't sure if she would go back to sleep, but I did pick her up carefully so I could rock her for a few minutes. The next morning was like Christmas for me. I could hardly sleep, waiting for them to wake up. As soon as I heard Macy making noise at 6:30 I ran into get her, only to find out that she was calling for Grandpa. She changed her tune once she saw me though and has been attached to my hip ever since we got back.
We both had a fantastic time, but like always I was ready to get back home by the end. The return trip was excruciatingly long. They dropped us off at the airport at 9:30 in the morning, but our flight didn't leave until almost 4:00. And, by the end of the week I had completely forgotten about not wearing a skirt to the airport, so I got anther pat down in Puerto Rico.
There weren't any broken overhead bins to delay us on the first flight, but there was some stormy weather heading into Chicago so they wouldn't let us land for 20 minutes, and we only had 30 minutes to catch our next flight. Fortunately though our flight leaving Chicago was delayed a little bit also due to the weather, so we didn't miss it. Our luggage missed it though, which is the second time in a row that has happened to us.
I didn't really care about the luggage though, I was just so happy to be back with the kids. I missed them so much the last couple of days that I went in and woke up Samm and James just so I could get a hug and kiss. I didn't dare wake up Macy at midnight, because I wasn't sure if she would go back to sleep, but I did pick her up carefully so I could rock her for a few minutes. The next morning was like Christmas for me. I could hardly sleep, waiting for them to wake up. As soon as I heard Macy making noise at 6:30 I ran into get her, only to find out that she was calling for Grandpa. She changed her tune once she saw me though and has been attached to my hip ever since we got back.
Now we are leaving tomorrow morning to drive up to Michigan to find a house. Macy might not forgive me this time.
PS. Josh and I just celebrated 10 years!
Monday, June 7, 2010
We're back
We walked in the door around midnight. Luggageless. More about that tomorrow. I'm working on the pictures right now. When I pulled out the camera to download all of them, Macy ran after me yelling "I wanna say cheese!"
I sure love this kid! More on that tomorrow also...
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