Backyard Beach Ball Fun

Today Annabelle played with her giant beach ball sprinkler. It's lots of fun and it was a great day to be outside although it was a little hot!

We received the inspection report on our new house in Texas on Friday. There were lots of minimal repairs on the report and only one worrisome item - termites - but the owner has agreed to treat the termites and fix any damage they have caused. We sent back the report with the items we decided that need to be repaired today, we now wait to see if the seller will make the repairs...hope it goes well!

Bye Bye Miss Ruth, We Will Miss You So Much!

Friday was Annabelle's last day at Miss Ruth's house. It was very sad leaving and knowing we won't see all the kids and Miss Ruth every weekday any more. Daddy has a busy month of taking care of Annabelle while I'm at work! We're planning on making another stop by Miss Ruth's house before we move to Texas because we just can't stand being away from her. Too bad Miss Ruth won't move to Texas with us! We will miss you so much Miss Ruth!

Here are some photos of the whole gang at Miss Ruth's house.

First Bike

We bought Annabelle a new bike on Saturday. She fell in love with the bike Leah had & insisted that she NEEDED one. She can almost peddle it and was very happy that she can ride bikes with her friend Derek now!

Hangin' out with the Family

After the birthday party we went out for pizza and then back to the Quall's house. Gavin LOVES Annabelle & loves to give her hugs and kisses. Gavin, Leah & Annabelle are all about the same size so it's really funny to have them all together!

More from the party...

Leah (I think she is truly Cindy's clone) and Annabelle.









The Birthday girl, Alyssa.

Alyssa's Birthday Party

We traveled to Derby on Saturday for Alyssa's Birthday party, it was at one of those jump zone like places. Annabelle had a FANTASTIC time and didn't want to leave! You just can't beat an hour of non-stop jumping and a giant pool of foam cubes! She had a great time playing with her cousins at their house after the party too!

Working on getting this home...

We spent most of the day yesterday going back and forth with the seller on our second home choice. This one is only 3 bedroom but it is 10 years newer than our first choice (it was built in 2004) it has a new sprinkler system, professional landscaping and a security system (which the other home did not have). It's a really beautiful home in a very, very nice neighborhood. We think we have finally agreed on a price so now we're just waiting on the paperwork to sign our final offer for this home. Things are moving a little slowly since this is a holiday weekend. We hope to have everything rolling on Tuesday!

Happy Birthday Papa (one day late!)

Forgot to post this yesterday (too busy with all the house mess and traveling)...

Happy 70th Birthday Papa! We love you!
Thanks for taking care of Annabelle while we were gone!

Home Again

We made it home by 9:00 a.m. this morning after two of the earliest flights ever! Annabelle was VERY excited to see us but she had a great time with Siti & Papa (I can tell they spoiled her and I've noticed all the new toys around here!). The seller of our first choice for a new home decided to take another offer (or they were just trying to get us to raise our offer) so we decided to move on to our second choice, a home that is ten years newer, vacant, and ready to be moved into. We put in an offer this afternoon and hope to hear from the investor who owns the home soon. If this one doesn't work out we'll probably end up making another trip to McAllen to look for a rental home for a few months while we search for a new home (not excited about moving twice!). We're hoping this one works out!!

House Hunting - Final Day

We put in an offer on the house we liked most today. The only bad news is that 3 other offers have been submitted on the same home. We are hoping that our offer is strong enough to get us the house. If not, we have another home that we are equally interested in, it has almost the same square footage but it is only a 3 bedroom home instead of a 4 bedroom. The counter offer will either come in tomorrow or we will find out if another person has a contract on the house instead of us. All in all we had a productive few days of house hunting and becoming familiar with the area. It's a very laid back environment and I think we will have a fairly easy time adapting to the slower pace (it might be a little harder for Justin since he likes living in a fast paced environment!). Our flight leaves at 5:30 am so this will be a short night and an early morning of flying back to Oklahoma! We can't wait to see Annabelle, sounds like she is having a great time with Siti & Papa!

House Hunting - Day Two

House hunting was a lot more productive today. We found some really good potential homes. We've narrowed them down to a few and will take a second look tomorrow. We're trying to find something spacious enough that our families will be able to come visit & stay with us! One of our favorites was knocked out of the running when I looked it up on the family watchdog website and found that a sex offender lives on the same block! Uggghhh, glad I looked that up! Tomorrow morning we meet with our lender and then (hopefully) we will choose our future home and put in an offer. The weather here is very nice, a little hot in the afternoons but a cool gulf breeze makes the evenings very nice. Justin and I are becoming more familiar with the area. There are so many shops, restaurants and other attractions here. I don't think we will be lacking in anything! I'll be glad to get back to Oklahoma on Friday, Justin is driving me insane!..I love him but he can be a little crazy sometimes...yes, house hunting in a foreign land is very, very stressful... : )

House Hunting - Day One

Our first day of house hunting wasn't very successful. We've decided that the folks down here just don't take much pride in their homes, some of the homes we looked at today were only a few years old but in much worse shape than our house in Moore that was built in '74! The flights here were quick and easy, we're only having a few problems trying to find our way around, google earth has been incorrect believe it or not! I've called Annabelle a few times and she's having fun with Siti & Papa. Tomorrow we look at 15-16 houses is Edinburg & we're hoping they are in better shape than what we saw today. The palm trees and tropical flowers are beautiful here!

More Farm Photos

Annabelle had a good time on the farm. We saw bison and some elk (hiding in the trees in the photo) at the game preserve. We saw lots of cows and horses. Annabelle had fun playing in Great-Grandma's big yard, although we had to go inside twice because she wanted to wash dirt off her feet! Daddy had a good time too although he was a little creeped out when Grandpa had to kill a snake on the cellar steps with a hammer and when he saw all the snake skins hanging from the rafters in the cellar!

Down on the Farm

Having some fun on Great-Grandma's Farm!

Photographer?

I couldn't resist posting this photo of Emily & Great-Grandma Writer that Annabelle took (at the graduation ceremony) using my camera!

Melissa's Graduation

We traveled to Roxbury for Melissa's graduation from Smoky Valley High School this weekend. Congratulations Melissa! We wish you the best of luck at Barton County Community College!

Happy Birthday Alyssa!

Happy Birthday Alyssa!!!

Blowing the Tornado Sirens

It's after 10 pm and the tornado sirens are blowing. Looks like we have a long night of storms ahead of us. Annabelle is still awake because of all the noise. Heavy wind/storms damaged the air conditioning system at my office building last night so we will be without a/c tomorrow at work, not looking forward to a very hot & tired day of work tomorrow!!

Repair Report Complete!! Yaaayyyy!

We FINALLY signed the repair report last night and sent it back to our agent, it was sent to the buyer today and she also signed it so we are now 100% in agreement on the repairs. The Buyer's agent found a repairman who will do the roof repairs, service the AC & fix all the plumbing issues for $500. We don't have to do any of the small cosmetic repairs. We won't schedule the repairs until the middle of June so that we can make sure the sell is going to go through. It's a relief to be 75% through the process of selling the house, now if we can just make it through the other 25%!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all our Moms and Grandmas! Without you we wouldn't be who and where we are today.
We love you all!


Thanks for everything you do for us Mom, for helping us out with Annabelle and listening to all my crazy ideas and dealing with my crazy life. Don't know what I'd do without you around! You are the best!

New Pics of Rylan

Some new pics of Rylan arrived in our inbox today!

Sunny Saturday

The sun was out most of the day today so Annabelle and I spent some time in the backyard playing
in the sandbox and enjoying the sun.

Justin took the dryer apart this evening, it decided to stop tumbling one day last week and then miraculously started tumbling again. It's been making an odd noise for a few months so he wanted to see if he could find the source of the problem. After taking the entire thing apart he found nothing, put it back together and it's still noisy, I think it's just rough on it being out in our garage! After he took the dryer apart he took his laptop apart to take some memory out so that he could install some software, it was an eventful evening of taking things apart for Justin!

The roofer stopped by to give an estimate on fixing the ONE shingle and replacing the turbine, he said he felt bad for even CHARGING for such silly repairs. He showed Justin how to replace the turbine ourselves and he said he could fix the one shingle - but it would not match - and he might have to make an entire patch if he took one shingle off. He has a base repair cost of $250. We're hoping the buyer will pass on getting the shingle repaired and let us just replace the turbine, it would be ridiculous to replace one shingle and risk the roof leaking in the future. We hope to have all this repair nonsense wrapped up by Wednesday. We would like to be as close to 100% settled on everything before our trip to McAllen/Edinburg.

Is this CREEPY or what?

I had a dental appointment today for a cleaning & to fix my front tooth again. The appointment went well and while I was there I asked the nice people at "The Dental Depot" about bringing Annabelle in to have her teeth checked, the dental hygienist told me they have a "clown" on duty for the kids...I then said "a WHAT"...his name is "Smiley O'Riley" HOW CREEPY IS THAT!

...I don't know about you but I'm totally creeped out by clowns (thinking John Wayne Gacy, Stephen King's IT etc. etc.). I'm pretty sure Annabelle would be totally creeped out too, I haven't introduced her to the creepiness of clowns yet, figured I'd save that experience for later in life, don't really look forward to her climbing me in fear. I can't think of anything worse than a Dental Appointment AND a creepy clown!

Tickets Booked! McAllen here we come!

I finally got our airline tickets last night (thanks for the help Lisa!) and a hotel room reserved (thanks for the help Dad!) now I just need to reserve a rental car and we will be (almost) totally ready for the trip to look for a new house. Annabelle is very excited about getting a new house, she's been telling everyone she wants her new room to be blue & yellow with Dora.

I spoke with our Real Estate agent last night and she said we are still waiting on a quote from the roofer. The Buyer's agent seems to think she knows someone who will do all the plumbing repairs at a lower cost to us, which is fine with me! We're still trying to get the ball rolling on all the repairs. The underwriters can still come back and require us to put in a closet in the big bedroom at the last minute- we would take money from the closing costs for this. We're hoping that doesn't happen. We definitely don't need any last minute problems!

Some Cinco de Mayo Relaxation

Annabelle and I took a break from the craziness around here to do some shopping at Kohl's this evening. Annabelle picked out a new book and a duck (he's a character in the book). Here are some pics of the new book & duck along with another silly picture of Annabelle on the move!

Annabelle says the duck "eats shadows and monsters" he "puts the monsters on a bun with mustard, ketchup and strawberries and eats them"...

Just as we suspected...

Yesterday the estimate came back for the plumbing repairs and air conditioner service on the house - it was a little over $500! Just as we had thought. The inspector grossly underestimated the cost of all the repairs. We're now waiting on the estimate from the roofer. We think the buyer might have to choose which repairs she wants done now since it is definitely out of the question to do ALL of them! Maybe she can get the inspector to do all the repairs for $500 since he's the one who estimated the cost! The appraisal came in yesterday and it was good so everything else is working out. The appraiser only had two minor comments about the house, one was an extension cord in the garage (that plugs in the garage door opener) he wants that gone (guess she won't get a garage door opener) and he wasn't sure if the door that leads out of the garage opened because we had stuff in front of it (how stupid, just move the stuff and open the door!), our agent said the appraiser wants to charge a $100 fee to come out again and see if the door opens...wow, $100 to open a door! Once again we are waiting on estimates and decisions on repairs. I visited with our lender on the phone yesterday and got our pre-approval letter sent to our real estate agent. We'll be meeting with our lender when we travel to McAllen the week of the 18th. This week I'll be going through the MLS listings and picking out homes that look like good prospects, sure hope some good ones are out there!

Annabelle has not been sleeping well again. She has had some bad dreams and now thinks she needs to sleep with me! Sure hope she starts sleeping better before Siti and Papa come to stay with her!

Rain, Rain Go Away!

It has been raining here all day and we are so tired of the rain. Our yard is a swampland. Justin had two concerts to go to, one this afternoon and another this evening. Annabelle and I spent the whole day together. We did a little shopping, played with play-doh, painted with water and finger painted. This evening we watched movies, had popcorn and painted toenails (blue this time!). Sure hope this rain lets up so we can spend some time outside tomorrow.

Selling a House is a Pain in the....

Our roof has NEVER leaked, it's in good shape, we are figuring it will need to be replaced now since it's had so much foot traffic...roofs aren't made to have tons of people walking on them over a weeks time! Please, please give our roof a rest. It's really a good roof.

If anyone has tips on "repairing" a veneered 35 year old hollow core door or "matching exactly" a chip in a 35 year old faded mustard colored sink please enlighten me! Why didn't I ask for these repairs when we bought this house???

The house is 35 years old, it's not new, it's a good house, give it a break.