Work on a Sunday!

This stinks, two Sundays in a row that I'm at work. You got to do what you got to do though and this allows me to take Tuesday off for our closing on the old house.

The new house is coming along slowly but surely. Really we've gotten so much done in just a week's time but once you get that tired feeling it's hard to see the end of the road. Josh and I went shopping for our family room which has no furniture in it at the moment and stumbled along this:

I got the chair that goes with it also but couldn't find a picture of that! We had walked through the entire store and decided to go to another store when we walked past this set! Divine intervention? I'm a little worried about taking care of the leather and the sunlight hitting it from those huge windows but I'll cover it if I have to. The best thing about it is that it'll be here sometime on Monday! I plan to video the house once we get this last piece and I'll post the videos!

Josh's mom will be here with us next week. I'm so happy! Can't wait to have help with the house and the boys are looking forward to spending their last week of Spring Break with her. We also had our first little get together last night with some friends. Oh my gosh, we had so much fun! (Josh sat on a kitchen counter, I stood by the kitchen island, and we gave our guests the barstools. I can't tell you how much we are looking forward to that living room set, ha!) Even Josh enjoyed it which should tell you all something! I think we'll have many more of these in the future.

Closing?

So most of you know what happened to us but for those of you who don't, here's the scoop:

Our movers showed up Thursday at noon. Around 3:30 we got a call that our agents were just notified that our buyers had their loan rescinded and we wouldn't be able to close on our sale the following morning at 11 am. Yes, 3:30 the day before. We had to make a decision immediately but it was kind of made for us by the mere fact that our movers had been packing us up for 3 1/2 hours already. UGGHHHH!

Needless to say, we went ahead with our move and thank God the fact that our house hadn't sold didn't affect our loan for the new home. We closed on our new house and got the scoop about our buyers. Come to find out their loan officer (who will probably lose his job now) knew for 2 weeks that their loan was denied but didn't notify them. Our agents got the VP of the bank involved to take a second look at their application and it looks as if they should be able to straighten out the issues the bank had and we should be able to close at the end of the month. That's a blessing and we just need continued prayers to make sure this does happen.

So, the new house - it's great but nothing has gone as planned! Remember the snow storm I told you about? Yep, it happened and it closed all of the schools on Friday so I had to find a place for the boys to go. Along with Opal who I hadn't really thought about what I would do with her. I just assumed she could stay in the backyard but we couldn't do that with the weather. Luckily the PetHotel had a spot for her. Our movers were 2 hours late delivering our stuff (they ran behind on the previous job). The telephone finally got transferred today but it should have happened Friday. Cable was fixed yesterday but should have been done Friday also, blah blah!

Some funny things though - Opal got lost within the first hour being at the new house, ha! I decided that I wanted the treadmill to go into the bedroom in the basement and moved it myself. Well, that was until I pulled it up to the doorframe of the bedroom and it wouldn't fit. I couldn't back it up because of how close I had pulled it to the doorway and I couldn't lean it back onto the wheels. I was stuck in that basement bedroom for 15 minutes until finally Josh heard me yelling. I kept sending Opal up to get him and she would run up and then run back down to me but no Josh. Guess, she's not Lassie. Also, our doors have these locks that seem open on the inside but from the outside they are locked. I took Opal out to potty last night and closed the back door. Yep, locked out of the house with everyone upstairs. That one only took about 3 minutes of banging on the door before they heard me. We have got to be a sight for our neighbors!

Anyway, I'll update more soon. We have our first visitors coming tonight to take a peek. I'm excited!

Moving...

sucks donkey d---. Big time! On top of everything, can you believe we are expected to get major snow tomorrow and they highs are in the 30's followed with Saturday's highs in the 20's? Come on.

I won't be online the next few days but I'll update you all next week.

Soccer Highlights

These are from our tournament last weekend. You get to see Tristan (#8) score and assist another goal! WooHoo!! He's the one with the ball and in the second video he does his traditional #1 fingers with his hands in the air. I love it!

Getting ready!

Probably the only highlight so far of this move is being able to buy new things! Friday night we purchased our first ever brand new washer and dryer! I didn't get the popular front loaders but I'm very happy with the ones we did chose. They are big and should work just fine and that's all that I really care about.

Since the boys will now have their own rooms, Tristan needed furniture. He liked so many things in the store but we steered him towards this one:

This isn't the exact bed but very close. He got a full size bed with drawers underneath and the dresser to go with it. I think he'll like it alot!

And now to the piece of furniture that I had to have:

A marble top dining table with leather chairs!!! I'm so excited! No more worries about setting something down that will ruin the table top!

Still have to get furniture for the family room but we'll do that after we're in the house. I didn't feel comfortable purchasing something now and not having a clear memory of the room size/layout.

Keep the prayers coming that all goes well for us this week. Movers with us Thursday, closing on Friday. It's a little scary now that we've purchased new stuff.

Corey

He graced the walls of my bedroom for years! I watched all of his movies multiple times and had the biggest crush on him. I even went as far to watch the reality show "The Two Corey's" which only made me feel sorry for him. Anyone who watched it could see his pain. I'm sad he's gone. The boys are sad also, "The Lost Boys" is one of their favorite movies. Aidan's favorite part is the scene in the bathtub when he's singing until his brother barges in. I hope he's finally at peace.

Look at what you can find on an email:

Palestine Div - Lake Palestine - Mar 7 Charles Hines and Larry McElwee win $2,507 on Lake Palestine with 22.28 lbs!

Teams: 52
Total Payout: $6,253
Places: 10

1st: Charles Hines / Larry McElwee- 22.28 lbs
2nd: Bill Wilcox / Jeff Gilbert- 21.26 lbs
3rd: Jeremy Locke / Ryan Whitfield - 19.82 lbs
Big Bass: Larry McElwee - 7.27 lbs

Thank goodness I signed up for the newsletter and updates or I would have never known that my dad just won another tournament and on top of that got Big Bass! Way to go Dad, we are very proud of you! Who's the King of Lake Palestine??

Typos

Over the weekend we got a call with the results from our current home's appraisal. Not good!! They told us that it appraised for $10,000 less than our sell price. What???? Our agents went on to explain that when using a VA loan you have to have a VA appraiser who sees the home. They've noticed lately that the government has been on the low side of appraisals. Whatever, that wasn't cool at all. We took the news and had to wait to see what the new house's number looked like before we made a decision to move forward. (Our choices would be to cough up the extra $10,000 so that the sale could go through as scheduled or stop the sale and relist our home without accepting any offers from those who are using a VA loan.)

Monday morning we heard that the new home's appraisal was fine. No problem. Oh man, what are we going to do? I've packed up half the house already!!

Monday afternoon we got another call from our agent. Guess what? It was a typo on our appraisal! It did appraise appropriately, the buyer's agent typed the number wrong on her communication to our agent. Unbelievable huh?

This should never be allowed to happen. I can't even explain the amount of emotional and mental grief Josh and I went through. Thank God it was a mistake.

Another weekend, another champion!

It was Tristan's turn this time!

Another awesome weekend of soccer. Tristan played really well. He scored goals, assisted other goals, and even drew 2 yellow cards on his opponents.

I also got my first sunburn of the year! It's worth it though because when the sun wasn't out it was too cold!

My eyes are killing me! (updated)

Thank God I have an appointment for tomorrow is all I can say. I've been dealing with this for two weeks now and I've almost given up. Last week it started with headaches and dry eyes. (I even wore my glasses to the inspection at the new house so that in itself should tell you it was pretty bad!) The headaches finally ended and I haven't had them this week but my goodness my eyes are dry. Cleaning the contacts isn't working, eye drops aren't working, ugh.

When I am at work I am constantly blinking to try and keep them moving so that they don't stick to my eyes. Plus I feel like I'm seeing through a film that I can't get off! Most people would just put their glasses on but unfortunately I feel like my vision is much worse with the glasses so I continue to suffer.

Please let it just be that the contacts are old and too dirty to polish. Not some dry eye syndrome or infection. I'll know tomorrow I guess.

******I think I've finally learned my lesson. As a mom you tend to put everyone and everything before you and this is exactly what I've done. I had no idea I hadn't been to the eye doctor since 2007!!! Needless to say, my contacts are completely worn out - they don't even fit my eyes correctly anymore. Not only has my prescription worsened but the astigmatism has as well. Plus, I have allergies in my eyes right now from the poor shape of the contacts. Killer!

The best that he can do for me is to order new lenses that he can't promise I'll see correctly in. It'll take a while for my eyes to shape back up to where they are supposed to be. (People who have severe near-sightedness and wear gas permeable lenses do so that the hardness of the contact actually keeps your eyes from changing so quickly. Since my contacts have worn out my eyes are out of shape, as the rest of me is probably too!!)

So, yes - I've learned my lesson. Every Spring Break I'll see the eye doctor. It hurts too badly to not! Oh, and the icing on the cake - I've broke the double digit marker. -10 in the prescription area. I'm way past you now, huh mom?

Champion!

Aidan's team played in a soccer tournament this weekend and came away as the champions in their age group! The championship game even went to overtime! It was "golden goal" which meant that first goal won and they pulled it off!!

Long weekend but extremely worth it! Way to go boys!