WE HAVE A HOUSE!!!!

I talked to Hubby earlier, and he has house keys!!! (And yes it is the big/cheaper house!) Thank goodness! Now we can go ahead and start moving - moving utilities, moving mail, and moving us! The Uhaul comes on Friday morning.... :)

Update on our Housing (or lack thereof...)

Good morning! So here's where we stand - the first rent house we had secured we are considering gone. The owners will not return Az1's phone calls, so we have no idea whether or not the other party got them the deposit. At this point we refuse to do business with them anyways. He went over the weekend and saw 3 potentials: 1 duplex that has a small backyard, a small house with a decent backyard, and then a huge house (the one that is double the size) with a huge backyard. We talked a lot over the phone about the pros and cons of this - the huge house requires a year lease. I was not happy - at first. But then I realized this hasn't been my plan to begin with, but His, and I am trusting Him to provide the best for us. So we decided to go ahead and apply for the big rent house. We are waiting for the owner to call us back at this point - he received our application yesterday. (It's just verifying employment, etc, that I think we're waiting on - very standard stuff.) I'm at peace with the year lease, for several reasons. One, we won't be moving the kids around during the school year, which will be very good for them. Also, it totally takes the pressure off of us selling our current house - we can let it sit and just wait. If it doesn't sell until January, we'll be okay. (Obviously not our preference, but we can just wait and hopefully get the price we want.) Also it gives us a huge amount of time to find a new house to buy - we don't have to go with whatever's available either. So I think it really is a good option - I'd just like to hear asap from the owner so we can start switching utilities and forwarding addresses....sigh..... :)

Update...

Daddy called the rent house people yesterday, and they will not answer his calls now. So we've decided to take that option off the table to keep from getting burned any further. He is going to see a rent duplex today and then a house tomorrow, so hopefully we have something to go with on Monday. At this point, we don't have a place to live still once we get up there, but I'm just trusting God that He will work it out for us. (The place Daddy's going to look at on Sunday would be double the size of the first house as well as cheaper - how funny would that be?!?) I'll keep you posted - the Uhaul is still coming on Friday, and we've still got to get up there next weekend. School starts for the older two on Wednesday 8/20.

Plans, Schmans....

We have planned to move next Friday (8/15) and have a u-haul reserved, electricity switched over, etc, to a rent house we found via an acquaintance up there. However, Hubby received a call today from the rent house owners' stating that they have another person interested, and that second party has until 5pm today to get them a deposit. If that happens, we do not have a place to move to. If the second party does not get a deposit to the owners, then they will accept a rent check from us and we can move in. We have no back-ups, as this has been in place for weeks now. Please pray for us! I'm nervous, but at peace - God has brought us too far not to have this already taken care of. This did not surprise Him, and I will trust in His perfect plan. (However, that does not mean it's going to be easy for us to work around this...and we have 7 days to figure out what His plan is.

The Moving Plan

So here's the plan: Daddy will drive a rent car down here on Thursday 8/14 and return it here. Then on Friday, he, GranDaddy, and I will load the U-haul and drive that and the Explorer up there to the rent house. (It is our realtor's mother's house - what a blessing!) We will then unload that night as well as Saturday, plus moving Daddy out of his apartment. The kids will stay Friday night with GrandMommy here, and then they will all come up on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully we will have at least their rooms/beds/things set up by the time they get there...or as much as we can without supervision! ;)

The older 2 will start school on the next Wednesday. I am supposed to return to work that day, but if I don't have anything set up from home, I don't know that it will happen. We have found a PDO for Az5 to attend, but it starts the week after the kids start school. I'm still not sure how it will all work out, but I know that God will take care of all the details! :)

A Dress-Up Tea Party

Somebody turned 5 at our house last week - can you believe it?!? She wanted a "grown-up" tea party, so we invited her friends from her preschool class as well as good friends from church. It was a BLAST!! (even us Moms had fun!) We asked everyone to dress up and started out with a hot potato game. Then we had teaspoon races - boys vs girls - where they had to put the spoon in their mouth and carry a chicken bouillion cube over to a bowl. The boys won the first time but then it was a tie. We moved to high tea then - you'll notice that we are using REAL china tea cups and saucers in the picture! Everyone had perfect manners, and loved the real china (no, didn't chip or break a thing!). We had pb&j sandwiches, fruit, and animal crackers with tea. Then, instead of a big cake, I used the mix to make individual chocolate cupcakes. We turned them upside down, spread on the frosting, used twizzlers and m&m's for decorations, and added a sour ring for a tea cup handle - too cute!! After that we opened presents, and her highness received several new Barbies, which have been the talk of the house ever since. It was good to see all of her friends again - especially to have one last chance to play with her preschool friends! (BTW the purple dress is special to me - it was my flower girl dress in a wedding when I was around 5... ;) )

From Buffalo to Fishes...

After we saw the buffalo, it was so hot in the middle of the afternoon, we just HAD to go swimming and eat supper at the Grandparents' house! ;) The kids have been swimming almost every other day at Summer camp, and boy did it show this time. They both did not hesitate a second to jump in without help, and Az3 is even swimming! (okay, not totally, but he puts his head UNDER the water and kicks off to wherever he wants to go, and can even come up for a breath and then keep going!) Az4 will dog paddle to get where she wants, and doesn't always stop to think about the depth of the water. Even Az5 has lost some of her fear of the water, and is a riot with her floatie tube - she puts it under her arms and kicks furiously under the water to motorboat her way around - "I walking..."

Yep. No floaties. In the deep end.

Where the buffalo roam....

A couple of weekends ago, we had the pleasure of heading out to one of GranDaddy and GrandMommy's friends' place, to see their buffalo! Yes, real live buffalo - not more than 30 minutes from my house! It was amazing. They have a small ranch south of town, and a herd of around 170 head. (I LOVED their bunk house there - very simple but elegant - decorated in the stuffed animals he has shot on various hunting trips all around the world!) So we headed out to the pens and fields, and the first thing we saw was their longhorn - named Double T!! :) Then we saw the buffalo - several monsters of 2500+ lbs were the men, and the smaller, less shaggier ones were the females. The best part was getting to see the calves - they have been having calves for several weeks now, so we saw them in age from 3 days old (so sweet! and still shaky on her legs) up to several months. One mama was very fat (preggers) and started walking up and down the fence rubbing her sides there - our host pointed out that last time that happened, they had a calf the next morning. The buffalo do not give birth in front of humans, and our friends don't offer assistance. They are perfectly capable of handling that - the closest our friends have come to seeing a birth is walking out and finding a wet calf on the ground, with mama still cleaning it up. God in His wisdom... ;)