22 Years

We just celebrated our 22nd anniversary over the weekend. Many thanks to Carrie for the anniversary game. We played at dinner at a favorite local Mexican restaurant. Then we wandered around Lowe's, creating a dream list of appliances for our new home. Nothing a few thousand dollar gift card wouldn't take care of. LOL!

edited to add: btw, I made my dress and veil :D

The Anniversary Game (our version anyway) - We each had to come up with something from each year we've been married. I don't think we put any real rules or parameters on ourselves.

1986 - We got married!
Hubs - Went to work for the RV Department at the Ford dealership
Me - Went to Paxton, NE with my sister & cousin in the Toyota

1987 - We moved to California
Hubs - Got his first Jeep
Me - Got my first profit sharing check and bought a nice 18 speed bike

1988
Hubs - Went to work for Fred & Jack
Me - Took a Vivarin trip to Colorado with hubs & cousin

1989
Hubs - Moved to San Jose
Me - Experienced 7.1 earthquake (Loma Prieta - opening day of World Series)

1990
Hubs - Moved to Roseville
Me - Got impetigo after spending an evening in hubby's boss's hot tub (5 of 6 of us got it, not just me)

1991
Hubs - Made a crazy, 3-day trip to Colorado with my dad
Me - Went to work at the Biomedical Engineering Center

1992
Hubs - Moved back to Colorado
Me - Bought our first house (from my sister and brother-in-law)

1993
Hubs - Trip to California in November with a 5-week old baby that took FOREVER. Especially since we got stuck in Rawlins, WY
Me - Got Cody (our dog) and bought a camper (before having ClayGuy)

1994
Hubs - Traded his pickup and shell for his second Jeep (aka Speedy)
Me - Lost our minds while buying our second house

1995
Hubs - The Comedian was born
Me - Our house began to crumble

1996
Hubs - Oops, couldn't come up with one
Me - Left corporate position to stay home with the boys

1997
Hubs - Traded the Accord for a mini van
Me - Became a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator

1998
Hubs - First trip to Easter Jeep Safari in Moab
Me - Went to San Diego for SU convention

1999
Hubs - Weekend to Empire and rode the Georgetown Loop
Me - Family's first trip to Easter Jeep Safari in Moab

2000
Hubs - Employer moved south
Me - Took the train to California

2001
Hubs - 9/11
Me - Helped move Mom & Dad back to Colorado

2002
Hubs - Employer moved yet again (much closer to home!)
Me - Tried to sell our house (114 showings, 4 failed contracts, no sale)

2003
Hubs - Stepped down from being service manager
Me - Got Canon Rebel SLR camera

2004
Hubs - Kevin went to be with the Lord
Me - Stopped being a SU demonstrator

2005
Hubs - House began to sink, bought the Scrambler
Me - Moved to our current home

2006
Hubs - Sold the Scrambler, got the van
Me - Threw a big surprise party for my dad's 70th birthday

2007
Hubs - Went to a fly fishing clinic with the Comedian
Me - Threw a surprise party for my sister's 40th birthday

2008
Hubs - Bought the Avalanche
Me - Went to see TobyMac, Jeremy Camp, and Matthew West.

And hopefully buying a house . . . very soon!

Looking forward to many, many more wonderful years.

Sunday Meanderings

I realize now that my plastic post likely had the appearance that I was giving away stuff. Which would totally be in line with my stuff diet. Isn't if funny how you can write something in one way and not see how it can be taken differently? Perspective is a funny thing.

Nothing new regarding the house yet. The next step is to find out if the bank which is selling the house will replace the roof, repair/replace the water heater, and remove the water softener. If they will, and we have it in writing, we can move on to the appraisal. In the meantime, it's more sorting and packing. I've gotten many of the non-essentials packed in the kitchen so far. Next up will be books.

I had planned on having a yard sale last weekend, but then decided to bypass that. The excess stuff will get listed on Craig's List, be offered to friends/family, or go to a thrift store. Now I have to resort the yard sale items into one of the three categories.

In the midst of the packing and (hopefully) moving soon, I need to get our school plans together, as I intend to start this week. I've been working on it, but had to stop and clean off my desk in the family room. It's so much more difficult to work on plans at the dining room table, because I am continually having to pick it all up and then get it all back out. It's not a very efficient process. Last year, it was so nice to have it spread out on a desk where it could stay out. Problem was, the desk was buried in . . . yep, STUFF! It's pretty much cleared off now, so I'll be able to spread it all out in there.

We have had rain here like crazy for the past three days. Other than parts of town having some flash floods and such, it's been wonderful! July was the driest month on record since something like 1927! We desperately needed the moisture. It's actually been so chilly here that we had coats on, added a blanket to the bed, have been wearing long-sleeved shirts, and I even wore boots last night. In August. Crazy.

Plastic Anyone?

Maybe a few napkins?


Not so many cups


Free in a cereal box


And it glows!


Let's not forget the kiwi spoon


It sure is fun sorting and cleaning out cupboards for packing.

PhotoStory Friday: Lawn Mower

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

I came home yesterday afternoon, only to find a young, new lawn mower at our house. Not only was he there, he was mowing my lawn weeds quite nicely. Chomp.

Usually our boys mow (occasionally, hubs still does), but they missed out on this one. Although their technique is a little different. They really haven't developed a taste for lawn, er, weeds.

This guy? He loves it. And we don't pay him. Although he leaves little tips for us on occasion.

I'm Packing

I suspected that I may still have been sleeping. Surely this phone call came in a dream, right? Our realtor called to say we are . . .

U N D E R
C O N T R A C T!!

Then I realized that I was actually awake. And had been for a number few hours. This was the real deal.

Wow! How exciting is that? Of course, there are still a few more things to get past, but God's brought us this far. In fact, He's done some pretty amazing things in regards to this house.

If you haven't been along for the ride, let me back up just a bit, so you can grasp how totally cool this is.

Our utilities became WAY too expensive last winter. And we were freezing very cold. Since I homeschool the boys, we're at home most of the time. Freezing did not make for a very pleasant learning environment. We already kept the thermostat fairly low and tried to dress warmly, but apparently that wasn't enough. After the annoyingly large bill, we dropped the thermostat to 59-60 degrees. Only when we just couldn't stand it, or company was coming over, did we turn it up. Well, then, and for a short time in the morning so that we could actually warm up enough to get moving out of a sound sleep.

So we made the monumental decision that ought to move before the next winter rolled around. After a couple of conversations here and there, we ended up getting approved to buy a house - January 22nd to be exact.

Since that time, we've looked at house, and looked at houses, and looked at houses. We even made offers on some houses - six, to be specific. We actually looked at the house we currently have under contract 2-3 months ago. But the day we wanted to take a look, it went under contract (with someone else, obviously). We continued with our looking process. The middle of last month, this one came up again. I called our realtor and found out that the previous potential buyers found another place and backed out of the deal. So we went to look.

Other than this house not being in our first choice of area to live (it's our second. And it's just over a mile from my sister and her family), it fit everything else we wanted. The right amount of rooms, size of garage and yard, and a good, works-for-us floor plan. So we made on offer. Number seven. The number of completion, Biblically speaking. On July l6th. Well, this house is owned by a bank, having already gone through the foreclosure procedure. It's been vacant for at least a year. There's some cleaning and minor things to be done, but it definitely has some good things going on, like newer vinyl windows, newer furnace, and a/c. Ceiling fans in the three upstairs bedrooms and in the dining room. Newer pergo in the living room/dining room.

Making an offer to a bank is very different from trying to buy from a private party. First of all, they don't respond within the somewhat standard 24-hour period. More like 3-5 days, business days, that is. So factor in weekends. The week after we offered, they agreed (verbally), but wanted to add a couple of things on an addendum. We decided we could live with those things, so we signed an addendum. And waited.

Then they wanted something else changed. So we did. And then we waited. Then it was one more thing. Because we did this so many time, I'm not sure if that was the last "one more thing" or if there was one more. Regardless, we signed one last addendum last week and decided that this would be the last-ditch effort. This was just getting silly.

Yesterday I got the call from our realtor that we've been waiting and waiting to hear - "You are under contract." Amazing, but true. That's not to say we're home-free (actually, that'd be opposite of what we want to be - we want to be home-ful, or something like that). There are still a couple of hurdles to get over, but with offer #7 and almost seven months later, we've gotten further than the rest. And honestly, this house fits better than the other six.

The other cool thing? We were going to pay to have the furnace serviced, but the way it worked out, the bank paid for it. How sweet is that? God's provision is so awesome. So the furnace was serviced today and it's in great shape. The A/C is good. The water heater needs a valve or else the entire thing needs to be replaced. There's a water softener that needs to be removed (leaking terribly and the water here isn't at all hard). The house also needs a new roof (we already knew that). So if they'll take care of those things, we're good to go.

If this had been a quick and easy answer from the selling party, our closing date was originally slated for tomorrow. But that's okay. God's timing is perfect. Better than what we think might be good. So we'll trust Him to continue to put this together.

In the meantime? I'm packing.



Disclaimer: That's not our house up there. I wish that were the setting, but the house is teeny tiny.