Painting Day

Ok, so today we are going to start painting the walls for the nursery... if you would like to see the pattern, go to this website...
Critter Chatter

Christmas is over

Nothing really exciting going on now. Grandma came for Christmas and will stay through the new year. It's nice to have her down here in this nice weather. Christmas Eve was the traditional meal of Lefsa and Lutefisk with some swedish meatballs thrown in for those who don't like our traditions.. :) Then we got to open gifts. Every one was excited about their gifts and we had to come home and put one together - our new TV stand for the flat screen. We look modern now. :)

Dan and I also talked about next year when we have a little one roaming around, and what we want to start doing for traditions. Weird to be talking about next year already, but I guess there is no time like the present. :)

It's the end of the day, and we are both headed off to bed. After 3 days of not working, Dan is stir crazy, and my goal is to get my bedding picked out for the baby, so I can buy paint and have a painting party. :) Keep your fingers crossed for me, cuz I'm going to try like crazy to do it. :)

Have a Great Week that ends this year, and works it's way into the next. God Bless.

Our Big Day

Ok, It's official. We now can start referring to the baby with a gender. :) It's a boy!
It was fun to watch the Sonogram. She said that we have a healthy baby.

Practicing

We are playing with the new video camera that we got - so now I have to try and put it on the blog... Sooo, here's Jack
Wow, I never thought it could be that difficult to learn something new... lets only hope that it works.. :)

Well, it didn't. guess I will try another night. :(

Dan's Birthday

Pearl Harbor Day - the day all America remembers. And we have a special reason to remember it in our house - it's Dan's Birthday!!. We started out by going out to Fajittas for dinner - which ironically has become Dan's favorite resterant. On Saturday, we had my family over for some "Cake" - which he wanted a cookie - so I made sure I got one when I was out shopping for Xmas gifts.

Sunday left us by ourselves and we went out and bought a Christmas tree, and a Baby Dresser and Crib. That was fun trying to get them all in the house. The animals seem to love the tree. We just have to make sure the cats dont climb up it. I will make sure I get a good picture of it to post here - we might even get the video camera to work and be able to show the twinkling lights.

Nothing really new

So we had another Dr. Appt. yesterday. Again he just listened to the heartbeat - which by the way is 158. Talked about drinking more water, and asked if I've chosen a pediatrician.

Heck, I hadn't put much thought into a pediatrician...so he gave me a couple of numbers to call and check them out. Am I suppsed to "interview" them???? What do I ask them? I figured I would just go to the nearest Dr - just like I do for me, and then if I didn't like them - that's whne I would make a change. But I guess I need to know so they come visit the baby in the hospital. :)

Everyone seems to have a guess on whether it's a boy or girl. Really, a girl, seems to be winning. Only 2 people have indicated that I will have a boy. I did some researching online last night into myths about predicting the sex of the baby. According to the Chinese Lunar calandar, I will be having a girl. According to heartbeat, I will be having a girl, and according to whether Dan gains weight during the pregnancy, I will be having a boy. Although it was fun to look at the different myths... I know that we have to wait until my ultrasound, and then it doesn't mean that it's absolute. So, take a guess if you want, but I'm not putting much stock into what everyone says. As long as he/she is healthy, I will be happy. :)

Thanksgiving weekend

Happy Belated Thanksgiving. I've been meaning to write in here all weekend - however, just never got the energy to compose my thoughts. Now it's sunday, and I should at least make the effort.. :)

Thanksgiving was only Mom, Dan and I at our house. Everything tasted wonderful. Amy's dogs were over, along with Asha, so we had quite the animal house. Amy and Scott were in CA with his family. Pretty quiet Thanksgiving.

Then it was Black Friday - the most irratic shopping day ever. I tried it. Was generally surprised. I do remember going a few years back to Best Buy and waited like 2 hours in line, however, they seem to have figured things out - we were 3rd in line. That was cool. And Wallyworld was the same - lots of people inside the store, but got through the checkout lines in fast order.

Because it was so easy, I really do have most of my Xmas shopping done. That is WAY nice.

Saturday was Lefse making. We managed to finish up 2 complete batches before I called it done. :) I was tired. My back was killing me. Everyone had a good time. I think we finally finished about 4pm.

Sunday was clean up the house day. I worked on the office and Dan worked in the Garage. We are trying really hard to get things ready so I can go out and get some baby furniture - oh, and speaking of baby... watch for the announcement probably close to the end of the month. :)

Seems like forever

Ok, so since last time I wrote - only a couple of things happened - Dan and I joined my family for my cousin's wedding in Omaha. Very Pretty. Kudos to my aunt for doing this all out of town. It was fun getting together with the whole family. Getting to see cousins that I haven't seen in years, since they weren't able to come to my wedding due to Iraq - it was great. My family sure knows how to welcome people into the family. :)

And today we had our second dr. appt. Got to hear the heart beat. I think I was expecting the thump thump that you hear through a stethescope... but it was a whooshing sound.. I listened to it and started to laugh - so the dr. was only able to listen for a little bit. 160 beats per minute. It's amazing. He said it's about 3 inches long. WOW - it's tripled in size. I keep reading my book to see what it's doing next, and it's just amazing what's going on - AND I didn't even gain any weight. I did break down and buy some maternity pants - cuz gosh those snaps/buttons sure do cut you in the stomach... All the styles of clothes out there are pretty much the same as Maternity, so I really don't have to worry too much about the tops.

We are both sick right now. As Dan is reading over my shoulder, he says hello to the world. Ok, those of you who really know him, know he's not saying hi, especially when he's sick. So I will just leave it at that.

Something new

1st Ultrasound

So I got the first Ultrasound - and was amazed at what you could already see. At first glance, it just looked like a bean, but then the DR. started pointing out things - and wow - I could even see the heart beating. He gave me a DVD of the whole thing, but I can not figure out how to get it onto here.. :( But here is one pic that he gave to me on paper that I scanned...

1st Official Appointment

ok, so today was just not that exciting for a Dr. Appointment. I met with a nutritionist who basically just told me to eat healthy and not listen to all those wives tales. :) Then I had to do my 1st pee in a cup - which apparantly I get to do EVERY time I go.. ugh. Good thing by the end of talking to her, I actually did have to go.. lol
I also got to talk to the benefits person, and had to fork over some $$ but this is the one and ONLy time I have to.. Whoo hoo.
I read somewhere that I was supposed to be drinking 8-12 oz. glasses of water - so I tried it the next day.. Oh my, that was a horrible thing to have to pee that MANY times in one day. I'm pretty sure I used up a whole roll of TP.. lol. Good thing the nutritionist said only at least 64oz total... That MIGHT be manageable, but still will be hard to focus on doing. I forget during the day when I 'm teaching.. and then to top it off, there is no bathroom anywhere close, so that will be creative as it gets closer to the time..

Oh yeah, the official due date.... I was right...... May 12, 2008

Dan's Promotion

OK, so Dan got a promotion. We are totally excited. It is bringing about changes in the house - now we will be able to buy different furniture for our spare bedroom - the one room that hasn't been totally put together yet. I think we might save for a couple of months before we go hog wild and buy everything we want. You know me and money - gots to make sure it will continue before I "bet" on it. Anyway...
Back to Dan's promotion *And these are his words....
I'm getting promoted from Husband to Daddy. :)
WOW - did I stun you? I know the news actually came as a shock to us as well. We've been hoping and praying for it - but for some reason I just figured it wasn't our time. So now I need some suggestions for the BABY room. :)
How we told our family... Well, Mom we took out to dinner on Thursday night and Dan told her the Promotion story... she almost fell out of her chair in excitement. We just got done telling Amy and Scott - I put a Boyd's Bear at her place setting that said - Bestest Aunt - She was all teary eyed. Dan's mom and dad we had to call and they were sreaming at the other end of the phone. It was all very exciting.. :)
I got a book that says what goes on every day, and today, the baby is the size of a ballpoint pen. By Sunday it will be about the size of a sesame seed. Wow - it's amazing - cuz this little thing already makes me go to the bathroom a WHOLE lot more.... :)
I'm about 5 weeks along. The Dr only did a blood test and so I have to go to an ObGyn to find out the official due date - however, Dan and I are guessing about Late April, or Early May. This will work out perfect for me, as I can take the end of the year off and then also have the summer to be with the baby and not worry about work.
I go on the 25 to talk to the nutritionist. I'm sure they will tell me to not drink cafeine - which I've already stopped - and to eat healthier - which I'm trying... only thing that I'm worried about - is if they don't let me take the drugs for allergies and asthma - the prevention stuff I take... that would be a huge bummer, cuz the spring is my horrible time for that....

So that's the story... and I'm sticking to it.. :)

OK, so this weekend we weren't together

So my girlfriend from college got married. At first it was going to be Dan and I taking the trip. Although we never have traveled extremely well together, it was going to be fast and furious. When I was talking to another friend, wondering if she got an invite, we had the bright idea.... Let's leave Dan at home so she could go to the wedding with me. At least she would know some of the people and I would know more than the bride, her parents, the maitron of Honor and her parents. :)

So... we finally leave about 5 pm on Friday. We stop in Blythe for dinner and I finish my low flying lesson. :) We get into Whittier to stay at Millie's house around 11. Of course then we have to stay up until prob. 2 gossiping and chatting about all the stuff that was going on. I was beat.

Millie's son, Alejandro, woke us up by saying "Goodmorning" several times at 7 Am. That got our day rolling. Juan and Millie made Churizo's (sp?) for breakfast and then we were out the door to go visit Kristi, Mike and Abby. We had only seen pics of Abby, and Katie had not ever med Mike, so that was another catch up story. I didn't get a pic of Mike, but here is Kristi with Abby...

We went to lunch with them all, and then had to RUN back to Millie's house to get dressed for the wedding. No Joke - we got ready in 20 min - but were still 10 min late to the wedding since Katie wasn't being a good navigator.

Here is Susana and Manny inside the church...

So we sit through the wedding and look around and realize that we know very few people... lol

Then we head over to the reception. It was at the Sky Links golf course. Very pretty place. I'm sure that they got some awesome pics. Inside the reception room, I couldn't seem to get any decent shots, except one - of all the Palmers. :)

The next morning, we headed back home. Was a very fast trip, but fun seeing everyone.

Oh yeah, what did Dan do? watch racing, and went and had a couple of drinks with a friend... not my idea of exciting, but we both had a great weekend, and it's nice to sleep in my own bed again. :)

I've found my camera.. :)

Ok, many people have asked for pictures of the new house. Now keep in mind that there is still some mess -but for the most part, we have unpacked a lot of boxes, and are just trying to figure out where to put everything.... Here is the tour.

These walls face each other ... We just got a huge TV so Dan can watch the cars go around, and around, and around....

(note the cage in the right - watch for the animal that goes in there.)


This picture shows how the living room leads into the kitchen...







and then the kitchen is nice and open - with the dining room by that window.


















This is the master bath... If you can see the door in the mirror - we've already added that door for a linen closet in a better place.

Below you will find the master bedroom.... Not done decorating yet, but you get the idea.











This is one of the spare rooms * its the room that everything has been put in until we know what to do with it...








Below is the guest bath, (Sorry, couldn't figure out how to edit the picture, once I had imported it. ) and until today, it was the cat's bathroom. However, we built a cat run, so the cats can go outside, and their litter box can be outside as well.

This is the "office" If you notice in the window is the cat door that leads out to the cat run.

Our nice big backyard... Dan has a shed that he has already decided is in the wrong place and wants to move it to where I'm standing with the camera. The cat run is just off the patio to the right. We are currently romoving all those rocks and are hoping for grass to grow.












Our newest adoption - Jack. He's a Lab/Beagle mix. Looking at him now, we think he has a bit more lab than beagle.












And I had to add one of my baby for good measure. Just so she knows she is not left out.

Finally

OK, so this is the first time I've sat down to Blog since we moved. It's been a whirlwind week. We moved a couple of loads in last Wednesday, and Dan called at 8 in the morn saying he wanted to move then instead of Thurs afternoon like we had planned. Well, we got lucky and Uhaul had our truck for us, so he went and picked it up and we started moving. Ever helped us a great deal. By about 1 Dan went back for a second load of odds and ends, and cleaned up a bit, and we were basically out. I went back over there Friday morning to just do a double check before leaving the keys on the counter. Looking around, it was weird to see it so empty and knowing how much work I put into upgrading it. I really hope the new girl loves it as much as I did.

So the animals are having a hard time adjusting. Sadie just looks pitiful whenever I leave, and she desperately wants to go in the car and go "home" to where she recognizes. Scraps hides all day and then when he does come out he cries all night.. UGH.. Smudge is the only one that really doesn't care.

As soon as I get a chance, I will take pictures... so you can see how we are setting things up. the living room and the kitchen are basically done. We have a few more things in the bedroom to tidy up and then that's done. The spare rooms are where we put anything we didn't want to deal with yet...

We also got our appliances. It's amazing what new appliances do for the look of the kitchen. We broke down and got stainless steel, and yes, it's hard to keep fingerprints off of it. But boy, does it look nice.

Dan has already been playing in the backyard... watering, mowing, etc. He knows that there is lots to do, but seems to be willing..

OK, tomorrow is the 4th and we still havn't even decided what we are doing for fireworks... Last year we watched them from our upstairs bathroom window - now we don't have the upstairs, I wonder where fireworks will be. Guess Google will help out. :)

Our keys

OK, so tomorrow we should be getting our keys - yeah!. Don't know what time, but I will at least pack up my car and bring Sadie over to do some sniffing out of the backyard. Dan wants to torment her and ask her if she wants to go home... and then say - you are home... but first he was going to lead her to the garage, have her get in his truck - ride around the block and then come back.... a lot of work for some psychological torture I think.. .

The official move is Thursday. We will pack up all the stuff in the truck Thurs afternoon - and prob. unload on Friday morning. Since 1/2 of our stuff is over at mom's house - it should be like Christmas getting some of our stuff back.. :) a nd then mom can have her room back as well.

Our House

Well, we have officially sold the townhouse - and we have officially signed our lives away and I think our first born for the new mortgage. Although we are very excited to be moving, the fact of moving all of our "#$%!" is not looking exciting.. :( It will be interesting to see how Sadie reacts. I know that the cats will take about 2 hours of the first day - and about 2 weeks to truly settle in. I think that they will be excited about the cat run that we have planned for them. I'm excited if nothing else. We are trying to figure out something for Sadie to still have a dog door so if there are any suggestions out there - - - please send them my way. :)

Countdown continues

OK, we have 1 more week. I didn't know that moving/selling was SOOOOO stressful. We have almost everything already packed except neccessities. We are even eating on paper plates already. Can you tell we want out? I still don't have many people to help us out with moving.... Come on.... Friday - take the day off work? Plan on losing some pounds... put it all back on with some pizza and soda? lol Friday the 29th. Here we come.

Getting closer

OK - 2 weeks - we are on the countdown. We move. We did just go looking at some new appliances. That was one of the first things that we wanted to update. There are several projects that we have in store, but for the time being, functionality was our prime concern. Dan is also very concerned about hitting his head on the sliding shower doors, so I'm sure that will be one of the first things once we move in as well. I have more cosmetic ideas in mind. Dan gets to focus on the backyard a bit where he will get to move a bunch of rocks - know any kids that want to earn a few bucks? :) Hopefully the old man will leave his wheel barrow in the shed - at least that is what I'm hoping so I dont' have to go buy one. Come help us move and unpack.. :)

Another update

OK, we've gotten back the word that they accepted what we would fix in our house - and what we said no to. Sounds like a plan. Now we are waiting for the guy to say he will fix the one thing on our list - the roof tiles. Dan says that even if he won't do it - we are still buying the house. I know he is right, because Dan can fix the roof, we just figured it would be nicer if it's already done. Who wants to help move? I've not had any takers on that one yet....

ok - Trying another time. :)

Here it is... We just got the word that our offer was accepted....

Isn't it cute? It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in the Northwest valley. We are excited. We are despirately hoping that nothing goes wrong this time.

If you are interested in seeing some of the other pictures, click on this link - hopefully it works -

http://armlslistings.marketlinx.com/Search/Scripts/MediaDisplay.asp?MlsNum=2764907&UID=2919978&PropType=RES

It has some great fruit trees in the backyard, with a large lot that Dan has already started making plans for. It's kind of nice because we can do things to this house - and before the other house was already done. We will have to have a house warming party and have everyone over for a party when we get settled, which should hopefully be the end of June. Keep your fingers crossed for us. :)

She has accepted, now we wait

OK, so she accepted our counter offer so it looks like we have a sale - again. Lets hope that she doesn't have 3 cats..... So we should be moving around the end of June.... Now we have to go look at houses all over again. Dan is anxious to do this - I'm not really. I feel like it will go sour again. Serious pessimism this time. :( But if it does work out - who wants to help us move. :)

Is it 3 times is the charm - or 3 strikes you are out?

OK, we just received another offer - this one a little bit more believable. We countered - so now we have to wait to see if she accepts. Keep your fingers crossed for us please. :)

Another stupid one

OK, so we just got another offer on the house - Susan (Realtor) came over with the offer - it was obnoxious. almost $15,000 under our listing price - and they wanted concessions on top of it. Said no way - sent them back an offer - and they raised their offer a mere $4,000. Just told Susan to scrap it. No way, not going to take less than what we wanted. So we wait for the next offer to come our way. I'm not in a hurry - now that our house that we wanted is gone (or rather our contract is void - we can only hope it is still there when we get a decent offer that goes through.

For those of you who know about my possible job offer - we are scrapping that idea as well. Plus it doesn't bode well with me that it took so long for him to even get back with me and make the offer (it has now been 2.5 weeks) So maybe I'm supposed to stay in this house - and stay in this job for now. :) We shall see what HE has planned I guess.

I hate stupid people

ok - so we no longer have a sale on the condo and had to relist it. The lady was stupid. I won't even go into details about how stupid she is - however, it caused us to have to withdraw our contract on our beautiful house. Makes me sad. So now we are back to square one with waiting for someone to claim our house before we start the whole process over again..... UG I just really dispise the system that lets her do this to us.

Nope - no deal and now....

OK, so he didn't think our deal was good enough AND he didn't want to wait until we had our house sold. But the jokes on him. We have already signed the paperwork for the house - only 2 days after it was on the market. Our agent is totally cool. 2 DAYS --that is unheard of. So now we have until May 31 to move out - but to my chagrin, I have no idea where we are moving to. We have a general area that we would like to be, but there are not many houses within our price range. So we keep looking, and I'm really tired of going through all the houses on the internet.. BHAH. it's so hard to see what they are trying to sell in some of the pictures. It is amazing that after our agent told us how the house needs to look and all the stuff we had to do to our house. We had to take down ALL pictures of us - all cluttered knick knacks, basically make our house look like those houses on trading spaces.. :) Well, we got it done, and it paid off. :)

And now...

We have a house.. :) we put an offer in on another house. And we just got notified that we got it. I'm totally excited, as is Dan - but Happy Birthday to me.. :)

First House?

OK, seems like I manage to write here about once month.. OK, no laughing.

Here is our news. :) We just put an offer in on a new house. It's a little bit west and a little bit north of us now. But it is 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, with a backyard so Dan can get the dog that he wants. :) The kitchen is big enough so now I think that I probably will be hosting the lefse day - since I will hopefully have these long counters for everyone to stand around.

That's all the news we have. I will try to post as soon as I have news on if we get the house or not.

1st Anniversary

Well, Today is the day, our Big 1st Anniversary. It's amazing how fast time has flown. Feels just like yesterday that we still were planning our big shindig - and now we have moved on.

Speaking of moving. Dan and I have decided to get a bigger place. I secretly think that he just wants a room to design.. lol. So we met with the realestate lady yesterday. We have some painting and some minor fixing to do, but other than that, it looks good that we can put the place on the market at the end of the month. Anyone want to help paint? pack? store our stuff? lol. She said we need to de-clutter. To Dan that meant throw away. I quickly corrected him. :)

So that's our only news. Hope all is well.

Following Orders

OK, I was told that I needed to write more in here.. :) Thanks JS

OK, lets see what's happened since the last time I wrote...

Well, Dan got into a car accident.... with the new truck we just bought. He was on the freeway and it was bumper to bumper... and the lady behind him didn't pay attention to the stop and go that was going on. Hense the accident. OK, so they exchange information, and she leaves, and that's when I get the phone call that there's been an accident. I can insurance, because we don't really know the proceedure... and they tell us to call the cops to get a report. In writing the report, he calls her insurance *or her son's because that's whose car she was driving. Turns out - no such policy....

OK, so we start the proceedings with our insurance.. And low and behold, she calls a couple days later claiming to want to make good on the fact it was her fault. I become hopeful... Dan gets an estimate - and it comes in under our insurance deductable... and I'm thinking - wow this isn't too bad, at least it's not as bad as it could be. I fax her the estimate, and we set up a time to meet.

Here's the clincher. I recognize the address as being in the school's attendance area, so I know the area fairly well. We pull up to the house... and yup - you guessed it... her daughter is in the class next door.

So now everyone knows that her mom hit my hubby. I even had another parent come up to me and ask how DH was doing after the accident.. :) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.