Finally!!!

Sorry for the delay in posts. We have had a busy couple of weeks. We closed on and moved into our house. We hired movers to move our stuff and all in all, they were good. I have a suspicion that they might have helped themselves to a few unopened toys that were in our garage but I don't have anyway to prove it so I just hope that I find them when we are cleaning out the garage in the next few weeks. I believe that while they were moving our stuff in the house, they had the doors open and a lizard wanted to make a home within ours. Luckily I found it on the wall late last week and caught it in a butterfly net and put it back into it's natural habitat.

We are slowly but surely getting through the mountain of boxes. Our office is full of them as is our garage. Our next project to tackle is the garage so we can get our cars in there and get them out of the heat.

We have family coming this Friday and will be here until next Saturday. We are so excited to have family down and even more excited that we have a place for everyone to stay. A little icing on the family visit cake is that we get our dogs back. I can't lie, I have kinda liked not having the responsibility of taking care of the dogs only in the respect that we can leave and be gone for hours and not have to worry about coming home to let the dogs out, cleaning up the endless amounts of hair that Cooper sheds and Lucy's fickle ways. But I do miss them, I really do. Especially after meeting our neighbor last night and his yellow lab Foster. Olivia misses the dogs so bad it hurts I think. My mom has been more than gracious to keep them and take such loving care of them as long as she has.

Here are a few pics of our house-the walls are sparse and the floor is littered with toys but you get the idea.





Pity Party for One

Disclaimer-this post is not going to be cheery and upbeat. So if you don't want or don't care about my momentary complaining, don't read.

I try and not put a lot of complaints into my entries as this blog is meant as a way to keep up with what is going on with our entire family and who really cares anyway, but today that is exactly what I am doing. I have a lot on my mind and don't really have another outlet to vent.

Today is a really hard day for me. My best friend is having her baby today and as over the moon happy for them that I am, I am so very sad that I can't be there to celebrate with them. This is just another celebration or milestone that I am missing out on. I missed both my niece's birthday parties this year and I am sure that there will other things that I am unable to attend due to the miles between us. It sucks, it totally sucks.

Another sore spot is how much Daniel works. When we made the decision to come down here we were under the impression that there would be a few months(March-April) that he would have a few long days due to the shut down that was taking place at the plant. Well, that doesn't seem to be the case. It is the middle of July and just since last Friday he has worked 24 hours of OT. Monday and Tuesday night he didn't leave work until 9 pm.And this is every week, he works late at least 3 nights a week. So not only am I left with no friends and no adult contact all day but then I am left as the solo parent to do all the dinner/bath and bedtime routines as well. That gets old real fast. I keep hearing that this situation(the long hours) is temporary but I have been hearing that for the last 7 months. I usually end up eating dinner by myself and I am sick and tired of it. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that he has a good, secure job that allows me to stay at home but I honestly don't know how much longer I can deal with it.

Living here is another unfixable situation I think. We made the decision as a family to do what we viewed was best for our family in terms of allowing Daniel to advance at AB. I never in a million years would imagined how much of a test it would be. I am SO lonely here. The walls of this craptastic apartment seem to close in a little bit more everyday, I have no friends, well 1 friend but I think we are only friends because of default, I have no way to doing anything for myself because Daniel works so much and if he is off, he is so tired that he can't keep his eyes open. We close on our new house on Friday but that is a whole other source of stress. I haven't been sleeping at night because I lye awake worrying about how we will make all our bills due to the increase in everything, mortgage pymt., water, power, property taxes, the list goes on. Now the rational part of me knows that we will be just fine, we may just have to cut back on luxury things(which we need to do anyway). People keep telling me that once we move I will make friends and blah, blah, blah. I am not so confident. Like I said earlier, I have 1 friend, who actually lives right around the corner from where we are moving, but it is not her job to make sure I get out and make friends and with Daniel working all the time I don't see us standing out in our yard socializing with our neighbors like we used to back in Illinois.

I just don't know where to turn anymore. I can't talk to Daniel because as hard as he tries to understand, or even say he does, there is no way he can. He has adult contact with people his own age, he gets to go out and eat lunch everyday with people whom he doesn't have to cut their food up or make sure it's not too hot and he has a list a mile long of things to keep his mind distracted from what is going on at home. I feel as though he is under so much stress at work that he doesn't have time to listen to me, so where does that leave me? I will tell you, it leaves me being bitter, resentful and angry most of the time.

I could go on and on with my random ramblings but if you have read this far, I am sure you are sick and tired of the complaining and have probably tuned out. And honestly, I wouldn't blame you. As most people have politely told us, we decided to come here so we have to deal with the consequences.

A Whirlwind of a Week

Sorry for the delay in posting. We have been busy little bees. This past week our very good friends John and Kendra and their boys Logan and Sam came to Houston for their summer vacation. We were so looking forward to seeing them all and Olivia was more than excited to see some old friends. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday morning. They arrived late Tuesday afternoon, so all we had on tap was to go grab dinner and then hang out and catch up. On Wednesday we planned on going to Space Center Houston and then to the beach. The Space Center was fun but not very kid friendly for kids below the age of 10. Logan and Olivia had a really good time though, so that it was worth it. After that we headed to Galveston to go the beach. Thanks to Kendra doing some research on the best beaches in Galveston, we found the perfect beach. Not crowded and a little off the beaten path. There was a tropical storm out in the gulf that made for some really good waves. Everyone fully enjoyed the beach. Cameron was fearless and would have spent all day in the water had we let her.

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum and the Downtown Aquarium. Both of these attractions were nice except the Museum was overran with Kid's Camps. That night we went out for John's Birthday. I won't tell how old he is, but for any of you who know John and Kendra, be sure to ask next time you see either of them ;-). 

Friday we went to the Houston Zoo. Daniel was unable to join us on the adventure because he had to work. We were only able to last a couple of hours due to the excessive heat.

Saturday we went to the Museum of Natural Science. We all really enjoyed it, lots of stuff to interest the kids as well as the adults.

We had a whirlwind week but it was wonderful to see "family."  In my infinite forgetful self, I took zero pictures of all our adventures. I got some video of the girls playing in the splashpad at the Aquarium. So as I wait on Kendra to send me pics, I will leave you with some video(s) of the girl at the Splashpad.

Houston We Have a Contract....

It seems like it has taken forever,but we finally have a contract on a house!!! We have already had inspections, negotiated the tre problems that needed addressed and had our appraisal today. So barring something unexpected, we are set to close July 15. I cannot tell you how good it feels it know that there is an end in sight and a new beginning right around the corner. We already have company planned to come down and we couldn't be happier.

Here are a few pics of Chateau De Regenhardt-

front of the house, has cute curb appeal.

living room

beautiful kitchen. too bad I am not much of a cook

cute backyard. not what we are used to, but will be big enough for the kids, both K-9 and human.

Sisterly Love

Having a sister myself, I know first hand that sisterly love is very hard to come by until later in life. That holds true in our house as well. Usually Olivia can be found yelling at Cameron, taking toys away from her or trying to pull her around like a ragdoll. On the same token, Cameron can usually be found stealing Olivia's toys, pulling her hair or just annoying her anyway she can. Lately though, they have been playing more together. It is usually short lived and in ends as soon as Cameron takes the toy away from Olivia. The other night they were playing Ring Around The Rosie. It was so cute and that is one game that doesn't seem to start a fight.

*As I type this I can hear Daniel telling Olivia "no, don't pick her up, let go of her arm."

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

We have had an interesting couple of days. First and foremost, thanks to my extremely gracious dad and watching our K-9 children, my mom was able to come down for a couple days and spend some time with us. It was nice to see her. So while she was her, we had scheduled an appointment to go to the Design Center and pick out all the pretties for our house.

That appointment proved to be a real eye opener into why not to build a house. When we initially talked with and every time since when we have talked with the salesman at the model house, we were told that we were getting certain upgrades in our house that we were planning on building and they were already built into the price that we were given. We were trucking right along with picking out different things for the house, all of which we knew would add some money to our bottom line. When we got to the flooring section, we were left speechless. We were told that the standard tile would be 18" tile set on the diagonal. Um, that is not correct. The standard is 12'' laid straight. First of all, the 12" tile was very cheap, ugly color and very thin. So there was no way that was going into any house of ours. We picked out a nice 18" tile and found that it added about $8000 to the price of the house. And then adding the diagonal pattern was another $1500-$2000. Along with that, we were told that the standard tile was a Frieze carpet, again not correct. We have dealt with builder grade carpet before and if I never see it again, it will be too soon. So we decided to upgrade that as well. That upgrade added another $3000 to the price of house. I know what you must be thinking, aren't we a bunch of brats for thinking we can get upgraded flooring for nothing. Had we not been told that the upgrades were already included and there would be no extra cost we would have been happy to pay for them. Essentially we were lied to to get a contract on the house and then when they had us, they did a bait and switch. About the time we were trying to digest the flooring and knowing that this was not the end of the discussion, our realtor showed up. We quickly brought him up to speed and he was under the same impression we were about what we had going in. He too felt lied to. We talked with the sales manager and he was a jerk to the say the least. Gave us the customary run around about how he doesn't have any more money to give on the house, we are getting a base house with upgrades at our cost, blah, blah, blah. He left a really bad taste in our mouths. We quickly finished up the design appointment since we had already spent 4 hours there and at this point we were unsure if we would move forward with building but if we did, we didn't want to make another trip out there.

After the appointment we briefly talked with our realtor and he suggested maybe taking a step back and looking at some more resales one last time to see if anything tripped our trigger. So we ditched our plans for Tuesday of taking my mom out the Galleria and looked at houses yet again. It is a good thing we did. We found a house that we are in love with, that offers 95% of what we were planning on putting in the new build at a cheaper price.  After seeing this house and what it had to offer, we decided to cancel the contract for the new build. We have put an offer on this new house we found and are waiting to hear. I don't plan on posting any pics or info. about it until after inspections and I know 100% that we will close. After I have spilled the beans on the last two houses and they have fallen through, I have become a bit superstitious.

Stay tuned.....

FInally making progress.....

Today while I would out and about, I decided to drive by the location where our house is going to be built. Orginally we were told that at the middle of May when we signed all the papers that they had just begun pulling all the permits, and so at that point in time, it would be another 4 weeks before anything was done to the lot. But today when I drove by I was pleasantly susprised to see that all the trees had been cleared and it seemed as though there was a utility van there. So, maybe they are a few weeks early which means they will finish a few weeks early.