Getting Settled In!

It's been a crazy busy week around here. We got the keys to our new house on Thursday evening and were able to get the old blue truck out of Mike's garage and brought over here. We also had Gabe's dad's truck full of our new bedroom set and baby stuff to unload. Friday morning my mom and I came over bright and early to do some cleaning and to greet the mattress delivery guys who were a 1/2 hour early! The previous owners had 2 dogs and all the carpets need to be cleaned desperately! They also thought it was a great idea to attach a rug by the front door by tapping it and hot gluing it to the beautiful hardwood floors. Who does that? I spent most of the day with the front door open scrubbing the floor with goo-gone. Friday we also packed up most of what we had left at my parents and took the trailer we had parked in front of their house. Gabe's dad and Joanne came up to help us out. Gabe's dad tackled the removal of the Velcro strips the previous owners had glued on the walls in the soon to be nursery, and Joanne started cleaning out all the kitchen cupboards for me. I have before and after pictures of the nursery, but there are still a few more things I need to finish up in there before I post pictures.
Saturday the storage POD was delivered. So the day was spent painting (nursery, dinning room, master bedroom), cleaning, unloading and unpacking. I am so thankful for all the help we had! Ross and Joanne unloaded a ton from the POD! Jennifer put the first coat of paint on the dinning room walls and Gabe and his dad got the nursery about finished. On Sunday, Bryan and Mike came over to help Gabe unload the rest of the heavy things from the POD and trailer. By noon on Sunday everything was moved into the house! (Except for the huge potted plants that are still sitting outside my parents house.) When Gabe's dad and Joanne left on Sunday, the nursery and master bedroom were painted...boy did that feel good. My mom and dad brought us dinner and we had the chance to relax a little in our new house.
Monday, Tricia and my mom came over and we put together our new bed frame and the crib. We got the nursery all arranged and I'm excited it's nearly done and ready to show off. My dad came over after work and helped Gabe put the bed on the new frame and put together our new dresser. Gabe's guys night buddies came over and helped Gabe put the desk in the office back together and move the book shelves before they took off to grab some dinner and beer. It's still a huge mess here in the office but I'm working on it!
Yesterday my mom was wonderful and went grocery shopping for me. I wish I could call in that service all the time. We did some small projects around here (laundry, unpacked boxes of books, put together the side tables for our bedroom) and by the time Gabe came home I finally was starting to feel like I have my feet under me. I haven't felt that way in oh...maybe a month or two. It's great to finally feel...dare I say it yet...settled? I'm not saying we don't have a ton more to do, but I'm starting to feel things come together.
So on the list for the rest of the week-we need to go to Lowe's to get a massive amount of little things. Gabe also needs to paint the second coat in the dinning room and I'm hoping he can also paint the living room. Other than removing the lovely Chinese dragon boarder in the main upstairs bathroom (and maybe repainting it if the previous owners don't deliver on their promise to bring us some touch up paint), we could be done painting this weekend! At least for a while. I won't go into all the projects I've got lined up for next year! The "beauty" of home ownership...the work never really ends.
I just want to say one more time how thankful I am for all the help we had getting settled into our new place. I am so grateful we have so many people in our lives who are willing to give their time and energy to help us out. And to my mom...you're the best!
Anyway, that's where we're at right now. I have my 38 week appointment this afternoon. So we may know more soon about if this little guy is getting ready to enter the world. With these crazy high temperatures and as much as my back, legs, and feet ache...I know I'm getting ready.
OK...I've been going on for far too long already. I've got more work to do and I'll hopefully have nursery pictures by this weekend! I hope everyone is staying cool.

Annual Camping Trip: Detroit Lake Edition

Gabe and I got a pretty early start out of town on Saturday morning. I had most things packed and ready to go, so we got to Detroit Lake about 11ish on Saturday. Alexis helped Gabe set up the tent. We had some lunch. Our campsite had no afternoon shade so we all started sweating up a storm and decided it was time to head to the lake to cool off. Once the "party island" was pumped up we took off for the lake. We had quite the adventure getting the party island out on the water. The wind was pretty strong out on the lake and we couldn't paddle ourselves out very far before we started to get blown back to shore. So Alexis and Jen swam and pushed the island, while Gabe and Eric pulled and guided it around the logs that made up the area where the boats dock. By the time we got out around the dock everyone was exhausted...everyone but me! I acted as the cheerleader telling them how much further it was and checking to make sure everyone was ok. Eric said next year he was going to make sure he was 8 months pregnant so he could get out of helping. I'm not sure how he's planning on making that one happen! After we soaked up the sun, relaxed and everyone had a few drinks we started the trip back to shore. The wind was blowing us the wrong direction, so once again everyone had to work hard to get us back around the boat dock. I believe it was during this return struggle that disaster struck the party island. As we were blown back to shore Alexis heard the quite shhhhh sound that could only be a small hole in the island. By the time we reached shore the island was visibly deflating. By Sunday morning it was completely deflated. Looks like some repairs will need to be made to the party island so it will be ready for next year.

We spent the rest of the evening playing games, sitting around the campfire and eating smores. Roasted marshmallows have never tasted so good! Of course we couldn't get through the weekend without the rangers stopping by our campsite to ask us to keep it down. I think that happens every year. Sunday morning as we packed up camp, Jen made a very unusual discovery. As she was folding up her tent she stopped for a second, and in a very serious voice, calmly said to us, "Hey you guys...Is this a scorpion?" This is what was hanging out under her tent. I didn't think scorpions hung out on the west side of the Cascades but here's evidence to the contrary. Two guys at the campsite across the road must have heard us talking about it because they came over to check it out. One of them even brought over his kid's bug catcher to trap him so the kids could take a look. I think Alexis, Eric, Jen and Ryan were lucky the scorpion didn't decide to crawl in the tent and hang out in their sleeping bags. Yikes!

It was a short trip but we had a great time. I love getting out in the woods. The stars were amazing and it was good to hang out with friends. I wasn't miserable at all and wish we would have gone for both nights. Oh, well. Next year we'll take the little guy with us for his first camping experience. That should be a whole new adventure!

Finally!...some good news

We got verbal approval on Monday from the seller's bank. They will be approving the short sale! This morning Gabe received an email with the written approval attached. Things are in motion to close next week. Everyone is optimistic that we'll be able to close on time (Thursday). I'm thrilled by the possibility of being in our new house next week! I may be finally painting and getting a nursery ready. Nothing like waiting for the very last minute. The little guy is expected to arrive in less than 4 weeks! I keep telling him that he's welcome to come any time after his due date. We'll see if he listens! I'm sure we'll need every day we can get to have the house in order before he gets here. But there is finally light at the end of this very long tunnel.

We've decided to venture out this weekend and go camping. I really didn't want to miss our yearly camping trip with our friends, but I'm not sure how it's going to go. Other than needing to pee about 4 times a night...I've been feeling really good, so I'm feeling hopeful that I won't be too miserable. Plus, we decided to just go for one night. I figure I can tough it out for at least one night. So Saturday and Sunday we'll be out at Detroit Lake. Since I may not want to be out on the water a whole lot...I'll make sure to take some pictures and get them up here. After all, this is our one get-a-way for the summer. I was just telling Gabe the other day that this has been the most "boring" summer ever. We have a lot going on in our lives but it isn't the fun weekend camping trips, 2 week vacations or road trips we're use to taking. I guess that's what happens when Gabe has to save his vacation, and we're both waiting patiently for the arrival of our little guy.

Moving Day(s)

It was moving weekend! We had to be out of our house tonight at midnight but made it out by 4ish thanks to all the help. My parents, Gabe's dad, Bryan, Dave, Josh, Danelle, and Aaron all came over to lend a hand at different times this weekend. We definitely couldn't have done it without the extra hands so I'm very thankful. The POD we rented is about as full as it can get. Gabe's dad brought up his truck and trailer, the trailer is about full too!
Here are some pictures my mom took. I took a few with our camera but didn't think about leaving out the card reader for our laptop and/or the cord and equipment necessary to hook our camera up to the laptop. Those items are all packed away! So I have pictures...they're just stuck on the camera for now.

I have to admit that I was pretty sad doing our last walk through of the empty house. We made a lot of fun memories in that house. It was a great first home and leaving it really symbolizes the end of one chapter of our life together. I called Gabe on the way over to my parents (I was driving his car and he was driving his dad's truck) and we both got a little emotional and teary eyed.
Just as we pulled away from the house Gabe realized that we left one important item behind in the house. Important only because I'm sure the buyer won't appreciate having to deal with it...Jupiter's litter box. Gabe called our realtor to see if she could come and let him back in since we locked the keys in the house, but she didn't answer. I guess if that's the only thing we forgot it's not bad for us. I just feel bad for forgetting about it. We intentionally made Jupiter the last thing we packed up but just overlooked that one important thing.
As far as our new house is concerned...we still wait. The bank and our lender have both done their appraisals. Our lender's appraisal came back great and our financing is all set. Like I said, now we wait for the seller's bank to approve the short sale...or not. We decided to look at a few more houses as they come on the market just in case this one does end up falling through. We looked at few last week and maybe we'll look at some more this week. Depends what comes on the market. I'm still hoping we hear from the seller's bank by Wednesday one way or the other.
Now, we're here at mom and dad's hoping we'll be in our own place in a few weeks. It's wonderful that they're letting us crash at their house. I'm very thankful. But I think we'd all prefer to have us in our own place. Soon...I hope!

4th of July

It was that time of year again to blow things up and eat too much food. We all gathered over at Dave and Carley's house this year for a potluck style party. There was lots food and beer and plenty of cornhole matches. Cornhole was introduced at last years 4th of July party by Dave and Carley. It's a pretty simple game, you basically toss a bean bag through a hole in a board. We had enough people this year to actually structure a bracket. Mike won, of course, but I managed a fairly close 2nd.

After the tournament ended it was time to enjoy some of the neighborhood fireworks. There is a neighbor around the corner from Dave and Carley that typically put on a pretty amazing show. They go as far as to build their own fireworks. Unfortunately there was no show this year. We're not sure if they didn't want to put the money into it, or had some legal troubles regarding their homemade fireworks or what. Instead we made do with sparklers and watching some of the other neighbors put on a show.

Soon to be homeless

Gabe and I were at the title company bright and early this morning to sign the papers on our house. We no longer own our home. It's officially sold. You'd think I'd be excited about it but it actually brings me to tears. I may be sad to leave this house but that's not why the tears are coming. It's because things just keep getting worse with the whole house buying process.
Last week, or maybe the week before, we got new that the sellers of the house we put an offer on are in a much worse financial situation then they originally thought. They had to ask the bank to make the sale a short sale. So now we wait. We wait to hear if the bank will approve the short sale and if we can move forward with the sale. All the while, hoping that the original closing date can be maintained. We were suppose to hear news from the bank this week but since they are closed for the holiday weekend tomorrow, we probably won't hear anything more until early next week. So, basically everything is on hold and the longer things are on hold the more likely it is that we will still be homeless when the little guy arrives. That's what brings me to tears. I can't stand being stuck in the middle and I'm angry and frustrated that things just can't work out.
Next weekend we move our stuff out and into storage. I should say Gabe will be moving it out. I won't be much help. Although I've been packing everything we can do without for the last few weeks, he's got a lot of stuff to haul out of here. We'll be with my parents for a while. Since we don't really know if and when we'll have a house we might be looking at rentals. This really sucks! So all of these frustrations, combined with pregnancy hormones, are getting me really down. I guess I'll go drown my sorrows in boxes that need to be packed.
-h