Tuesday, February 16, 2010

My Valentine's Gift

My hubby is so romantic :-)





On another note, we have a big chunk of our stuff moved into the house. It only took two trips in a 26 foot Uhaul truck but we got it done. We will probably have to rent another truck in the future when we are ready to get the last bit of stuff but it can wait for now. Now I'm surrounded by boxes that haven't seen daylight in over 2 years. It's like Christmas and Halloween all wrapped into one because the majority of boxes have nice things in them that we need for the house, and then there are a couple of boxes that have unpleasant surprises from being in storage for so long lol. Well, I better get back to work while the house is quiet!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Snow Day!

This morning we woke up to a surprise- snow! This is the most I have ever seen it snow here in Texas, and I have lived here my entire life. We got at least 7 inches or so. We are really close to the record for here. The girls actually had to go to school today but luckily they got out an hour early. Tomorrow school is closed so we will have to see how we will spend the day :-) I know this doesn't even come close to the amount you folks up north see but for us it's pretty darn amazing...
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The view out our front door this afternoon.

The view out the back door this afternoon.


Our house around lunch time today.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Back on Track

Whew! I feel like I need to knock some cobwebs off of this blog, it's been so long since I've posted an update! Where should I begin? (I can be really corny and bust out into a very well known Sound of Music song here but I will refrain...)

Back in December we FINALLY sold our home in Abilene. We were really bummed to let it go but it was for a good cause. You see, we could not get a place of our own in DFW until we sold the one we owned in Abilene. We have actually been staying my husband's wonderfully AWESOME parents (Yes, I love them to pieces and am not being sarcastic, unlike so many out there who LOATH their inlaws, many times for good reasons.) since we moved from Del Rio so Tom could work in DFW.

While we all get along wonderfully and have helped each other out in so many ways, we knew it was time to focus on a new chapter in our life and get a place of our own. Up until now, Tom was driving 1 1/2 hours one way to and from work. When gas prices were sky high, that hurt. On top of that, he's not a fan of driving, so his stress level was pretty high. To top it off, while staying there, our family of 5 grew to be a family of 7, so things got pretty cramped. So, after selling our home, we immediately began the search for a place to rent close to Tom's work.

Now, many people ask us, "Why don't you buy instead of rent?"

I wish we could buy, but we can't right now. We really need to save up some money and take care of a few things. Well, we could buy SOMETHING. But we don't want to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on just SOMETHING. If we are going to invest our money in something that costs so much, it's going to be our dream house.

Unfortunately we had to take a break from looking for a couple weeks in January while Tom was in Chicago for work. When he got back though, we started our search again. While looking for homes, we came across a few hurdles, the biggest one being the amount of scams out there (There are one or two in particular that I will go into detail about but that will be another post some time later, I have a bone to pick with Quest Property Services.) so that took up a lot of our time. Luckily I worked with a wonderful agent, Debbie Holt, with Re/Max Masters in Grapevine. She helped us out with our search and we finally found a 4 bed 2 bath home in Fort Worth. Once I get a chance to take pics, I will upload them.

Another big change is we enrolled the girls in public school when we moved. I know that some may think that I'm crazy for having them in public school and others may think I was nuts for homeschooling but either way, we decided that this is what's best for them. We enjoyed our homeschooling adventure and may homeschool again in the future. I don't feel too bad about it because the schools that they go to now are excellent and so far the girls love it. They come home every day and tell me all about their day and look forward to going. I'm sure it is just the excitement of a new school but I will enjoy it while it lasts :-)

Well, I guess that's the majority of what's happening right now. Once things settle down a bit I hope to post a little more.

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