The Plan

The plan for the house is coming together quite quickly. As of now, our goal is to have everything packed and moved into trailers (thanks to Phil Hahn Auctioneers :) ) by Tuesday. Yes, I did say Tuesday as in July 1st. We close that day and then will be gone July 2-6. When we get back on the 7th, our new house should be empty because they will move in to this house while we're on vacation. So, we'll move in to our new house the week of the 7th! It sounds confusing, but I think it will work. The only part I'm not super excited about is having everything we own sitting around in trailers for a week. But, I'm sure everything will be fine. And the house we move into will be empty, which is great because we'll get to clean before moving in! So today we start packing. Here's what we have done so far....

...ok so all these boxes are just from the kitchen. Who knew that we could fit so many things in such a small space? Mom and I worked for about 4 1/2 hours on one room. I hope the other ones don't take as long! But, Matt and I will both be home during the day (yeah..summer school's done!) so I think we'll be able to get all we own packed and loaded within a week! :) And mom and Cathy have both volunteered their time to pack tomorrow. Thanks ladies!

Week in Review

Matt has returned! :) I tried to stay busy with teaching summer school (2 more days, YIPEE!), visiting friends, cleaning the house, shopping with mom, reading, and watching softball. And the week actually went by pretty quickly. I was glad to see Matt come home though. :)


Here is a picture of Matt and the kids in his group. He said the weather was cold, the water was frigid, and the bugs were bad. But everyone still managed to have a good time.

The fishing was not as good as it had been in the past, but he still managed to catch this whopper! :)

There was a moose and her calf that they could get relatively close too to take pictures of. Matt said that the moose didn't seem bothered by them, but they also didn't want to push their luck and get too close! :)

Things are moving along on the house, the appraiser came by last Thursday, and all the financial stuff is getting in order. So we're trying to figure out a moving/closing date that will be beneficial for both of us since we have to move at the same time. Don't worry though, when we get a moving date, we will let you all know!! :)

We're moving!!! (TAKE 2)

Ok, the last situation may have been fast, but this one's just strange! :) After our first buyers backed out, the people who are selling their house to us, decided they wanted to look at our house. Hmmm....strange. So they wanted to look at it on Saturday (when we were camping) and it was no where near ready. We said no can do. Well, they wouldn't be able to look at it all this week they said. But then, a few days later we got a call saying they rearranged their schedules to look at the house Tuesday afternoon. The realtor said they really liked it, but wanted a few people to come out and look at the roof and furnace. Then today, we got an offer from the couple, we countered them, and they accepted! So it looks like we are going to trade houses! It's hard to get too excited after what happend with the last buyer, but these people are much more motivated to buy because it really helps them out too. Our closing date is July 11 and we're still waiting on loan approvals from them, but no inspections have been ordered. PHEW! :)

We could use some prayers that everything goes smoothly and we actually get to the closing date this time. Also, John, about those boxes.... :)

The Great Outdoors

Matt and I spent the beautiful weekend enjoying the great outdoors camping at Chain-o-Lakes. It's so nice to get away from work and technology for the weekend and you can't forget about all the great food. We definitely eat well (and a lot!) We had a wonderful time enjoying the campground and the company. We went with Amos, Jess, Grace, Tyler, and Jenn. It was Tyler's first camping trip and I think he liked it. He especially liked the sticks! :) Here are some pictures:

The crew after our yummy Saturday evening meal.

The girls

Jess and Tyler
You gotta be quick to catch a picture of Grace! :)

Make a Joyful Noise?!?!

Alright, I've taken a few days to blog about this because I couldn't get my mind wrapped around the "making a joyful noise" part! :) As many of you know, our buyer backed out of his contract with us to buy our house citing that the roof and furnace are too old and may need replaced soon. So our house is back on the market, we are not moving at the end of June, and we have to go through the cleaning process again to show our house. Not much there to make a joyful noise about and so I've been a bear to be around for the past few days, mostly complaining about all these things and being mad. :) Sounds fun, huh?
Today, I think I'm rounding the corner enough to consider the positives of this set back:
1. I will not have to pack up the whole house while Matt is away on Boundary Waters.
2. We still have our contract on the new house (extended for 45 more days).
3. We had a showing today, so hopefully people are still interested in looking at the house.
4. Matt is the complete opposite of me in this situation, trying to help me be positive and make me laugh (even though I've still been mad about it!) :)
So, I know God has a plan for us and this whole situation that will be even better than our original plan. I just hope that we'll get to see it soon! :)

S-U-M-M-E-R!

It's that time of year again that I absolutely LOVE! Summer!! I've always loved this season the most. Of course it helps that I don't have to work, but I love being able to be outside, go camping, have bonfires, go to the lake, have the windows open, and wear tank tops and flip-flops. Lots of people complain that it's too hot or too humid. But I don't really mind because after being cold for so long, it's nice to be hot for awhile! :)

It was so wonderful to be able to spend Memorial Day weekend with friends (the start of the summer season!!). Since Matt was gone all weekend catching "monstrous fish", friends were so hospitable in inviting me to go out on the boat, cookout, scrap, play games, and hang out. The weather was finally decent enough to be outside and it is so nice to hang out with such wonderful people: John, Jessica, Greyson, Amos, Jess, Grace, Tyler, Jenn, Scott, and Melanie.

What's your favorite summer activity?

We're moving!!!

well...barring any unforseen problems, anyway! :) Our counter offer was accepted today! So they need to get an inspection and appraisal on the house in the next two weeks. As long as both come back ok, then we're good to go! We've set the closing date for June 23rd and then we have 7 days to move out of this house and into our new house!! How exciting! It doesn't really seem real yet. I'm sure it will once we start packing though. God is good. Things have moved along quickly and it's been hectic, but we are super excited!

Look for an invite to a cookout later this summer!! :)

DUH moment

Have you ever just had a "duh" moment? (And you better all say yes! :) ) There are times when things just aren't as clear as you'd like them to be and you say or do something that isn't the smartest! :) Well, I had a duh moment yesterday.

We got a call from our adoption counselor that said our letter was received by one birthparent for the month of April. Whoopee! One WHOLE person in the WHOLE month! :) Not that we were that surprised because that's been about the average over the last 6 months. So I finally printed off the papers we'd need to complete to change our adoption profile to include children of races other than Caucasian. And after I printed it out, I thought and prayed...is this really what we should do? Am I just getting impatient?? And I thought of the verses I have been reading in the Gospels, "Oh ye of little faith..." And I thought, "DUH!" Do I really think that God would give us something we couldn't handle? He has the perfect child for us, have we been holding back because we didn't have faith enough for Him to choose the child for us? Yes.

So we took the leap, filled out the papers, and sent them in. Why did it take us 6 months to figure it out? Maybe we weren't ready, maybe our birthmother wasn't ready...who knows? But I just keep thinking, "duh, Alicia." It seems so obvious now, but I guess I just wasn't ready to see it before. So, not that I miraculously expect to get a child next week, but I do feel a lot better about trying to trust God to choose our child, instead of us trying to limit His power to do so! :)

What's your latest "duh moment?" :)

Appreciate Mom, Home, and the Cubs!

OK, just a warning that this will probably be a lengthy post as a lot has happened recently :) So start with the appreciation part of my title. This last week at school was Teacher Appreciation Week and with all of the nastiness of trying to negotiate a contract (for the school year that is basically over), it was nice to take a moment to let others know that we notice they do a good job. That is just what happend to Matt at school on Friday. The middle school kids took a survey where they were supposed to nominate teachers for certain things (smartest, nicest, etc.). Here is a picture of what he won:
If you can't tell, that is Matt in cake form with a tiki glass. He was nominated as the teacher to most likely win Survivor! :) It was so cute and I know someone took A LOT of time making that cake for him! So thank you to the anonymous person! It was very creative.

Secondly on to the mom part of the title. Today is, of course, Mother's Day. And we had my mom and dad over for lunch and an afternoon of playing cards and watching tv. It was very yucky outside (cold and rainy), but we still had a nice afternoon catching up and celebrating my wonderful mom! :) Matt's parents were in Michigan with the boat. I hope it was nicer there than it was here!

Third, the house is showing quite a bit. We've had 5 showings over the past few weeks. One family has even come back again and has asked more detailed questions about the house. But as of now, we haven't had any offers yet. We're not getting too worried because we have until the beginning of June to sell, but it would be nice to be sold before then! :)

Lastly, the Cubs! I went to my first Cubs game yesterday with some teacher's from Matt's school (and John and Jessica who bought the last 2 extra tickets). We had a great time. It was SUPER cold. I had on 3 layers and was still cold. Next time, I would definitely bring a blanket to keep warm. It was still fun though, watching the game and all the people. And you can't beat ballpark food (even though it is expensive!!) :) And it made it even better that the Cubs won! We took a Cardinal bus up to Chicago so we didn't have to worry about driving or parking in Chicago. That was nice. And I never realized how nice a warm shower feels after being cold all day! :)

Update on house/dog

Well, we did it. After 3 full days of continuous work, cleaning, organizing, throwing out, etc. we are completely exhausted! But we are living in the cleanest house we've ever been in! We had a showing last evening and it sounded like it went pretty well, but the family doesn't know if it's the right house for them. I just looked up our listing on the hahn website and it is totally weird to see your house listed for sale with pictures and everything! :) So, I guess for now, we just wait (something that we've become quite good at lately :)).
Logan seems to be doing ok. He is SO determined to lick his leg that we've ended up putting 2 different cones on him plus an extension (made out of a Rice Krispie box) :) to deter him. He pretty much has to have the cones on at all times and cannot be left alone or he tries to lick it. It's becoming quite difficult to be patient with him because he is so much work and you can only yell, "NO LOGAN!" so many times before you start to get frustrated. He is healing, which I am grateful for, and he is using his leg more. So, hopefully everything will heal quickly and this will all be a memory!