house is sold. garage sale is done, lots of our stuff is thankfully now gone. other big furniture things have been sold on craigslist. rental home lease has been signed and faxed in. movers have come to give us their estimate. one-way airplane tickets to lax have been booked.   *** with everything else going on, i almost didn’t realize that a certain monthly visitor hadn’t shown up in a while…  and now guess what?   we’ve got a little stowaway coming with us next month to california!   

phil finally got a weekend off!  kind of.  he got this past thursday and friday off, which we considered to be his weekend.  it’s been a long time coming- he hasn’t had a full weekend off since the end of january! it was great to be all together.  thursday evening, we went out to have dinner at a & w drive-in.  hey, it works with small kids!    mikey took his time perusing the menu choices.   food’s on!   we spent friday just lounging around the house.  it was beautiful out, so phil grilled brats and hot dogs for our dinner.  meanwhile, mikey, allie, and i kicked back on…

mikey’s been singing the “happy birthday” song for weeks in preparation of his big day.  and yesterday was finally his turn.  hard to believe my little guy is now three years old!  to celebrate, we threw him a ‘cars’ party at the eagles nest (an indoor playground) with all his best buds there. we got him ready the night before by getting him a much-needed haircut. before                                                                             after        mikey and jenna leading the way to the party room.  the holding of hands was their idea!   let’s get this party started!   cute lil party animals.         will, mikey, and jenna chowing down on sandwiches, chips, and…

  well, almost. the buyers wanted a third showing this evening and then we got an offer right afterward.  we were all happily surprised by the offer since my dad, our realtor, phil, and i all thought we’d get a really low-ball offer.  it ended up being only $4k less than the asking price, and because they had a strong offer (28% down, already have the mortgage loan approved for the rest, and very few contingincies), my dad (who owns the home) said to go for it. yahooooo!!!  and God really is in the details because the closing date is three days after we leave!  so, no scrambling to find a…

would be this afternoon’s showing.  showing number eleven.  this one was scheduled to be right in the middle of the kids’ naps.  great. the whole procedure has become more than a little old and with each subsequent showing, the place gets progressively less *spotlessly* clean.  can ya blame me?!  thankfully, phil was home this afternoon (started emergency dept and has a lot of evening/night shifts) so he took the kids outside while i ran around cleaning up, putting away, turning on lights, opening doors.  when i was done, i asked him what he thought.  phil replied, “it’s okay.”    i asked again.  he upgraded to, “it’s pretty good.  but i can see a little dirt around.”    i…