Constructive during the day?

Not so constructive today. In fact, I was doing some destruction...I took down most of the cabinets in the kitchen so that I can start removing the soffits. I cut holes in the soffits yesterday and today to make sure that we didn't have any duct work. There is some wiring that John can route elsewhere (conduit is not used out here...bummer...but nice in this instance).

There is also some sort of vent in the corner that we will frame around and put a corner kitchen cabinet there to hide it.

So....hopefully tomorrow I can take down the soffits. The framers are finishing up framing Julia's room tonight. Monday they will be in to sheet rock it (and finish off the kitchen soffit area that doesn't have sheet rock)...and John's garage.

Julia's room and painting the house

The contractors are coming today to start framing Julia's room!

The painters are coming in the next couple of days to start working on the trim. The wood trim is in very bad shape. We have decided to go ahead and paint the trim and doors. I am really looking forward to the crisp white trim look! I still have to figure out main colors (especially in the front living room). I think the painters will be busy with the trim for a couple of days. Hopefully this weekend we can nail down colors.

I can't wait to finish the painting...then we can get our stuff delivered! While making dinner last night, I realized I didn't have a can opener. Sweet John ran out and bought one; he found on clearance. It broke after opening 3 of the 6 cans I needed. We improvised. I need to find another can opener today....before the contractors come sometime this afternoon or evening.

More updates on our temp living situation

We are thinking of renting a small U-Haul truck and loading our "stuff" into it that night and drive it over to the house and park it. We will see if we can stay one more night and be out by 8:30 a.m. (Jaley and Kerst start school at 9:00) on Thursday. I'll then head over to the closing. If we can't stay over one more night we can always go to a hotel. Our stuff will be in a U-Haul (I'm sure we can padlock it). That is the wild plan so far. We will talk to temp housing on Monday (if they are open...it is a holiday).

I'm afraid if we throw the idea of renting the house for a couple of days at at the bank, it will cause more paperwork and delay the process...I want to stay very clear of this bank. Apparently it is one of the worst to work with when it comes to short sales. They are very secretive and drag their feet. That is the consensus of several realtors that our realtor has talked to.

More updates on temp housing...inspection done too!

We will see if we can stay one more night in temp housing. The cleaners have to come in on Thursday to clean the apartment. We could easily be out before 9:00 (when Jaley and Kerst go to school). The BIG issue is what to do with all of our stuff. We don't have much, but we do have stuff. We can't move our belongings over until after the closing. Hopefully the temp living will allow us to keep our belongings in the garage until after the closing.

We are super excited. We had the home inspection today. The inspector didn't find much wrong with the home. Just some maintenance that needed to be done (gutter downspouts into the ground might be clogged; take care of that in the spring), filter in the furnace. We have to figure out how to get the master bedroom fireplace to work. We'll figure that out...

He said we are getting a great deal. I agree!

Another update on our closing and temporary housing issues

We found out from temp living that we can't stay past the 19th. I hope we can dump our stuff off at the new house (in the garage; piano in the house) for a day or so until we close. For some reason I am thinking they want to close on Wednesday. We will be homeless for a little bit. If we do get the house, we will be furniture-less for a short time if we do hold off until we paint. Who knows.

I was hoping to close on the house on Wednesday but with the holiday on Monday, it has been moved to Thursday.

Our temp housing ends on Tuesday but the girl is letting us stay Tuesday night into Wednesday for free since she had originally promised us that we could have the place until Friday and then rent weekly. Someone else has been slotted for the apartment.

Finally an A-OK on our offer from the bank!

I just found out the bank wants to close next week! No date yet. We will find out soon!!!

CO Update

We heard back from the bank that they are set to go with the closing on the house...we just have to wait for the seller to meet the demands of the bank (whatever they are). I guess any renegotiating is done between the seller and the bank since we already negotiated with the seller.

We are expecting to hear back from our realtor (our realtor will hear from the seller's realtor who will hear from the seller...crazy...) when the "demands" will be met. Once that is done, things should move quickly.

Yahoo! We are still wait and find out...

Today is a great day...from Kerst

I woke Kerst up on Friday and he told me "Today is a great day". I knew it was because he was having his birthday recognized at school.

I told him I knew it would be a great day for him too. He then told me that today was a great day for me too. I looked at him puzzled wondering what he thought would make a great day for me; he tends to not notice too much going on around him if it doesn't directly involve him. He then told me that it was a great day because this was my date day with Daddy.

He was right; he noticed and remembered! It was John's day off of work. I love his schedule here! He gets every other Friday off. It has been really nice.

Yelling Kendall

Yes, Kendall is our quiet one. He still doesn't talk much, if at all.

He has figured out how to yell. In sign language that is! His sign for drink/thirsty is the sign for milk (as if you are milking a cow, opening and closing your hand in that action). When he is thirsty, really thirsty, he will come up to you and sign "milk" RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. If you don't respond right away, or if he is really thirsty, he will do both hands right in front of your eyes.

It is so funny!