Prepping the Floor

Our installation crew will arrive on Friday, July 5th to install our laminate hardwood floor.  I cannot wait!!  Today Andy and I went to Lumber Liquidators to pick up our flooring so that it can acclimate to the house.  We pulled up the carpet and tack strips in the office/scrapbook room so that we could store the flooring.  We will still need to pull up the carpet in the media room and living room before Friday.


So excited!

Andy working hard to get the tack strips up!

No more carpet!

Maddie was not excited about leaving the house as much as we were.  She decided that if she sat in Andy's lap then he would not leave again.  She's so silly!

Love them both!

Garage Sale & Officially Living in Katy

Thursday morning I headed back to Tarkington to finish up the preparations for the garage sale on Friday.  I am so tired of sweating at this point.  I feel like sweat is my middle name.  I guess I have Texas weather to blame that one on.  Thursday night I went to Pueblo with Tamara and her kiddos.  We closed the place down, literally.  I think we were one of the last tables to leave.  We had a blast!!  I will miss her, but I will definitely look forward to visiting her when we are in the Tarkington-area.

Andy stayed in Katy on Thursday because our internet and TV people were supposed to show up.  Supposedly, we were the first afternoon appointment, but the technician didn't show up until 3:00pm.  We have to use a company that provides for the entire subdivision, and they do everything - internet, TV, security, phone, etc.  It's mandatory unless you opt out of it for a hefty fee.  We are only using the internet, tv, and security because that's the basic set-up allowed.

I had a miserable night's sleep on Thursday thanks to the guy that lives next to Andy's dad's barn.  We have been sleeping in the camper at night and crashing Andy's parents' house during the day.  Well, I decided to head to the camper by myself that night since Andy stayed in Katy.  The neighbor has his own roping arena and apparently he was having a roping the next night so he was out and about until 2:45am.  He has several dogs and they barked the entire time since the horses and cattle were riled up.  Then around 3:30am I heard some noise outside the camper.  Thankfully it was just a dog trying to get in the trash can, but I definitely walked out of the camper with my gun in hand just in case.

Friday morning I was up at 5:45am to get ready for the garage sale that day.  Andy drove in and arrived around 6:45.  Our friend Brandon Sladek showed up around 7:00 and stayed all day with us.  Andy and Brandon were such troopers.  I don't know if Andy has ever stayed for a garage sale before.  We worried about not making enough money since school was out for the summer. Andy's parents' live on the school road like we used so the school traffic during the school year makes it an excellent location for a garage sale.  We still made quite a bit of money since we were selling some large items like a BBQ pit, patio furniture, basketball goal, etc.  We really just wanted enough money to buy a new gas grill for the patio at the new house, and we exceeded that amount.  Yay!!

We spent the night in Tarkington Friday night and loaded up our vehicles plus the trailer with more of our things.  Saturday we were officially off to Katy for good.  It was an emotional time for Andy's parents and tears were definitely shed.  It will be weird to not live close to any family. 

Here is Maddie Mae riding in the truck with Andy.  It was too hot to keep her in the kennel in the back of the truck, so she got to ride in the front seat!

Here is Maddie and Lonestar adjusting to the new house.  I don't think they are having any trouble!!

Katy, TX or Bust!

We are officially moved to Katy!  Well if you want to get technical, our address is Richmond, Texas.  However, we are closer to Katy than Richmond so we will claim Katy.  It's been crazy these past few days so I haven't had a chance to blog about anything.

We closed on the house last week Wednesday, June 26th.  The sellers have actually moved out and been living out of state, so they were not present at our closing.  The lady representing the title company we used was awesome!  We will definitely keep in touch with her.  It literally felt like we were signing our life away.  I did not take any pictures though.  While we were signing papers, Andy's parents headed to Katy with our trailer load of furniture and appliances.  Thankfully Doug met us later to help us unload the elliptical, refrigerator, and gun safe all of which are extremely heavy.  We had to take the front door off the hinges again in order to get the refrigerator in the house.  I knew we had a large refrigerator but apparently we have a HUGE one.  We got everything unloaded, thankfully.  Most of the furniture is still in the garage because we are waiting on Lumber Liquidators to install our flooring. 

Wednesday night was also our first night in the new home!  It was very quiet since Maddie and Lonestar stayed with Andy's parents.  Andy left the next morning to get coffee, and I did not hear his truck when he pulled into the driveway.  Very weird!  I am sure Maddie will still be able to tell when he's coming up the road.

Here are some pics of us outside the house...

Loan Drama

Ugh!  Buying a home is not easy, especially when you have to take out a loan in today's economy.  Today has been very frustrating because the closing costs on our new home are going to be about $1800 more than what we thought.  Our loan officer failed to tell us that they were making us pay an additional six months worth of taxes on top of what we would have considered reasonable.  Unfortunately though after talking to our realtor's loan officer, this is a normal occurrence or at least it can be.  I know $1800 may not sound like a lot in the grand scheme of closing costs, but it is for us because that $1800 was going to be used to buy new leather furniture for my new living room.  It looks like we will have to wait to make that purchase for a while. 

Bottom line, we are disappointed with our loan officer for not disclosing information that he had readily available to disclose.  He should not have waited until our closing costs statement to spring it on us.  What he didn't know was that I would notice and ask A LOT of questions.  This whole buying a house and loan thing is very new to me and new to Andy, so I don't know a lot of things.  But what I do know is how to ask questions.  We were supposed to close at 7:30 tomorrow morning, but that will now be pushed back to a time that I don't know yet.  I just pray that everything works out okay and in the end we can be satisfied homeowners again.

My rant is over.  Thank you for listening.  :)

Sold Our First Home

Friday we sold our first home.  Thursday night Andy and I went back to the house to finish up a few things, and of course we cried.  It was our first home and we built it.  Andy's dad really helped us out to get us a good starter home and we are forever grateful for him.  The new owners are very nice!  I think they will take of our the house just perfectly.

We had a lot of memories in the that house.  It's sad to go, but I know we will make new memories in our new home.  We've just been in that house for five and a half years so it's hard to imagine being somewhere else.  Right now, we are sleeping in the camper and hanging out at Andy's parents' house during the day.  We are so thankful for them all they do for us.  I know we are intruding on their space, but you will not hear them complain one bit and they have welcomed us with open arms.  I know they're family and they're supposed to be supportive, but they definitely go above and beyond.

Here are some pictures outside of our house.  I'm definitely going to miss it...

 

Here are some pictures of Lonestar and Maddie having to deal with life outside of the only home they've known.  They're being troopers!

This is the ledge up above the fireplace at
Andy's parents' house.  Lonestar loves being
up high so he can look down on us and see what's
going on.  I'm pretty sure this is his favorite spot!

Maddie attempting to claim a spot in the bed in the camper.  It
didn't last long; she was too squished by the pillows.

I Love to Read

I love to read.  Andy loves to read.  Andy and I didn't always love to read though.  I remember when I was in elementary school and junior high and we had to read books for book reports.  Gag me!  Those were horrible!  I could never pick a book that would hold my interest until the end.  Therefore, book reports were miserable for me.  I will never forget how my interest in reading got started.  My cousin Jocelyn used to babysit my brother and I over the summers, and I remember her reading a lot.  I remember being in her bedroom one day, and she had these Christopher Pike novels on her bookshelf.  I decided to look for them in the library at school.  Little did I know, mystery-suspense-thriller novels were exactly what I needed to spark my reading frenzy.

Andy and I really found an interest in Ted Dekker novels.  He is a Christian-fiction suspense author.  It's only fiction because the actual stories are not based on true events; however, his underlying Christian message hits home every time.  I have read probably 95% of his novels.  There is one series that I haven't read yet, and I am not sure I am going to.  Andy stopped reading fiction novels at some point and recently started reading autobiographies, self-help, and coaching strategies books.  He really likes reading about successful coaches and their life story of how they became so successful.  I have never really gotten into the autobiographies or into books where you learn something (like how to be a better teacher or x number of ways to control your spending or something like that).  I just like to read my thriller-suspense novels for enjoyment!!

On another note, I have read four books by Francine Rivers, one of which is my all-time favorite.  She is a Christian-fiction romance author.  A romance author is probably not correct because her books are nothing like real romance novels.  Redeeming Love is my all-time favorite book written by her.  I really believe every girl/woman should read that book because it is the picture perfect example of how a man should love a woman and how God really does love you.

Bottom line, reading to me is all about finding that type or style of book that sparks your interest.  Okay, I think I'm done with my reading rant.  I started reading my newest Ted Dekker novel on my Nook and felt the need to share my love for reading.  Here are some links for the two authors I mentioned above, in case you're interested.
Ted Dekker
Francine Rivers

Six Year Anniversary

Sunday we celebrated our six year anniversary.  It's crazy to think that we've been married for six years.  It seems like just yesterday we were planning a wedding and newlyweds.  We look forward to many more years together.  It's so crazy to think about all we've been through and experienced these past six years, and now to be uprooting our lives and moving to another city.  Our love will only get stronger as the years go on.

Unfortunately, we didn't do anything for our anniversary.  We were too busy packing.  It's okay though.  I keep telling myself that we will still have a couple of weeks before Andy goes back to work and work officially starts for both of us.

Us on our wedding day June 16, 2007

Four More Days

Four more days and we sell the first home we bought and lived in as a married couple.  We don't know exactly what to feel.  Every time we pull into the driveway we are saddened.  Every time we drive to Katy we are excited for the new adventure that awaits us.  I had always thought we would have at least one child in our first home.  God has different plans for us and all we can do is follow Him.

Friday and Saturday were major packing days for us.  Unfortunately, none of our friends seemed to be around when we need them to help us pack, but there are advantages to Andy being a coach.  A few of his cross country/basketball boys came to help us load and unload the U-Haul.  Two of them loaded the U-Haul in about an hour and three of them unloaded it in under an hour.  Quite impressed!  They probably did better than three full-grown men could have done.  Here are some pictures.

Andy with his cross country/basketball boys: Julio, Dustin, Caleb

The fun has just begun.

Dustin pushing Andy, Julio and Caleb.  I think
they had a good time despite working.

 

Saturday evening Andy's aunt Kellan invited us over for hot wings.  We had a great time!  Hopefully we'll still make all these get-togethers even when we're in Katy.

Me, Kellan and Andy

Mimi (Andy's grandmother) and I

Blanco curled up on the chair

New Flooring

We went to Lumber Liquidators on Monday to pick out and order our flooring for the new house.  Currently, there is carpet in the living room, bed rooms, media room, and formal dining room and tile every where else (bathrooms, kitchen, utility room, breakfast area).  We are changing out the carpet in the living room, media room, and formal dining to laminate hardwood.  It's extremely durable and recommended over true hardwood since we have a crazy dog!  This is what we picked out...

St. James  12mm Elk River Redwood Laminate
It actually has grooves throughout making it
feel handscraped even though handscraped is not in the title.

I am so excited to have new laminate hardwood floors!!  We've been talking about getting this type of flooring since we got Maddie.  I cannot wait until it's finally installed!!!

Here is the link for it online at Lumber Liquidators.  It actually has more of a red tint than what it looks like online, but it could just be my computer monitor.

Still Packing...

So, we are still packing up the house.  The first day we started packing we were ready to ball our eyes out because it seemed like we were getting no where.  It got better as we started seeing progress.  We have now hit another road block because we are just simply tired of packing.  I don't want to see another box nor use anymore newspaper to wrap up fragile items. 

As of today, we have probably 95% of our things inside the house packed up.  I am not counting the food because that will stay with us.  We have not packed up Andy's shop yet, but I think we are going to store most of those things in his dad's barn until we are ready for it in Katy.  Yesterday my dear friend Tamara and her son Presley came over to help us pack.  They were lifesavers!  We couldn't have tackled the kitchen, clothes, and the other odds and ends without them.  They were awesome! 

Tomorrow Dustin and Julio (two of Andy's previous cross country runners... they have both graduated now) are coming over to help us load the U-Haul truck with all of our boxes, electronics, and hopefully some furniture too.  Then they are going with us to Katy Saturday morning to unload all of it in the storage building until we are officially new residents of Katy, Texas.  I am definitely ready to be done with this whole moving thing, but I know God has it all worked out according to His plan so we will continue to pray and be patient.

Here are some pictures throughout the week...

Lonestar pooped out pretty quickly...

This room is now completely FULL, and
there are more boxes in another room.

My way of feeling accomplished.  Any cabinet,
closet, etc. gets an empty sticky when
everything's been packed.

I probably went a little overboard.

Lonestar and Maddie are both tired of us packing and are ready to be moved!!

 

This is a random side note to packing... We have been giving Andy's parents a hard time about their TV because it was 24" which is really small for their living room.  Well, really small for any living room, except maybe a camper.  It reminded me of an oversized computer monitor.  Anyway, Andy's mom decided to get his dad a new TV for Father's Day.  (It's the TV that I plan on getting us for the living room in the new house.)  This TV is freakin' awesome!!!  Seriously, it's unreal!  It has WiFi which means we can connect to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. via the TV.  The Facebook TV app is not very user friendly, but the YouTube app is fantastic.  You can connect the TV to an iPhone or iPad!  I mean, really!?!  So, we hooked up to the iPad, pulled up a video from YouTube on the iPad, and it played the video on the TV.  I mean, seriously!?!  Who can do that with a TV!?!  Technology is so amazing.  I sounded like a giddy school girl who just got her first kiss.  It's so cool!  I cannot wait until we have this TV or one like it.

Yep, that's the YouTube video that we found
on the iPad and it played on the TV.  WOW!!

 

Perfect Saturday

Yesterday was a really good day for both Andy and I.  It's nice to have those days that are just great all the way around.  Andy played in a golf scramble with some of his coaching buddies from Tarkington.  They ended up getting second place overall, but according to Andy they should have gotten first.  They boggied a hole that they should have parred, and so they tied with another team for first place instead of winning outright.  Andy and his buddies have played together in several tournaments and scrambles and this is the best they've done.  They were pretty pumped, and they had a blast!  Andy will have to continue playing scrambles with these guys even though we will live elsewhere.

While Andy was out golfing, I laid out in the backyard.  I know you're probably thinking "shouldn't you be packing?"  Well, I should have been, but yesterday was the first time I laid out this spring/summer.  That's extremely rare for me.  Usually by now I have a pretty nice tan going.  So, I desperately needed to get some color to my skin because I was looking pale white!!  After laying out, I decided to wash my car.  It probably hadn't been washed by me since the winter time.  I was finally tired of having all of those love bugs on the front.  I wonder if they'll let me wash my car in the driveway at my new house...  Subdivisions and HOAs tend to have rules about things like that.

No more bugs!!!

Andy got home mid-afternoon and I decided to wash his truck.  He helped me which made it much quicker considering his truck is much larger than my Equinox.  We didn't clean the inside of either vehicle because we keep them pretty clean inside.  

Maddie was happy to spend all afternoon outside!

Andy suggested going to either Kemah or Conroe for an evening out.  I'm all about not having to cook on the weekends, so I was excited to go out.  Plus, we figured it would probably be a while before we go out again since the next three weeks will be consumed with packing, closing on our house, closing on the house in Katy, moving and unpacking.  Anyway, we ended up in Conroe at Papas on the Lake.  It's an open air restaurant/bar.  The first time we went there was for Andy's ten year class reunion last year.  It's a pretty neat place; you can dress comfortably or nice.  We had a wonderful evening!!

Before we left the house... You know I like selfies!

At the restaurant

Packing Stinks

Andy and I thought we had plenty of time to get all of our things packed.  HA!  That plenty of time has now shrunk to a week.  I started packing up one room today, and I'm already tired of it.  I do know we will need a ton more boxes, that's for sure.  Our goal is to be out of our home - our first home - by next weekend.  Then we will have a few days to clean up our house and do any touch ups that are needed.  According to all of our closing dates, we will be homeless for about two weeks.  I am still not 100% exactly where we will be staying, either in the camper or with Andy's parents.  I'm leaving those decisions up to Andy to figure out.

We are going to store all of our boxes, electronics, and anything that needs to be stored in a cooler climate in a climate-controlled storage building in Katy.  Our furniture we are storing on a trailer and backing it into a family friend's garage at his weekend home.  We were trying to keep from having to load and unload everything twice.  We had thought about renting one of those PODS, but they were too expensive for our budget.  I just keep praying that everything continues to work out and that this transition goes smoothly.

Monday we are going to visit the Property Owner's Association and get all of the information we need about the annual dues and building a new fence.  We are getting a sellers assist from the owners to replace the fence on the new home.  It's currently in bad shape.  The bottom of the fence has gaps between it and the ground and it's very "shaky."  We're afraid Maddie could simply jump on it and knock it over.  We also have to talk to the representative from Entouch.  Our community has a bundled package for Internet, cable tv, security, phone, etc.  Unfortunately, we have to use their services until 2017.  We're really sad to be losing our satellite, but it'll be fine.

We are also going to Lumber Liquidators to pick out our new flooring for the living room, formal dining which we are converting into the office/scrapbook room, and the media room.  We may even stop by Rooms-to-Go to look at new leather furniture for the living room.  We also need to buy a new mattress for our bed.  Hopefully, we will be able to make these purchases with the money leftover from the sale of our home.

House Update

As of this evening a few hours ago, we have a contract on the house in Katy!  Very excited!!  It's nice to see "option pending" next the house on har.com.  We had a potential hiccup in the selling of our house, but everything has worked itself out so we are still on track to close on June 21st.  Tomorrow we meet with the inspectors for the new house, and I will also take several more pictures and measure things for our furniture.  If everything goes according to plan, we should close on the new house June 26th.  The sellers requested for a two-day lease back period.  So we won't officially get into the house until the 28th, which is fine.  I have tried to contact the property owners association twice now to ask about putting in a new fence, but I have not succeeded in talking to anyone.  Hopefully, I'll have better luck tomorrow.  Let's see... what else is there?  We closed our bank account with First Bank and Trust in Cleveland today and are now bankers at Chase Bank.  We're pretty excited about that especially with all the cool technology advances that Chase offers.  I will be sure to post pictures of the new house after I take more pictures tomorrow.  Then Andy and I will have to start serious packing.  I am not ready to pack, but I know I cannot put it off until the last minute.

Last Day at Tarkington

Today was our last day at Tarkington.  We got all ten of my boxes loaded in my car.  I cried.  Andy stayed strong.  We are so excited to be moving on to greater and better things, but we really are going to miss our colleagues.  The people we have worked with for the last five to seven years.  The people that truly care about us and our well-being.  It's going to be very different to not know everyone we work with.  It's going to be different to not know pretty much every student in the school.  Andy doesn't really get nervous or scared, but I on the other hand am very scared and nervous.  I probably make up for the both of us.

To Tamara, Coach Mac, Tim, Kelly, Tom, Renee, Coach Tooley, Coach Sladek, Donna, Susie, Jessiene, Shelley, Ms. Chesson, Robin, Mrs. Gilbert, Denise, Coach Larned, Mrs. Mills, Heather, Sue, Dorothy, Mrs. Judy...

     Thank you.  You have touched our lives during our tenure with THS, and we could never replace you.  You hold a special place in our heart, and we will miss you greatly.  You have invested your time and energy into both of us, and we have learned something from each one of you.  Your dedication to the students and staff at Tarkington High School is above and beyond.  We admire each one of you, and thank you for your support throughout the years.  We wish you the best and know that we will never forget you.

My room all packed up minus a few things.

Andy and I before Graduation

Kelly and I
She's the first teacher I teamed with in Algebra 1.

Tamara and I
She's the teacher I have been working
with in Algebra 1 for the past two years.
She is an amazing teacher and an
inspiration to me.  Teaching without
her will not be the same.

Some of the teachers we have worked with over the years.

Andy's collection of trophies from his success as a
cross country, basketball, and golf coach at THS.