The Past Few Months...

Yes, yes I know!  It's been a rather long time since I've updated everyone on our lives in Connecticut.  I'm really not that good at this whole blogging thing.  I forget about it and then, when I remember the blog and plan to write something, I never do.  So this entry may be a bit long and possibly filled with pictures...

So let's start near the beginning...

This is Chuck's "first day of work" picture :)  This is while we were still in the hotel, of course.  Chuck has been enjoying work and learning a bunch!  The drive isn't that great though...takes him about 30 mins to get to work and longer if traffic is really bad.

This is "move-in day"!!  Our stuff took up about two thirds of that truck and the guys were mighty sweaty after unloading all of it.  As you can probably tell, we live on a hill...so hopefully this winter we won't have too much trouble driving up it...hopefully.

And this is were they unloaded the majority of our belongings.  We were still waiting on new carpet for the bedrooms and the basement so we tried to keep those areas as empty as possible.  The previous owners had pets and you could definitely tell from the carpet.  I spent a little less than two weeks painting the bedrooms, basement and the trim before the carpet arrived.  I was actually surprised how quickly I got it all done.  It looks soooooo much better now than when we first moved in!  And once the carpet arrived we started unpacking. 

This is our room.  Originally, I painted the room yellow...then, once I had emptied the can of paint, I started to freak out!  It was really yellow!!  So I decided to go back to the dull, boring, and comfortable tan :)  I think it will look much better once we hang curtains and things on the walls.  And the Sugar's bed also adds a little something to the space...

The guest bedroom is painted a purple-ish color and the other room is green.  It looks way better than the bright turquoise that was in the rooms before!  Believe me!!!

I've also gotten all three of the bathrooms painted!  The one I was dreading the most was the basement bathroom...you couldn't pay me to even walk in there!!  Which is why I had Chuck's mom clean it for me (LOVE HER!!).  No joke, she walked in and said (as if it were nothing) "Oh yeah, that's pee all over the wall..."  That just blew my mind (obviously, I don't have children) because the kids that did live here were older.  And the fact that it went uncleaned....okay, I'm getting grossed out all over again! But my mother-in-law did a great job cleaning it up!  I was able to get it all painted and now I am no longer afraid of that area of the house :)  

So I had Chuck's mom cleaned the bathroom...and I forgot to mention that she had a boot on one foot from surgery a few weeks ago...and a broken toe on the other foot (man, I'm a horrible daughter-in-law).  Chuck's parents and grandma came to visit for two weeks earlier this month.  It was really great having them here.  Not only did they help with a lot of projects around the house but they were great company.  It tends to get a tad lonely around here during the day because I don't have a car so I'm pretty much just stuck at home with Sugar to converse with (and let's face it, I love her to death but she has major social issues).  So I was pretty bummed to see them leave.  But, they're coming back in October for Family Day at Sikorsky to tour Chuck's job site.  

Here's Chuck and his dad building a hardcore work bench for the garage!

And the finished product!  Chuck quickly filled it with all kinds of garage stuff...

Our box pile is now down to this...still a lot of boxes but many of them are partially empty.  I still have to paint the living/dining room area which will be a ton of fun...high ceilings.  But it's going to look great once we're finished with it!  

And I have to put at least one picture of Sugar in this post :)  She loves our hydrangea bush!  On hot days, she will bury herself in it to avoid the sun.  The other day she found a toy down there (I'm guessing from the previous owners) which made her very happy :)  

And I think that should pretty much bring you up to speed on our lives lately.  Who knows when my next post will be...I'm obviously not consistent.  But I will try harder not to forget about it :)  

Finally!

Well, it's been about a month since I've posted last...not a whole lot has happened but the stuff that has happened have been big.

First of all, today we will be closing on our house in Connecticut!!!  We are super excited about it and are ready to get out of this stinking hotel!!  Chuck's company has been gracious enough to extend our time in the hotel to Saturday (which is when our furniture will be delivered) that way we won't have to sleep on the floor for three nights :)  Time in the hotel has been a little frustrating but it has gone by a lot quicker than I thought it would originally.  The past few days have been filled with phone calls and faxes while we tried to get every last piece together for the closing today.  But it's finally all together and around 4:00pm today we will be homeowners!...again...

The house in Lafayette has been kind of a headache... As you may remember we had an offer after five days of originally putting it on the market and then the potential buyer got cold feet after the home inspection...  So we put it back on the market and two weeks later we had another offer...but it was contingent on her selling her current house.  Well, she ended up getting an offer and we set a closing day for our house at the beginning of July... but then, the offer on her house fell through.  So Chuck and I decided rather than letting her have first dibs and waiting until she got another offer, we would just drop her and put it back on the market...that way if she ended up getting another offer she could just put another on ours, but that hasn't happened yet.  So our house is back on the market, still getting showings but no bites yet.  I think our realtor is planning on having another open house some time soon so, hopefully, something will happen then.

And the final big thing that has happened this month is that we had our second miscarriage.  We had our first doctor appointment the week before we left Lafayette, when I was at 8 1/2 weeks, and everything looked fine.  Then I started to worry a little because about 4 days later I stopped "feeling" pregnant.  It wasn't until we had reached Connecticut and had been here for about four days that the whole miscarriage process began...and it lasted twenty days.  It was really hard for me at first but it quickly turned in to something that just really made me angry.  I wasn't angry at God, I was more angry that it was taking so long and that I was in so much pain.  We've had a lot of support through this whole thing, though.  There were a couple weeks where I think the front desk was getting tired of signing for packages for us.  Everything was very encouraging, just knowing that even though we were far away people were still thinking of us and praying for us.  I'm feeling a lot better now (besides the fact that I'm still stuck in the hotel).

And Chuck is doing well too.  He's enjoying his job and learning a lot everyday.  I think he's felt a little stressed lately with having to get everything together for closing.  But we're almost there!!  He's ready to get out of here too...we're just tired of having to look at each other all the time...we need some walls!!! :)

And Sugar's doing well too :)  I think she's ready to get out of the hotel as well because, lately, she has started faking having to go to the bathroom just so she can go outside...

And that's it for us!  Next post will probably be of painted rooms and new flooring :) Can't wait!!!

CT or Bust!

Ok maybe I'll settle for a post once a month :)

We are all moved out of our Lafayette house!  And Chuck starts his new job on Monday!

The movers showed up at our house bright and early Monday morning to pack us all up.  It took them about ten hours to complete the job but it's done.  Kevin, Kevin and Norm were very friendly and nice and we had some nice conversations with them while they packed out junk :)  And I am so glad that they were the ones that packed our things because if I had to do it, I probably would have had a couple of break downs during the process!

After the movers left, Chuck and I headed to the softball fields for him to play his last softball game in Lafayette.  He had a really good time playing and I had a good time socializing/cheering him on :)  They ended up loosing by a run but that didn't stop us from doing one last victory lap around the parking lot in the corvette to wave goodbye to our friends :)  Then, we headed home to spend one last night in our room...on the ever-so-comfortable air mattress...

Yesterday was spent cleaning up the house and the garage and loading up the remaining car parts to haul up to Chuck's parent's house.  And before we left, we had to take one last picture in front of the old house :)

Then we drove to my parent's house to spend the next couple days with them...and to pick up our Sugar :)  Next, we will head up to Chuck's parent's and drop off the car parts and the corvette and spend some time with his family before driving out to Connecticut on Saturday.  It's a twelve hour drive from his parent's house and we are going to split it up into two days so Sugar won't have to be in the truck too long.

We will be living in temporary housing for a month before we move into our new house.  I'm not going to have a car so I'm not really looking forward to this but hopefully the time will go by fast.

As for our house in Lafayette, we got an offer on it a couple weeks ago and we accepted it but the offer is dependent upon them selling their current house.  So we can still accept other offers.  Hopefully, something will happen soon.

Well, I think that's about it.  You should now be all caught up on our lives.

Ohhh yeah!  And I'm ten weeks pregnant...never a dull moment around here :)

Things change fast!

Another update!

On Friday night we put an offer on the house with the deep garage!  And when we got off the plane in Lafayette on Saturday we had a text from our realtor saying that the owners accepted the offer!  We were shocked!  The owners were planning on having an open house on Sunday, so we were certain that they would send us a counter offer and wait until the open house was over to see if they got any other offers.  But, obviously, we were wrong :)

Also, on Thursday afternoon we received a call from our realtor in Lafayette saying that the people who were going to buy our house wanted out.  We were very confused.  We had just responded to their requests from the inspector's report and we were willing to fix all of the major things that were wrong with the house.  They never negotiated or anything.  They just wanted out.  But we weren't willing to give up.  So they forfeited their earnest money.  We think they may have been first-time home buyers and just got cold feet.  So we are back at the beginning with selling our house.  We are planning on having an open house this coming Sunday so hopefully we will get some good feedback from that.

So we have two houses now!

I'll try to keep you up to date :)

House Hunting!

Ugh...I'm already failing at this blogging thing!  I wanted to update at least once a week and, obviously, I haven't been doing that :(

So time to catch up!!

Chuck and I are in Connecticut!  Not permanently yet...just trying to find a house...

We flew in to Hartford Sunday evening and arrived at our hotel around 11 that night.  We met with our realtor Monday morning and started looking at houses.  That day we looked at three of them.  And the third house was our favorite of the day.  The house is perched up on a hill overlooking the rest of the neighborhood.  It's in a very nice part of town and the layout of the house was very open with vaulted ceilings.  And we would have beach rights :)  BUT what we didn't like was that the driveway was incredibly steep and would be very scary in the winter.  The current owner also has a lot of pets...and you could definitely tell.  The owner is planning on replacing all the carpet with hardwood floors so that will help the problem.

Tuesday, we looked at four more homes.  We didn't really find anything that day.  There was one house that was very nice on the inside but the property was located right next to a very busy road.

Today, we looked at five houses.  The second house we looked at made it to the top of our list.  The house was very nice inside.  It had an open layout with vaulted ceilings.  And the thing that moved it to the top of the list...the two car garage is as deep as the house, which means it can actually fit four cars!  Ding ding ding!

We saw another house today, also, that we really liked.  It was a modern colonial house.  It had the thick, white molding around the trim of the doors.  The master bathroom was awesome and it had a HUGE walk-in closet...BUT the property that it was on was not good.  We think that at some point the original house that was on the property must have been torn down and then two houses were built in its place.  So the front yard of this house was the back yard of the one in front of it :(  But the inside was AWESOME!!  Too bad :(

We have more houses lined up to look at tomorrow so we'll see what we find.  We are hoping to decide tomorrow which one we are going to put an offer on.

So I'll try to keep you updated :)  Things just happen so fast...

Walks with Sugar

The past two days, Sugar and I have gone on three mile walks.  Now these aren't speed walks...or anything close to that...a girl can only go so fast with three good knees!  Walks with Sugar always start out the same:  She sees me putting on my tennis shoes and starts to get a little excited...then, she sees me take out her leash, which makes her even more excited...and then, for about the first five mins of the walk, she walks with a little hop in her step, like she is so happy to be outside smelling the fresh air and feeling the grass between her toes.  Slowly she begins to slow down...and the further we get the more length of leash suspends between us...until finally the leash is completely let out and I am dragging...strongly encouraging her to keep up!  I imagine that if she could speak she would be saying things like "why in the world are we walking further from home??" or "how about you tie the leash around your neck and let me tug on it for a bit!"  She starts to get easily distracted by things like every single mailbox on the road!...or will slow down ever so slightly when we reach a shady spot.  And then, of course, Sugar has always been an avid supporter of our local farmers and continues to selflessly donate her fertilizer whenever she can...this year's crop is going to be extra sweet (get it! 'Cause her name is Sugar!!).

But then, eventually, we get back to our neighborhood and I take her collar off.  She's really good and staying with me and if she gets too far I just call for her and she picks up the pace a bit.  Once we get to our neighborhood, she knows the end is almost near and that a cool summertime beverage waits her at the house.  She starts to get the same hop back in her step...or at least tries to.

After our walk yesterday, I decided to reward her with one of her treats...which turned out to be a bad idea because I gave it to her right after we got home.  She was still huffing and puffing and ended up inhaling part of her treat and then coughed for the next couple mins!  Today, I decided to wait until she calmed down to give it to her :)

Yesterday afternoon, Sugar took many naps trying to recover from the long journey.  You can tell by her posture that she is extremely exhausted...elbows out, leg sprawled!

Maybe I'll give her a recovery day tomorrow...but she'll probably want to come as soon as she sees my tennis shoes...she knows I enjoy her company :)

We're Weaving

So I started a blog...

What else am I going to do with my time??  My life isn't that crazy, right??

WRONG!!!

Life since January 1st has been filled with ups and downs...and when I say filled I mean filled!!!  That's the reason for starting the blog.  There is so much going on these days that I feel like this could possibly be the best way to let family and friends know about it.  And since things have been happening so quickly it's hard to keep everyone up to date.  So having a central location filled with information about our lives is a good way to keep everyone on the same page...I hope it works that way, anyway...or there's a definite possibility I could start this thing and then forget about it completely (but I hope that doesn't happen) ;)

So...the title of our blog...We're Weaving.  This phrase has many meanings.  1) It has some sort of hinting toward our last name. 2) We are attempting to "weave" our own family together with the help and guidance of God and strive daily to depend on him for everything.  And 3) If you were a person with a speech impediment this title would have a different meaning...and that meaning would still apply to our lives because we are, in fact, leaving the Lafayette area.

Chuck accepted a job offer for Sikorsky Helicopter (Connecticut) in early February.  He was given a tentative start date for June 4th, which could be moved up or back depending on when our house sold.  So we got in contact with a local realtor and started finishing projects around the house that had been started in the past few years.  After three long and tiring weeks, we finished our projects and put the house on the market.  The house was added on Tuesday, March 20th.  And the showings started immediately...one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, two on Friday, three on Saturday...And on Saturday we received an offer.  It wasn't exactly what we wanted so we countered.  And they accepted our counter offer!! Five days, people!!!!  It happened so fast!!  We had been praying that the house would sell quickly but neither of us were expecting it to go that fast!!!  Clearly, God had a different, much better, much more miraculous plan than we did!!  Click here if you'd like to see what our current little house looks like :)

OH YEAH!  And one of the conditions of the offer we accepted...we have to be out of the house by May 18th...which means Chuck's start date will move up...and that also leaves only seven more weekends in Lafayette :(  And let me tell ya, they are filling up quick!

So our next step is to travel to Connecticut and find a house.  Thankfully, Sikorsky pays for a week long trip with our plane tickets, rental car, hotel, and all of our food covered!  We have been in contacted with a realtor out there for about a month now and she has been sending us links to houses we might like.  We have somewhat specific requests about our future house...Chuck wants enough garage space for all of his "projects" and at least half an acre of land.  I want a nice kitchen :) and no wall paper or wood paneling!!!!  YUCK!!  And of course it all has to be for the right price...

Then we have to figure out when we are going to take Chuck's cars up to his parents house for safe   keeping while we move.

And then we have this girl to work into the equation....

As you can tell, she is all packed and ready for a move...Heaven forbid we go anywhere without Sugar's toys :)

So that's pretty much what's happening in our lives these days.  We are both very excited about the move and the new environment but incredibly bummed about having to leave the friends we have grown so close to and a church that has been our home for 7 years (me) and 12 years (Chuck).  We are not looking forward to having to find a new church in Connecticut because we know that the chances of it being as awesome as the one we are at is incredibly slim.  We're just praying that God will lead us to a solid church where we can grow close and serve alongside fellow Christians.

Wow!  How's that for an intro post!!  And I'll try to keep this updated as things happen...try :)