And so it begins!

Well, Crystal and Elliot flew on Monday the 20th with Crystals mom. I was sad to see them go, but knew it was going to make the rest of the packing and the actual move a lot easier. Elliot riding in a moving truck for 2 days would not have gone over well, so they are safe and on the ground in Yacolt Washington right now hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa Domke's house. I envy them, the weather has been a pleasant 70-80 during the day up there...here? oh the usual triple digits before 10:30 am daily. It sucks, so ready to leave.

I'm almost done packing up the main part of the house. It's been so hot the last few days in the afternoon that I haven't had the nerve to spend much time in the garage getting it packed up. But, supposed to be a good chance of thunderstorms Friday and Saturday, those are usually good for cooling off the air down to around 90, sometimes 85 if its matched with a cold front ;)

So far, I'm using the front living room as a staging area for stuff, until I get the garage packed up and cleaned this weekend. Right now, the front room looks like a warehouse.



It looks like mayhem now, but come truck loading day, it should cut the loading time down big time. Hoping to get it done in about 2 or 3 hours, then if my Dad doesnt have anything else planned for the day, I'm hoping I can talk him into one more day of golf before I go. Thats the only thing I'm going to miss about Arizona, playing golf with and spending time with my Dad and step mom Joy. I know we will get together again in the future, but still, not the same as having them be an hour away.

Monday after I dropped Crystal, Elliot and Judy off the airport, I went to my dads to help him with a "small project". I spent that night, worked on it for 8.5 hours and decided to come back the next day as it was already 10:30 at night, and its an hour drive back to our house. This is what we got done that day.

Doesn't look like much here, but the next day I went back and spent 10 hours working on it, and this is what we finished with.

Dad still has to mud it, and put on the corner rounding strips, and then paint it and it will be all finished. The picture really doesn't do it much justice really, this thing is a monster! 14' long, 6 1/2 feet tall at its highest point. The two tall arch ways are going to need some major mudding to make them more rounded, but shouldn't be too much work, I hope.

I had a lot of fun working with my Dad building it, until about 10 o'clock Tuesday night. We didn't finish the sheetrock til midnight..and I was one cranky SOB before the night was over. But, at least the hard part is done, now he can take his time to finish it. I'm guessing he will be done with it before the end of the weekend, thats just the kind of freak he is. Constantly on the go!

On the work side of things, I sent out my email today to all the different moving adjusters. The email went out about 11 am. Before 3 pm, I already had my first job for Seattle in my email inbox. I think this is going to be a great move for us. Business should double, if not triple. I'm going to be busy, but thats a good thing for our family.

I have 2 of the 4 bedrooms here empty, and I can hear the thunder coming in the distance from a little thunderstorm, that might drop the temperature down to go out and do some more weeding. If not, I can get the master bedroom emptied tonight if nothing else.

For those of you in the Portland area, see you soon! Only 8 more days til I'm released from the surface of the sun!

A sign of things to come?

Well, yesterday we went in for the ultrasound for the new baby. We have decided we are not going to find out the sex, so that was the first thing the tech asked us. Crystal told her no and so she made a note in the charts, and went to doing her business. I watched the screen with mixed emotions, did I really want to find out? I was torn right down the middle, yes...and no.

As our dear friend Ronda once wrote, "it's one of the great surprises left in life". Which I couldn't agree more with, but still, I wanted to know. "We have the technology". Great line from a great TV show (and that probably just dated me big time). Watching the screen I wanted to know! So the tech is looking over the baby, counting fingers, toes, watching the heart...all neat stuff really, don't get me wrong, but get down to the business end already! She passed over several times, and turns out the baby wasn't cooperating anyway. He/She had their legs crossed, thus making it impossible to see the goods.

I left telling Crystal that I thought I knew what we were having, but no dice. Crystal pointed out the legs crossed thing and that kinda deflated me for the rest of the day. Was so sure it was a girl...oh well, only 20 more weeks till we get to find out for real! 16 if its early like Elliot was, but we are hoping for a full term baby this time.

Here are the pictures they gave us from the ultrasound. So much clearer than when Elliot had his done.



Can already tell its going to be tied for the cutest baby ever award...Elliot of course being the other front runner.

Only 2 more days til Grandma Judy gets here, we are all very excited around here, especially Elliot, he is going to love having someone else around to change a diaper on him! WOOT!!!

19 Days til Zero Hour

Boy is it getting close, panic is starting to set in as far as work goes. I have a dining room table out in the garage to refinish the top on that I haven't even gotten stripped yet. Guess I know what I'm doing this week :)

We heard back from our potential new land lord yesterday, and the house is ours! Here are some pics:





Thankfully, Judy and Ernie were willing to go and look at it for us in person, since we are 1600 miles away. They gave it a glowing review, so we told the gal renting it that we were interested in it, and put in our application. A week later, she had finished with all her research/background check/drug test/STD/SAT's/bloodwork and finally a DNA submission, and we got the house! So that takes a huge load off of Crystals plate when she gets up there on the 20th. Now that we have an address, we can focus on the business end of things, getting a P.O. box, finding out what documents we have to file in triplicate, notarize, staple, sort and file with the various departments of government and all that jazz to be able to do business up there.

Plans are constantly changing as far as my final days here go. I wanted to load the truck on the 29th, get the carpets cleaned the 30th, have our walk thru the 30th, then spend the night at my Dad's and golf with him the morning of the 31st, but they have a cat who apparently goes nuts if another cat comes around, and the airlines won't take blackjack for whatever reason (when did the airlines stop taking animals on board?!) so, I have to stay here til the 31st, which means no golf for my dad and I. Which is ok I guess, he is going to help me return that earlier mentioned dining room table on Monday the 27th, thankfully that will only take a short amount of time, then we can go play golf :)

With any luck, after Crystal, Judy and Elliot leave on the 20th, I can get all the furniture and boxes out into the front room. If I can pull that off, loading the truck will be so much easier and quicker. Thats my plan, and so far I don't see any reason I can't pull it off. Then I can finish doing the patching of the walls, painting, and blinds replacement. Between the cat and Elliot, the blinds have seen better days. Thankfully, the person who put them up didn't bother to make them the right size for the windows, so there are plenty of slats to take out and replace the bent ones with. Not a hard process, but time consuming to say the least.

Well, that table isn't going to strip itself, might as well get something done since I'm up at O'dark thirty again.

18 months old

Two posts in two days is pretty damn good for me. I should be doing school work but blah! I'm blogging instead.

Big news from our house:


Today our little big boy is officially a year and a half years old. Hard to believe, but then when I think back to how when he was swaddled up he was the length of my forearm it's not so hard to believe. And we also have tooth number 15th! It broke through last night or today sometime. One more to go and then a break for about 6 months. Then the last 4 and he's good to go until he knocks any out or they fall out in about 5 years. We've found a house in Vancouver to rent too! Mike saw it on craig's list this morning, called the lady, and then we sent Mom and Dad to check it out. They gave it high marks and we called the lady back and it's a go. Waiting for the paperwork and all that jazz to get here and get back to her. But a big relief that I don't have to worry about driving all over once we get up there to find a place to live. It will be nice to be able to have all the utilities switched over to our name and the phone and satellite guy show up on the 1st to install that stuff. And Mike can let the Weathersby Guild headquarters know our new address and numbers so they can send their email to everyone letting them know where to send us their claims.

That's all that happened today. Tomorrow I go in for a massage and manicure. Haven't ever had either and it's about time I do a little something for myself.

TTFN ~ Crys

New Haircut

Well, we finally agree it was time for Peanut's first haircut. Knowing that he would never sit still long enough to let it be cut with scissors, we decided to see if he'd let us use the clippers. He did! It was pretty comical to watch, he kept hunching his head down into his shoulders and trying to grab the clippers. But, with only a few spots missed that were re-clipped the next night, he's now sporting a new, much shorter, buzzed look. It really made his face stand out more and make him look like a toddler, instead of a little shaggy head boy.

And I didn't even cry until both him and Mike were sleeping. I did save a bunch for his baby book. Man, it was long on top. About 3 inches or so long.

Before:During:

After:

And please pay no attention to our cat doing the nasty to her stuffed animal in the background of the during picture. She's gotta have some fun too.

That's about the extent of our excitement. We've rediscovered how much packing blows and that flat paint is absolutely the worse thing to put on walls. To touch up the areas touched and marked by Peanut and to fill in the holes in the walls we have to spackle, sand, prime, and then use the touch up paint. Stupid, stupid, stupid flat paint.

I'm off to finish watching my movie. Mike insisted I post so Mom will stop whining that she wants to see pictures. Are you happy now?!

TTFN ~Crys