Only one more week

We have only one more week of our Crazy June!  With baseball added in the mix, we've been busy at night too.  Taite plays Tues & Thurs and Bray is on Mondays.  We have only one more ZED class for Taite today, the last swimming lesson (we rescheduled last weeks for this week) and then we are off to Japan!  The boys are excited and Taite has banned any talk of houses on this trip :D  We were going to stay in a hotel tonight so we'd be closer to the airport, but are thinking we might as well just get up really early tomorrow morning.  We can nap in the airport, right??  Our flight leaves at 9 and we have to be there at 7. . . It will definitely be an early morning and a long day(s)!  We leave on Saturday morning at 9 and arrive in Japan on Sunday evening like 5 or so.  When we come back, we leave on Saturday morning and arrive Saturday night.  :D

Yesterday in ZED class, Taite made a bird house.  When he found out they were making one, he already had his mind made up that he wanted to give it to Great-Grandma.  We decided to take it over when we went to get mail in the afternoon and he continued to ask me when we could go over there.  Of course I didn't know where to hang it and Chris was mowing the lawn, so that's the only flaw in the plan, she'll have to commission someone to hang it up for her.  And Taite can help as they told the kids all about placement and how to hang it so the birds will actually use it.  Today in their meteorology class, they are having a visitor ~ Randy Brock ~ the local weather guy on TV!  :~)

Chris and I looked at our schedule for Japan and figured what type of clothes we'll need for when, last night.  The first day we are going to Disneyland and moving to a different city, so definitely casual.  After that, we have black capris and dressier clothes because we are meeting some important people!  One of them is 84 and the founder of the company that is a partner (?) in NI Midstar (I'm not sure if you call them "partner", "co-owner" or what) and he still goes to the office regularly. 

SIDE NOTE:
If you missed any Modern Family episodes (this is the one and only show we keep up on in the DVR!!!) they are on Wednesdays at 8 this summer!  You will NOT be disappointed!!  LMAO!!

This just needs to be over!

I really do need more sleep than 6 hours a night.
The stress makes my stomach hurt.
So far, I'm not too crabby though (so maybe this is a good combination)
We still have the Japan trip to get ready for in addition to moving.
Is it August yet?

We looked for houses this last weekend.  It was stressful! 
We like house #1 ~ too small of a laundry area (like not really one) but lower price range with everything else that we need (some wants fulfilled and it's similar to our house) and on a cul-de-sac.

We like house #2 ~ much bigger, no finished basement, what I envisioned moving into when thinking of moving.  An "upgrade" or "step up" from where we are now, but much higher priced and we'd have to buy all the window coverings and appliances too. . .

We liked house #3 ~ weird neighbors.  Enough said.

We really liked house #4 ~ on a whim, couple who knows the realtor's mom who we were with, decided to list the house they bought 4 months ago that they are working on re-doing (house is only 3 years old, so tells you how much $$$ they have).  We LOVED it ~ wife was ready to sell, threw out a price (had NO idea how much they had spent so far) until the husband started adding things up. . . they spent 1/3 of what they paid adding things and making changes so they need to live in it awhile ~ unless we offered them a price much closer to the amount they've spent (the wife's price she threw out was way below)  I'll have to email the realtor. . .

The plus side to this is that yesterday when I picked Taite up from his classes, I was talking to Brayton's friend Andy's mom and she said his grandparents live only 20 miles from where we are moving so they can still get together!!  How cool would that be??  (Andy is the one in the picture of Bray from my last post)  I suppose, I need to move on, we have the home inspection today and I need to email the realtor about house #4!

We are collecting keys

This is just a picture I took the day I walked to DQ with Brayton's class.  It was rather chaotic and I'm glad I don't have to do that again.  Lets just say that I like more orderly kids when we are walking along busy roadways with no sidewalks!  The boy in the picture with Bray is his best friend Andy.  This is in the classroom before we began our "adventure" and after I took the picture, another boy commented that Bray and Andy kind of look alike.  :~)

We have been collecting keys around here. . .

House keys, shed keys and trailer keys.  We no longer have to collect trailer (office) keys because that left on Saturday morning.  We weren't sure it would make it all the way to Wabasha, but after only 1 hour and 46 minutes after they left, they had arrived and called Chris so he could start breathing again.  He was so worried ~ why, you ask?  The axles under the trailer were the same ones we had used 12 years ago AND they had laid out in the elements all those years and Chris had to take them all apart just to get things spinning again and not necessarily freely either!  The tires had been stored inside, but they were cracked and Chris wasn't sure about them, but they held air!  That batch of keys is now passed onto the next owners.  As I was cleaning out the boys' backpacks, I decided to start a bag for the house keys.  I really have no idea how many we have or who all has them, but if I were buying a house, I'd change the locks anyhow.  With any luck, we'll be done collecting these keys the end of July.  We have a buyer for our house and we are expecting the home inspection to happen this week.  After that happens, the buyer has 48 hours to change her mind based on what is found and after that time is gone by, if she doesn't die or lose her job, we have our house sold!  It happened rather quickly, but hopefully everything works out!  The boys were excited to hear that they could be done with school next year in MAY (provided we get moved and they start in August)! 

Here is the trailer/office moving down the road.  The driver said he wouldn't break any speed limits, but that didn't mean he didn't push them!

Here is where the office once stood.

It's been awhile...

I know I haven't posted in awhile, but normally I don't have to log into my account :~)  Then I typed my password in wrong the first time. 

We've been busy, to say the least, but who isn't?  The boys both had field trips last week (and I remembered to make and send their lunches ~ yea!).  Taite's class went to the Science Museum on Thursday.  I was one of the chaperones who was chosen randomly (I kind of believe they are not random, but I'm not complaining!).  I had 2 boys and 2 girls in my group and one of the boys was my own and I had no idea how it would go. . . If I could make one suggestion to the 4th grade teachers for this trip, it would be to have all girl groups and all boy groups.  The girls wanted to look at and do everything and the boys zipped from one thing to the next and wanted to move on (there are like 4 floors of stuff to do, plus outside).  I only had one kids sass off to me and he wasn't even in my group (I told him his chaperone was looking for him (he was with Kaden from my group and they were all up to no good~ there was a 3rd boy) and he told me his chaperone didn't tell him he had to get back into the Dinosaur area, so he wasn't going to do it), but I was kind of watching out for the chaperones who were always looking around for kids because my group was pretty good and easy to watch (some groups had 6 kids!).  As I said, I only had 4 in my group, but getting a group shot was kind of difficult.  This is the only opportunity I got and it is ove their backs.  This is the station that's set up like a little trivia game show.  From LtoR:

Maggie, Destiny, Taite and Kaden

Destiny obviously got the answer correct!

My group is all in this picture, but Kaden is in the background walking away with another group. . .

This is a test to show the kids how our eyes work with our hands.  They are to put a white sleeve over the peg on the top of the board and then from the bottom, try to find the right peg.

The day was long and boring for the kids apparently because they kept asking when we could leave.  I was tired as my days seem to consist of going to bed at 11 or later and my internal clock is set for 5 (though today I slept in to 5:44) and I need more sleep than that.  So, by the end of the field trip, I was tired too.  (I tried to catch a nap during the i-Max movie ~ they make me sick and the PTO paid for the whole class to go to it ~ but it was loud enough I couldn't sleep).  At the end of the day, we saw there were a few groups outside at that display.  It was a beautiful sunny day and this is right along the river, so I jumped at the chance to take the kids out!  They ran around for awhile and then there was these different water things the kids could do.  Kaden and Taite were playing in the "Panning for Gems" thing and I don't really get what they were supposed to be doing there anyway, but apparently splashing in the water (Kaden) was not it because one of the workers came and took the wooden floating things.  The way I see it ~ you have water, you have kids, there is going to be splashing!  What did you think they would do, hmmmm??

Our house is officially listed!  Friday the signs were put up and we have the one in our front yard Friday night.  We had a scheduled showing for 10 am on Saturday so we were cleaning out the house Friday night and there were a lot of "looky-loos".  Most just turned around in our driveway too!  Oh well.  So, Saturday morning we sold the JD tractor and the Saturn (2 more things off our list!) and we headed out to the trailer (old office) to get it ready to move (next week is the week!).  Chris still had to jack up the trailer and put the axles, wheels and hitch on it.  He said it was a big job and he was not looking forward to it ~ I can see why!  Our showing at 10 was short-lived because those people wanted more woods for hunting, but that realtor wanted to know if we were still gone at 11 because he had another lady who could look at it in 15 minutes (we are to allow 1 hour before checking to see if we can go back home).  As I was headed out the door for the 10:00 showing, the phone rang and a realtor wanted to show the house at 1:30 ~ GREAT!  We already have it cleaned and ready, so that works.  At this point, I am NOT letting the boys or dog back into the house, so we decide to have lunch in Byron and Chris kept working away (we brought him back luke-warm Chinese).  When we were eating, got another call ~ can they show the house at 3:30?  YEP!  The one promising person is the 2nd "viewer".  She is single, 50, doesn't have a house to sell (YEA!) and is really interested, been looking for awhile now and just wants to bring her dad to get his opinion in the next 2-3 days.  We have another showing at 1 today and the boys stayed overnight at my parents house last night so we are still pretty ready (the boys got bored and walked over there from the office ~ me, I spread out 3 quilted flannels we had over there, one winter coat and tried to nap on that and my folded up wool sweater.  It wasn't very comfy, but I was tired).  Since the boys were not home last night, Chris and I celebrated our anniversary dinner last night.  Let me just say that for working together and having been married for 12 years now, I am still happy that we can sit across the table from each other and have a conversation!  You'd think we'd have nothing to discuss, but so not true!  I love it!  Our waiter's name was Kyle and he looked familiar.  Chris thought the same thing and I told him ~ I think he's the brother to my cousin's ex-boyfriend!  :D  (did you follow me?)  We decided to ask him, so when he came back and asked if we had any questions, I asked what kind of sauce this one kind was and if he was Nick's brother.  He was a little taken aback and he was even more shocked that we remembered him!  It had been about 5-6 years since we had seen him and he was approximately 14?  Anyway, he was a super good waiter and had a great personality so we enjoyed the night even more (Kyle at Whiskey Creek ~ highly recommended and try the Peach Cobbler!!!)

After supper, we had some things to return to TJ Maxx.  We were driving along the road in front of HyVee south and Toys R Us when Chris says "Oh God, oh no!" ~ I didn't see what he was talking about (he is braking at this point) and then on the right side of the road, I saw him.  This little boy of about 16 months (I'm guessing ~ he was pretty good on his feet, but couldn't talk) and he was on the edge of the two lanes of traffic we were in (at this point, Chris was braking and swerving to alert the drivers behind us ~ I am still getting goose-bumps as I type this) and headed for the median and the two lanes of traffic on that side!  I flew out the door of the van and ran for him ~ he is now across the two lanes on our side and almost to the median trying to decide if he should make a break for it or run back the way he came.  The van on the opposite direction had seen what was going on and had stopped so I was so grateful when I scooped the little boy up and he was safe (for the moment anyway)!  As I was running for him I could hear people in the other cars gasping and saying "Oh my God!"  As soon as I picked him up, I looked up and expected to hear some frantic calling of a name or a mom or something.  There was nothing.  I carried this little boy down an embankment and had no idea which direction to go.  I kept asking him where his mommy was and he would kind of say "momma" but then nothing.  I asked the first guy I saw if he knew the little boy and where he lived, but he'd never seen him before and thought maybe his wife would know.  Nope.  So, we headed down the street.  Judging by the houses, Chris and I guessed at trying the house with the long grass and the one across the street that had all the kid toys outside, but no kids.  For whatever reason, there was another house that came before the two we were going to stop at and I decided to try it.  It had a few toys outside, but no one was outside.  I rang the doorbell to the door by the garage (I thought the front door looked a little over-grown and not used so much) and knocked and as I was standing by the door, the little guy said "momma" and reached for the handle of the door.  Apparently, the front door was correct and when we went around to it, the dad (I believe) thanked us for finding him and bringing him home.  Chris thought he was embarrassed, I was still in shock and didn't even notice they had thanked us.  All I heard was as he turned to go back inside he was directing the other kids to keep the doors locked because "dip shit" was out on the road.  I wanted so badly to point out that it wasn't just the quiet little street in front of their house "road" it was the 4-lane, 40 mph "road" behind their house that he was on!  I keep thanking the Lord that Chris saw him in time and nothing tragic happened!!!  I've said a few prayers for that little guy that the doors are locked from now on. . .

This is just a picture I snapped of Brayton last weekend.  In the camper stuff (it was laid out all over the floor in the shed) Bray found the roller blades and loves them!  I kept asking him to please stay away from the van and truck (sorry Sonja & Greg, the Saturn wasn't as important), but of course, he didn't!  I'm not sure how much good his helmet would do if he fell, but he had a great time and his cheeks were all red and I LOVE that smile!

Another thing I love is through this whole moving thing, we still get the "I love you, mom" and hug from the boys out of the blue.  I like that they discuss their fears, excitements and unknowns with us.  Brayton's:  "If we move, how will I get this "thing" out of my mouth" and "Remember how you said if we move that you'll buy me something?  Well, I want a German Shepard!"  Taite's:  he doesn't think he'll make any new friends.  I told him I am confident he will not have any problems with that one at all!