Gone and back...

Gone and back already. The kids did quite well without us for a few days and it was good to get away, just the two of us for a change. Being able to stay at Fred's house was such an advantage and the closing went well. The weather was nice, we even got to go to the beach. There were still a few diehards in the water, I wasn't quite that adventurous, but just being near the ocean was wonderful! I feel like I know the area a little better already, it's easier to find my way around and still I am finding a lot of neat things to see. We found this cool cemetery right off the main road, ancient tombstones....

the whole city is just really cool. We had some great meals (and since there were only the two of us, it was a lot less expensive too :)), saw a bunch of tourists, did a lot of walking and had a good time. Some day maybe we will get to live down there, but for now it will be a rental property. In fact the owners are still renting from us for now until they find a new home. Oh I forgot that I got two speeding tickets on the way down, not one, TWO!!! I couldn't even believe it! All that because of those stupid trucks that are impossible to get away from. At least the first one didn't carry any points and I am working on the second one... :)

Now it's back to normal around here, I had a lot of catching up to do on my pages and everything else. The house really wasn't bad, Gabrielle did a great job keeping everything neat and she did a lot of cooking. I just finished the last meatball she made, yumm! I should put her on cooking duty more often :)

Our life is back to running around for appointments, performances, school events, looking for colleges, working on SAT improvements and all the other good stuff that comes with raising kids, it never ends! At least I still have time to do some scrapping and keep up with the gallery...

they are all a little mixed up, but who cares.

I am currently up to date with my PL pages as well, yay!!!

I think it's a very rewarding project, even if it can be a pain to keep up with at times. I am looking forward to going through the pages a few years from now, enjoying the memories!

Well, time to get back to doing laundry etc etc... :)

We did it!!

As some of you have seen on FB already, we went ahead and bought the house, I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes, thinking that we did a totally insane thing! At least we didn't experience a stock market crash and all our assets disappeared LOL Worse comes to worse we can always sell and stay here or go somewhere else, right?

We are going down for the closing and spend a few days in Freddie's house, that should be a nice little vacation without the kids. Gabrielle is going to hold down the Fort around here. Good thing she has her license, she is going to have to drive Michael to school in the morning and then the two of them. We are working on finding a place for her to park at school. Spots are very hard to come by.

Here are a couple of pics of the property. These are from the listing and really not very good, but it's all I have at the moment. I am not even showing the inside or else you might fall over backwards. There is a ton that needs to be done!

I really like the little pool, it's a saline pool, I don't even know how to take care of that. What I am worried about is the size, there are no basements in Charleston, so storage is hard to come by. For me as a packrat, this is going to be especially hard. We'll see what the future holds. I am not even thinking about selling our house here for now, I'd have to take a match to all the stuff we have :)

Every morning I click on my weather app to see what the temperature is going to be in Charleston, I like to torture myself. Here it's in the 50s, down there it's in the 70s and 80s. Some people like the cold, I don't. Not anymore. I used to be really keen on seasons, now you can keep them. I'd like a little snow for Christmas and that's it! In fact we were talking about spending Christmas down there the other day and the girls almost had a fit. They don't want any part of spending Christmas with palm trees, they want snow and the pine tree and so forth. I'm not sure what they think it's like down there in the winter, it's not going to be in the 80s either. Oh well, we shall see what the future holds.

I am finally caught up with my PL

these are just the last few, I won't bore you with all of them. Now to do last week's...

Seriously?

I wonder if everybody has just given up on me. I sort of have given up blogging for a while, there are too many things I always have to keep up with, photography, scrapping, the kids' school stuff, housework, husband, the list goes on and on. Blogging somehow ended up at the bottom of the heap, especially since a lot of people are on Facebook and get my updates that way. But not everybody is, so it doesn't seem fair not to let them know what's going on around here.
Well, it looks as though we found a house in historic Charleston. Our bid was accepted, now we are waiting for inspection and hopefully we won't find anything really bad we don't know about yet. This was a really big step, we have only been down there once, but we all fell in love with the small yet busy town and the living in the city bit. I never thought I would enjoy that! The house is much smaller than what we have now and so is the yard, but we do have a little pool in the back, which is pretty rare in that area. We are pretty excited, so keep your fingers crossed for us. For now it will be an investment/vacation home, we'll see how that goes. Eventually we are planning to move down there, but not for a while yet. Can you imagine living 20 minutes from the beach? I love that idea! Anyway, that is the great news for now.
I have been working on the pages about our trip down there, I love Lynn Grieveson's templates and will use them for the whole trip, just changing the colors for each spread

I have been keeping busy with the kids, as usual there seems to be an appointment for one thing or another all the time. I just got my car back the other day after having had it in the shop for 3 weeks. Regrettably Gabby had a close encounter with another car and got my whole front smashed in. Fortunately she wasn't hurt, just hysterical because the guy was "f-ing" and "mf-ing" her the whole time. What a gentleman! I am just glad to be putting all that behind us plus I think that all this is making her even more careful now.

Well, all my friends, I have been missing all of you, I will try to be a little more diligent with the blogging :)

Talk to you soon!

Some Days....

...are definitely worse than others, that's for sure. Usually the days just flow along with school and all the other stuff that comes with that. Thursday was just slightly worse. Gabrielle had her impacted wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday, so I kept her home that morning. We went to meet with my friend and aside from Gabby's pain and feeling tired, we all had a good time. When it was time to pick up the other two I received a phone call from the principal to come see her in her office. Turns out Michael wrote a not so nice note to a classmate and they were caught. Yikes! Then we finally get home and Gabby tells me Zazoo managed to take off. (African Grey) It was a nice day, she was sitting outside with Phil and the bird was plucking his feathers like crazy, something he has started doing a lot this last week or so. He looks like a chicken ready to be roasted.. anyway, she took him outside and somehow he decided to take off. I thought for sure we would find him in the bushes around the pool, since he really doesn't know how to fly well, let alone land. Nothing! We combed through the neighborhood, the woods, looked at all the trees, called his name.... nothing! I finally started making dinner and thought about finding a photo to print and distribute in the neighborhood when somebody rang the doorbell. I had told a neighbor about the bird and these people must have been driving through the neighborhood asking people if they knew who he belonged to, since they found him a whole block below us and took him home. Needless to say, we were elated! Poor thing was sitting on a chair in their home, he must have been scared out of his mind. Well, he is back home now, hopefully his adventure will last him for a while. He is getting his wings trimmed first thing! I am thinking that Sammy dying must really bother him, he must feel lonely. I had to put this nasty spray on him so he would stop the plucking! Poor baby. Lock at him

At least the nice weather has been around a little more, we have had some beautiful days, Phil has been enjoying the patio again and of course the weeds are growing like crazy!
I received a letter from our insurance carrier, demanding we replace our roof and rain spouts and install handrails on our front steps. I felt like asking them why they didn't insist on a new sidewalk and maybe an elevator, while we are at it! Sounds like extortion to me, here I thought I had moved to the United States, I feel like I'm back in Germany with all the rules and regulations. For what this is going to cost, we would be better off buying a new house! I was really ticked off when I read that letter. I asked my agent to look for a different insurance company. It's not even so much that we have to get this done, I had already been getting bids for a new roof, it's the idea that they have the right to demand this kind of work to be done. What's going to be next? Is your health insurance going to tell you that you are not allowed to eat red meat? Well, enough of the ranting...
Easter was nice, I can't believe how fast all this goes by, one more month and school will be out. I can't wait! Gabby was invited to the junior prom at Riley's school, so here we go again, looking for a dress. I am happy for her though, I want her to have the experience.

I took pictures of Owen, he was not very cooperative, but I think the pictures turned out well anyway

and some photos of his cousin :)

she is going to use these for a modeling site.... I did some of Rachel for the same thing

I didn't get a whole lot of scrapping done, it took me 4 days to get my last Project Life spread finished, yikes!

and the project life pages...

I am still not caught up and at the speed I am doing these at, I will never make it LOL. I love the project though, I really do! It's so fun to go back over the old books and there is so much pertinent information listed.

Well, time to get ready to face the day. Rachel and I have an appointment at Sephora later today :)

Have a nice weekend!