EARLY CHECK IN: December 15th, 2007 - Seven night Western - 12/15/07

[dutch_girl_scout]

Cristi--Congrats on the award!! Our annual GS meeting is tonight, I'm not going because it is DS's 14th Birthday today and he has his last vocal concert of the year in about a half hour.

Your weather sounds like ours. The mushroom hunters hit the jackpot on Sunday (sunny and high 70s) today high of 50, 30 tonight. It's what the tulips need though, most have already popped, cold, wet weather will help them last another week.

Well, better go to the concert, check in with everyone later.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Congrats on the award Christi! I think girl scout leaders are really selfless people. It take alot of work and time. I am sure that you deserve it.

Hope the baby is doing well and can withstand the spicy foods! Ha. Or you can stand the side effects. It sounds like a lot of fun.

No luck so far on the house hunting, the ones we like are sooo expensive and the financing is hard because we are going in with very little money. But we hate renting, then moving again. It would be hard if we had to change school districts. We have alot to think about.

I will check in later! Be well!

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Tammy--House Hunters on HGTV is one of my favorite shows, hopefully your perfect house is out there just waiting for you to find it.

In Iowa kids can get their learner's driving permit when they turn 14. I called the DOT to see when DS could take his test, they stop testing at 3:30. So I either need to pull him out of school (the licensing station is 20 minutes away)or bring him to Des Moines on a Saturday. Next week is the last week he has track, so it's looking like Wednesday is the only day that will work (Tulip Time is Thurs-Fri-Sat). He starts driver's ed in June, he needs to practice driving a little bit before then, I'd hate to send him without any driving experience, I don't think the teacher would appreciate that!

Hope everyone has a good day. It's nice and sunny here today. Pup and I will be going for a walk.

 

[cristit14]

Tammy, hope you have better luck with the house hunting. We have decided that we are living in this house forever. We hate moving. House hunting is stressful. When we put our first house on the market we had a contract on it in 3 days. The really stressful thing was that we had a vacation planned a week after the house went on the market and we were going to be gone for about 10 or 11 days. That made for some fast looking. We put a contract on one the day before we left on vacation, but it wasn't accepted and we didn't want to pay the amount they wanted for the amount of work we would have had to put in on the house. When we got back from vacation we spent an entire weekend looking at probably 20 houses. Put a bid in on another one and didn't get it (thank goodness, I don't know what we were thinking when we put the bid in on that one ). Then we went down our list and said we wanted to look at this "C" house ( we had rated them A, B, C....) and fell in love with it. Really the only downfall is that we back up to a somewhat busy street, but we are sitting on 1/2 an acre so it doesn't bother us that much. 1/2 acre may not sound like much to you, but here in the city it is a huge yard!

 

[TammyAlphabet]

I think house hunting is awful too! But, moving is the worst. It is overwhelming me all I have to accomplish. I think we have picked one that we like and are trying to work out the financing. I guess I should keep my fingers crossed.

Have a great day everyone!!

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Hope everyone is doing well. It seems like forever since I've posted.

Yesterday was crazy!! I spent a lot of time on the phone with Delta. The airline prices came out for our cruise in March. I rolled over our tickets for a small fee. It wasn't as bad as I had thought considering we're traveling during our spring break week. The biggest headache I had was trying to buy a seat for baby. Since 9/11 the airlines require names on tickets, that's hard when the baby isn't born yet!! Everyone kept asking why I wanted to buy a seat or why I couldn't buy it after baby was born. I want a seat because the baby will still need to be in an infant carrier and I'd rather have it on the plane with us, in a seat, then in the cargo part thrown around with everything else. Plus one leg of the flight is on a REALLY small plane (a 40-seater) and I didn't want to hold a wiggly baby while sitting next to someone and I'm pretty sure that flight will be sold out in October when baby is born. I finally got a supervisor that understood what I was trying to do and sold the ticket to Baby OurLastName and said to call when it was born, and since we'd have a passport for baby when we travel it wouldn't be a problem. Please tell me I'm not nuts and that I'm being totally reasonable. WHEW!!!! What a process!!

After all that we had a Girl Scout meeting. Today I was gone ALL day for first aid/CPR training. It wasn't all that bad, not sure I'm ready to save anybody's life but I definately learned a lot. I think I need to invest in a cheat sheet for my first aid kit though, there is a lot to remember. Cristi, if you have another "accident" on this cruise I'll be ready for you!!

DD is babysitting for the first time tonight for two little neighbor girls. She won't get home until midnight. She hasn't ever stayed out that late, she has been WAY excited all week (and spending her money before she has it).

DS is at a Jr.High dance, his buddy is going to spend the night tonight. He's excited because we brought home his car today. He saved all of his mowing money for a down payment, then he's paying us the rest on the installment plan. He was mad when we dropped him off because not many kids were in the parking lot to see his car. He wanted to ride around and make an entrance. I offered to drive through the parking lot midway through the dance while laying on the horn, he didn't think that would be very cool, go figure.

Tammy I hope your house deal goes through, and you feel like things are coming together, I'm sure it's a stressful time.

Well, I've probably bored you all silly and gone over the maximum allowable post space so I'll say good night.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Stacie, thanks for the good vibes on the house deal, we should know something or another next week.

You cracked me up with the car horn comment, I am sure my son would react the same way.

I have started packing. What a pain in the rear. I have so much junk. I am pretty disorganized for an accounting person. I have to get in gear and get my act together.

I am glad that Baby is going to have a seat on the plan. It's a wonder that it is so hard to do given that this is probably quite common. They should have a plan for doing this in place.

Got to get ready for church soon. You guys have a great day!

 

[cristit14]

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
Sounds like it took a lot to get the baby added on Stacie. I'm glad that it worked out.
Doing the first aid/cpr does take a long time. I didn't actually do the first aid part, my co-leader did, but I have done the cpr before. I will stick close to you on the cruise.... just in case....
Wow, babysitting for the first time, that is exciting. Rachel is already talking about how when she turns 12 maybe she can babysit for our nextdoor neighbors and maybe for her cousin too. She has started earning money this year by cleaning up the yard after the dog. DH said she can have $5 every time she cleans the yard. I had to make sure she knew that was a maximum of once a week. I can just see her now following the dog around with a scooper.

We have had an interesting couple of days. Friday I get a call at work from our Disney credit card company. Apparently, there had been some fraudulent activity on it. It was just one item and only for $1.38, but it became a compromised account and they had to close it. That is the only card we use and we are very dependent on it. We use it for everything(and then pay it off every month). It has been interesting this weekend without any "money"

I have my fingers crossed for you Tammy. I hope the house works out!

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

We're back from our "business" trip to Orlando. The week flew by. I'm exhausted today. I also had an allergic reaction to sunscreen. My face and ears are a mess...

Luckily we did Animal Kingdom the first day. Expidition Everest was great. It seems that everyone in the park was there to ride that ride. Everything else had no lines. How much do you want to know? There is a bit of an unexpected surprise on the ride... The Rockin Roller Coaster at MGM is still my favorite.

We bought 10 day non-expiring passes. I think we're going to try and go back in January and then do a couple of days after our cruise.

So let me know how much you want to know about the ride and I'll give my report...

 

[Queen2]

just got off the Magic yesterday & booked December 15th on board. I started reading the first post, read about 10, still trying to unwind. Saw someone has a birthday on Dec 10th. That is mine & my twin's birthday also.
Wanted to go on my birthday, wrong direction. Want to do the Western again. Will be going with a young friend. We were on the April 14th Wonder in 2005.

Now I have to remember how to do the count down clock again.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Welcome to Sharon! Glad you are joining us!

Pink, sorry about the allergic reaction, that must be irritating. But I am glad there are some twists to Everest, they have showed so much on TV, I was afraid it wouldn't be as much fun.

To everyone, thanks for the good wishes on the house hunting. Christi, a yard with half acre is huge down here too, unless you live on a farm. In a subdivision, only the most expensive houses have large yards. Or in old subdivision, where the yards were bigger.

 

[cristit14]

Sharon, Welcome!!!
Pink glad you had fun at WDW, sorry about the reaction.
Tammy, we live in an older subdivision (1970's). We rented a power rake today to de-thatch the yard and then had to get all of the dead grass picked up. I think there are 14 or 15 bags of dead grass out there. I am exhausted. Our riding mower of course quit working today so we used the push mower. I did most of the getting up of the grass (DH did the power raking and then was trying to fix the sprinkler system). Apparently, there is a lever on the push mower to make it self-propelled. DH was kind enough to point that out to me when I was almost done with the yard. Did I mention that I am exhausted and starting to get sore in muscles I didn't know that I had.

I am trying to decide how much trouble DD is in now. One of her friends came over this afternoon and she asked me if they could ride to their school. I told her no, but they could ride up to the park for awhile. I left to go to the grocery store and saw her at the park and she was riding without her helmet. She saw me and jumped off of her bike and ducked behind a building. I haven't yelled at her yet, I think I will wait until her friends leave. But I am seeing her not getting to go to the park by herself for quite awhile.

 

[kath1210]

just got off the Magic yesterday & booked December 15th on board. I started reading the first post, read about 10, still trying to unwind. Saw someone has a birthday on Dec 10th. That is mine & my twin's birthday also.
Wanted to go on my birthday, wrong direction. Want to do the Western again. Will be going with a young friend. We were on the April 14th Wonder in 2005.

Now I have to remember how to do the count down clock again.

Hi Sharon! Glad you will be joining us!

My birthday is December 10 and so is Cristi's! Some of us also have kids with December birthdays. We'll have to have a little early/late birthday celebration onboard!

How was your recent cruise? My husband and I just took a 5-night cruise on NCL to Bermuda. It was a lot of fun, but not as good as DCL, IMHO. I think my kids would have been bored on the cruise, but it was great for us! We met a lot of nice people, and the staff was excellent! We had a wild ride back home - spent about 30 hours in a Nor'easter with almost-hurricane force winds and high waves.

Back to work - and reality - tomorrow. Oh well.....

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Welcome Sharon!! Glad you'll be cruising with us. Sounds like there will be lots of birthdays to celebrate. When you recover a little bit you'll have to tell us all about the ports you visited and the excursions you did.
It has been raining here since Friday at 3:00, the sun is supposed to shine again somethime this week. Our back yard looks like a marshy grassland. DH built the fence for the dog but has only put in one gate which is not big enough for the riding lawn mower to fit through. That means he needs to push mow it, but it needs to be dry again first.

Cristi--I'm sure you were very upset when you swa your DD without her helmet. Independence is a tricky thing.

Pink--I'm so glad that you got to ride EE!! We were going to do the Breakfast-O-Saurus thing in AK the morning we left for our curise in March and then ride EE. But I'm thinking we might go to AK the first day that we get to WDW because I want to ride it really badly. I need to figure out how this baby swap thing works. Sorry about your reaction, have you been sensitive before?

I was looking at the Dining Plan stuff yesterday, have any of you ever used it? I'm thinking that it would be a good value for us especially considering how much food DS can eat. Having everything paid for ahead of time, even the tip, sounds like a great idea.

Hope everyone has a great day, if the rain holds off, DS has his last track meet this afternoon. YEAH!!!

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Okay! We are making an offer on a house. It is not our first choice, but that house wouldn't appraise out for enough, so we are going for the second one, which will appraise for a bit more. It is not exactly what I wanted, but it is a nice house.

 

[Pinkprincessmom]

Welcome Sharon.

Good luck Tammy. We just moved a little over a year ago. I hope to never do it again.

Hope everyone has a great Tuesday.

 

[cristit14]

Okay! We are making an offer on a house. It is not our first choice, but that house wouldn't appraise out for enough, so we are going for the second one, which will appraise for a bit more. It is not exactly what I wanted, but it is a nice house.

I hope you get the house Tammy! Sometimes getting the second choice turns out to be a blessing in disguise. We put offers in on two other houses before we got this one and now I am really glad that we didn't get either one of the other houses. This has been a great house even with the work we have had to put into it. The neighborhood has been great too, at least up until this weekend when we had shouting matches across the street and the sherrif do a drive by, but that is another story.....

 

[dutch_girl_scout]

Tammy, good luck, I'm sure you'll get the house that's meant to be.

Cristi--Sounds like an interesting weekend in your neighborhood.

When we moved six years ago we had a house picked out that we were going to bid on it, we asked my parents to look at it with us (they live in the same town I do). They informed us that they were going to downsize to a duplex and that we could move into their house, the one I grew up in. Needless to say, we never looked at the other house again. We are three miles out of town, but have city utilities, and a bike trail that goes into town going through our front yard. At the bottom of our road is the Des Moines River and a huge campground, up the road is Iowa's largest lake. Although the house has needed a lot of work, we've never regretted moving here. Pink--I agreee with you, it's going to be a long time before we move. We didn't even consider it when we found out about baby.

I got new tickers today. YEAH!! The only problem was, it wouldn't let me put a very long description, I don't remember how I did it last time.

It's finally a gourgeous day here, sunny and 80. Rain again tomorrow, then perfect weather for Tulip Time, highs in the mid 60's lows in the upper 40's, shouldn't be too many senior citizens passing out from heat exhaustion.

 

[TammyAlphabet]

Bad news today. The mortgage loan guy we were working with can't get us the type of financing that we need or even a decent rate! But, I am going to try for another lender, maybe I will have more luck. If not, we will have to come up with some temporary housing while we stockpile more cash for a downpayment.

 

[cristit14]

Oh, no, Tammy. I hope another lender can help you out with what you need.
I bought our plane tickets into Nashville today. We fly in on July 7th. Originally, we were driving right up to my grandmothers house, but I just heard from my other side of the family and they are talking about having a big family reunion in July in Ridgetop. I got ahold of the person planning it to see when and to let her know that we would be in town the beginning of the month and she said that she would see what she could do about changing the weekend to the one we will be there. That would be fun! I haven't seen a lot of those cousins since I was a kid. If they have the reunion on that weekend we will stay in the area for the weekend and then drive to my grandmother's in Kentucky Sunday night or Monday morning, then on probably Thursday drive down to Montgomery for my HS reunion.

Yeah, Stacie, it was a very interesting weekend around here. I hope the summer is better. It had to do with a couple of ATV's and racing up and down our street. I hope they get caught and in trouble from the sherriff. I am sick of hearing the ATV's, pocket rockets, pellet guns and the air horns from over there. It makes my blood boil ATV's don't have any business in the city, they belong out in the country. The kids that were racing them decided to get back at the people who called the cops, by going out around 10:30 Sat night with their air horns. I never actually heard it since we were watching King Kong and it was really loud.