Moving Boxes, Take Out Food, and Turmoil Oh My!!

We had our very first taste of the moving experience today from a Moving Company. We have ALWAYS moved ourselves. I really trust us more; if we break it we have no one to blame but ourselves.
They started out by coming in and introducing themselves and then they assessed the house. Not long after that all these boxes started coming in right and left. Lots and lots of paper to wrap things in, but no bubble wrap....HUM!
The Kitchen was the first to get the once over. One guy was packing up our family room and broke one of my trinkets my best friend from school gave me ages ago. It was old; had the word Japan in red. I about died!! He didn't even say he was sorry or anything they picked it up quickly and placed it on the fireplace mantel. Gee....my dad and I were standing right there when he did it too. Movers don't seem to have a care in the world for your possessions....hum lets see how many porcelain dolls we can fit in a box. Holly has this very large porcelain doll we brought back special for her from Germany when she and I went with her school group. She saw it in the window at the moment we were boarding the bus to go to Heidelberg..... I'll never forget her excitement that day. I had found that perfect Cuckoo clock, but had it shipped home, not Holly that doll was going home on the plane with her. It almost didn't.... I know she will be heart broken if that doll is broken. I think we will take it ourselves! I'll just get the box and put it will our things we are taking.

Moving is the most stressful thing....has to be a top stresser at least.

My baby, Wendy, has cried at the drop of a hat all day today. She made us go by to say good bye to several of her favorite people today, and every time she wept. She is such a sweet sensitive little thing, and EVERYONE LOVES her!!! She has touched so many people. Many who have had a hard time racially. I love my baby, my Wendy. I can't wait to have my Mylie too. I know she will be just as sweet. I know that Wendy will be there to teach her how to be as sweet.

I plan on taking some pictures of all of the blasted boxes tomorrow. They aren't finished packing and will need at least a couple more days. I did find it funny that we had bought paper goods so we could let them pack up the breakables and I'll be twitched if they didn't pack all of them as well. Thus the reason for take out food; that and the fact that they packed up my pans and all of our food. I'm not use to this at all.

Lord, please help me to remain sane during all of this.

Lesa

Touching Bases....

I wanted to let everyone know that we have been very busy trying to get our house set for showing; which everyday we do something to improve the looks. We have had 12 showings since Feb. 11th! I do hope someone will hurry up and buy it. We have a total of 60 days to sell in order to get our bonus from our moving service.
The negative feed backs have been the wallpapers. Funny how you can just love something and no one else loves your taste. I also find it funny that purchasers can't get past it and look at the bones of a house. Hey we have done what many have had to do; price it low enough that they can replace the wallpaper. It isn't like there are major repairs at all. We have kept up with our place very well. We have added fresh new carpet to the upstairs bedrooms and have moved Wendy's bedroom/play things back upstairs instead of them being in the dinning room.

Come On Buy It Already....PLEASE.

Lesa

As Promised, here are some of the photos of President Clinton and Wendy!!!

President Bill Clinton reaching for Wendy Monet Chunchu!!
President Bill holding Wendy (Obviously)
President Bill passing Wendy back to daddy.

I so want to thank the lady who sent these our way. We had not realized that we could have our camera, and when we actually got in there here everyone had them! I am so happy that someone was kind enough to send the photos our way. Wendy will never forget this! She has the news paper of him making his speech and just stares at it, but when these photos came to us last night via email she was in a trance. Who can blame her. It all happened so fast. I cried when I saw he was actually going to hold her. I could have never imagined. It was like being at a Beetles Concert with hands going every direction, and getting squeezed and pressed between Holly and the 75 other people from behind just wanting to see him or to do as we did to shake his hand.
It was just so surreal.

Lesa

House Hunting Trip and meeting a GREAT MAN!!

Well we left for Amarillo on Wednesday and got there around 5:30 pm. Not too bad since we made 3 stops, and they were long ones. We found some Rest Stops that were called Safety Stops. They have really nice restrooms, and then inside the centers they have Coffee and Coke machines along with snacks. Mike and I spent 85 cents on a cup of coffee and it was really good. They also had large Play Grounds that Wendy fell in love with. The dogs even enjoyed the breaks we took.

We went House hunting on Thursday and toured 14 homes that one day alone. We had it narrowed down to one home finally and found out that another couple had sold their home and were coming to make a bid on it! They had seen it before the sale of their home and told them they wanted to have them hold it for them until they could sell their house; which sold in two days!!!!!!! Mike freaked and called our Realtor back and said we wanted it. Holly came down from Lubbock to House hunt with us on Friday. Before Holly got there we put down earnest money and signed a contract. Made a bid and then she countered and then we back and then she came back with the final bid on Saturday Morning. Well, both previous owners swore that they never had any problems with flooding. He had such a hard time with accepting the house and the Realtor took us around to four other houses we headed back to the motel to get the dogs and check out and then look some more. I set there getting depressed and thinking at that rate we would never find a house. They are either were too expensive for the size or the rooms are too tiny or the floor plan was terrible.....nothing at all like the Ft. Worth housing costs...which also made it difficult.

He could see I was not doing too well and said lets just get that house. He said he just needed to know I loved the house and that we had a back up house in case something went wrong. I told him I loved it and the back up would be a house we had seen on the internet with lots of BLACK Tile in it. The guy who owned it was a Realtor himself, but chose BLACK!! Holly wanted to see it so we took her to it and she said good back up but we would have to redo all cabinets and it would be a fun fixer upper. Enough said, if the inspections go well and the people who inspect it swear it won't flood we have a house.

I will post photos as soon as we get the word.

Now then, after all of that and an Icy Saturday trying to finish up house hunting we drove all the way to Lubbock to go to a Basketball Game....needless to say we didn't make it to the game.....

We had learned in Amarillo that Bill Clinton was going to be in town at 2:30 pm and then 5:30 in Lubbock. We got so excited.. Mike has always wanted to meet him.
We got in town at 4:50 pm. and parked, walked to the High School that Buddy Holly attended and found many people were wanting to see him; many coming from the metro- plex and surrounding areas. We walked down past the school and someone said keep going it wraps around about 5 blocks. Well, we made it to the fourth turn and got to the end of the line. People were starting to leave the line because of a rumor that there had to be a ticket to get in (NOT TRUE) we stayed the course and got almost to the Gym door with about 40 people in front of us. They were only allowing 1200 people in the main gym, but we heard they had actually allowed 1750 in. The doors shut and then they directed us to the Practice Gym. Only 100 could go in and we made it in there with being shoved through the door like sardines being vacuum packed in a can. We found out he was leaving that direction and they had blocked it off so he could walk through. We were second row behind the bars and after 3 hours of standing in line and in the gym listening to his speech he finally came back to us and we really didn't think he would shake hands just leave, but wait he did he started at the bleachers and worked his way back toward us and I touched his hand while the guy next to me shook it then he grabbed my hand and Holly's together and gripped (his hands are so soft!)....Wendy leaned it toward him and he took her from Mike!!!!!!! She went over the barricade and he held her. He asked Mike if she were his and he said yes sir. He said that she sure was beautiful and of course Mike told him thank you. Back she came and I cried that someone that famous took and held my baby!! He shook Mike's hand went on down to the end and came back shaking hands again he shook ours again and then told Wendy "bye bye darlin' ". Can you BELIEVE it?????? Me neither!! We didn't have a camera since we ran from the car to get into the mega line. The nice people around us had captured it on their cameras and we are hoping that they will be kind enough to send them our way. We left our addresses with them so maybe one of them will get a photo to us. As we were leaving many stopped us and congratulated us on our daughter be held by him. I hope Wendy will remember this. She woke up this morning and said where is President Bill? We got a local paper with the photos of him inside the main gym, but the Media wasn't anywhere around to know that the 100 special people got to actually come in close contact with President Bill Clinton!!!


Lesa

PS... I bought Holly a "Hillary Rocks" campaign pin in HOT PINK. I would have gotten more but we were afraid of losing our place in line. Not to mention we thought we could get more after we left the Speech.....we were sent out the opposite doors. Darn it! At least we have the one pin from that night.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

I want to wish all of my friends and family a Happy New Year. This is the Year of the Rat. We are hoping for wonderful things to happen in the Year of the Rat! Maybe this will be the year for Mylie.


Send this eCard !



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I hope you enjoy the cards!!!

Love and Best Wishes for the Year of the RAT!!

Lesa

Mike turns 51

Yesterday my sweet Mike turned 51. Wow, it is hard to believe that he is in his 50's.

We had a great evening. I made him a chocolate cake with chocolate and toasted walnut icing. Wendy and I sang to him and gave him our gifts and cards.
Lacy dropped by to wish her dad a happy birthday and Holly called. Our parents sang to him on the phone. Not a bad night.

Saturday we will be celebrating Mike's and my parents birthdays since they are all with in the month of January.

Happy Birthday to all three of you!

Lesa

19 Month Mark!

Sad but true....it has now been 19 months since we were logged in for Mylie. I should have written this the day before yesterday, since it was the nineteenth and the 19th month of waiting.

We have been keeping ourselves busy, and trying to keep calm still about the long wait.

Over the weekend we moved Lacy into her own place. She is now in an apartment and is making her little nest. I can't wait to see it once it is finished. Lots of things to put in such a small place, but I know she can figure out where everything should go.

Mean while we are enjoying Holly being home for the weekend. She must go home this evening luckily she will be flying so it won't take that long to get back. I will be sad to see her go.

Lacy comes back tomorrow to get a few things that were left behind. It will be good to see her and here how things are coming on the new place.

As for our wait.... Well, it has been a long one and I know that one day we will have our sweet baby Mylie. It is just taking longer than anyone would dream. I guess one way of looking at things is that we are 19 months and one day closer to our little one. I can't wait to see her little face, hold her and to shower her with all of this built up love we have gained for her.

I'm still hoping for a miracle though.

Lesa

Christmas Morning was succesful!!! Plus some added photos of our trip to see Santa.

The upper three are of all of us at North Park Center in Dallas on Saturday Dec. 22nd with our Santa that we have literally been going to since the two older girls were small! My kids swear he is the "Real Santa"! The story is long about our day to just get these photos.... We got out of our house to get to this Dallas Mall by opening. We managed to get there at 10:30 a.m. and Mike ran to get our ticket to see Santa. Turns out that he should have been there by 6:00 a.m. to have gotten a good ticket! Well needless to say our ticket was #174!!! They told Mike we should be seeing him around 6:30 p.m. At first it didn't seem too bad, because we wanted to shop and eat lunch at a favorite Italian Restaurant with in the mall. When we decided to go and see what # they had reached it was 5:30 p.m. and they were only on #90!! Mike, for the very first time said we were going to stay if it took to 11:00 p.m. that night!
They advised everyone to be there at 7:00 p.m. and they were going to start getting everyone in line by their # order and get everyone seen at a better pace. Why not do that in the first place???? Gee! We were so tired and I'm so surprised that we all looked good in the photo. Luckily Wendy had taken a nap in her stroller; which I'm grateful that we decided to take it (Wendy isn't much of a stroller kid anymore).

Mike got in line when our # was called. Only one person could be in line for their whole family; so we gave Mike a potty break and an extra breather. It was finally our turn to see the Jolly Man at 8:30 p.m. Hey, at least it wasn't 11:00 p.m.!!



The bottom photos are only a sampling of this mornings raid on the presents. Notice the change of P.J.'s.... thank you Leigh and Katey!! More photos later......



Merry Christmas to Everyone,

We managed to sleep in to 7:30! Wendy woke up and found her stocking was full and had the cutest kitty (stuffed)sitting on top of it. I allowed her to open her stocking first since the big girls were not awake yet.
Besides, Wendy didn't even give the tree a thought at that time. How lucky was that.

She did get the items she asked Santa for and then some..... What are kids for, but to spoil them!! Right?

The big girls cashed in, too!! This was a very giving Christmas..... Lacy and Holly made gifts of Soap. They may open their own line. Wendy went shopping for everyone in the family at the Dollar Tree. You know that is a wonderful store for little kids to be able to give each person on their list something while on a tight budget....hey, that even goes for grown ups on a budget. I tried my best to turn the give~mes into thinking of others.

Wendy was very grateful for everything she got. Since this is the last Christmas in this house it was a true success.

(Oh, Leigh....we waited till this morning to open the packages for Wendy and I. You have no idea how hard that was for Wendy. She would go in and hold the package and then put it back under the tree. This morning she opened it with great excitement and loves her book and the p.j.'s!! Check the photo of before and after.)

To Sue and Ed, thank you so much for the card of the girls. Man they have grown so much in a year!! Both are getting even more beautiful!! Miss you guys. I hope you read this.

Sally, if you read this blog thank you for your kind letter and excited welcome with our move. I can't wait to meet you in person as well. Wendy is so excited to meet Camry as well. I know that they will become vast friends.

Merry Christmas to all......

Lesa

Junebug Secret Pal Revealed.....

We received our final Secret Pal package yesterday. It was so hard to keep Wendy from opening her part of the package. My pal had left hints and an order of our presents.
She did it to Christmas Songs.
Mike had "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"
Lacy had "Frosty the Snowman"
Holly had "Winter Wonderland"
Wendy had "Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer"
Mylie had "Little Drummer Boy (Girl)"
And mine was "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree"

Well, Mike received lots of Chocolate with a nice Santa.
Lacy, snowman lotion,lip balm, and nail file.
Holly, penguin lotion, lip balm, and nail file.
Wendy, a Reindeer Apron, and Chef Hat.
Mylie, a wonderful drum with playing instruments inside. This will be waiting for Mylie and I know she will absolutely love it!!
I received a Beautiful Cut Crystal Ladybug!
Last of all we all received Maple Syrup from her area in Canada. YUM! We plan on using it on Christmas morning with breakfast.

Everything was so beautifully wrapped in Christmas Paper. Such a wonderful package for a final gift. My pal has been about the sweetest thing with all of the wonderfully thought out themes and packages.

Anik Nolet is my Secret Pal and she lives in Canada, and this is she and her husbands first child. They are LID May 18 2006....one month before ours. Some of the families in our Junebug 06' group weren't sure of their LID at the time they joined the June group and many got to know all of the June LID families so it was hard for them to not stay in ours and May or July however their DTC/LID's fell.

I'm happy that she is part of our group, and that I was able to get to know Anik!

Thank you so much Anik for all you have done for my family.

Lesa

Happy 18 Months......well not totally happy~

This is the time of year I had actually thought we would be in China for Mylie. There are many things going on at this time of year to keep us busy though.
I have been wrapping presents, addressing and mailing our Christmas Cards. Not to mention all of the packing going on. So, we have really been too busy to whine about it this time around.

Happy 18th month to my future travel mates!!! I am know hoping that this time next year we will hopefully be on our way to our new little ones.

Lesa