Saturday, December 17, 2011

And Here We Are!

Flowers still in bloom in December... A trip to get to know our new zoo... A new spot to chill out and watch some TV...

Friday, December 16, 2011

Kentucky Firsts!

Written by Heidi.
This is a list of "firsts" accomplished in our new house and elsewhere:

The first to lose a tooth: Dawson!!!

The first to barf (poor guy!): Davis!!!

The first to make a peanut butter sandwich: Heidi/Mom!!!

The first to place a tracheal stent at his work: Derek/Dad!!!

The first to poop on the floor: Duke! (Let's be clear here: Duke is a dog.)

The first to hack up a hairball: Larry (and Larry is a cat) :-)

The first animal to thoroughly inspect the food pantry: Thomas (our tuxedo cat)!!!

And I need to add here that I had help from the boys writing this post. They like the gross stuff and think it's funny. I am glad my "first" was not gross!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

By Davis

Written by Davis. This is what I like about Louisville, Kentucky:

They have my favorite restaurant: Kentucky Fried Chicken. I know they are other places, but here they are cool!

I am excited about going to my new school. We start January 2nd.

I really like my new house. It's very big and I like my room, too.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

By Dawson

Written by Dawson. This is what I think of Kentucky so far:


They have a lot of cool places to go to. For example, The Louisville Slugger Museum... because right now they have a Charlie Brown/Peanuts exhibit.

Things are very exciting. Like the The Louisville Zoo, which has tons of animals that the Blank Park Zoo did not have.

Our school and church are very cool, too. Our school also has church-like stuff. And our church has video games to browse while you are waiting for the service.

Can't wait to continue my life in Louisville!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Sea of Boxes

Written by Heidi. (I hope to get the boys to post on here their thoughts and ideas sometime soon!)

Here are a few photos (that you may have already seen on Facebook) that shows the boys (including one furry one) surviving amidst the boxes! The movers arrived on schedule that Thursday (December 1st) and delivered our stuff in fine fashion. Our driver was the BEST! The crew that loaded us up in Des Moines was AWESOME! The crew that unloaded us here in Kentucky was... okay. I can't complain too much. They got the stuff into the house without destroying anything, but they were a little disorganized and not so keen on following instructions on where to put the boxes or which ones had "this end up" marked CLEARLY on them. Oh well. We would totally recommend Lint/United Van Lines to anyone.

We ate off of paper plates for a few more days. We slept on matresses with blankets and no sheets a couple of nights. We survived.

Derek started work on Wednesday. Thank goodness for DS games and the forethought of my husband to pack up the small flat-screen TV and a rabbit-ear antenna. We were able to tune in some digital stations and kept quite occupied. That evening my parents arrived and we were glad to have them here to visit and share with us the beginnings to our new home.

We visited them at their hotel across the river in Indiana! We had dinner (which was interesting... we ordered and then waited an hour for our food!) and then enjoyed a swim. It was a relaxing evening.

The next morning came and things were full-throttle at that point. Derek was off to work (he came back mid morning for a bit to see how things were going) and the movers were here to leave all the boxes!!! The boys really liked time with Nana and Poppy. The internet was hooked up that afternoon. And then the unloading began.

We were THRILLED that Derek was already busy seeing cases that first day! (Wednesday was more of an orientation.. Thursday he was on clinics!) He had two cases and came home very happy! Yay!

My mom and dad were on the road back home Friday... and I worked to get things into place in the kitchen first. We had service people come to reconstruct bunk beds and hook up appliances. And I even got the boys registered for school. We had to wait the weekend to see where they got assigned.

We were optimistic that the boys might get assigned to a school near us... but also knew that there might be a chance that would not happen. We had seen the six or so school buses every morning and afternoon that took the children of the neighborhood to schools all across the city. We had heard the stories about how you might live within a mile of your "resides" school, but then get bussed to another school across town... and spend up to an hour or so on the trip... one way. We were nervous, but hoping for the best.

Well, Monday came and we hadn't heard anything by about 10am. We wanted a heads-up so that we had time to get the boys supplies and the appropriate clothes for the required uniform standards of whichever school they got. I had had to list two schools near to us and two schools in another group that happened to be downtown Louisville and rank them. I called to get the news.The boys got assigned my last choice: a school a good 30 to 40 minute drive FOR ME (a bus would be longer) away. We were not happy. We decided to look into private schools and got a tour of one that Monday afternoon.

It was a school recommended to us by Derek's boss. His son went there and he and his wife were very happy with it. It would be only a 15 minute drive for me to take the boys. And that is where we stand now... in the middle of the application process. We are waiting to hear (after completing the boys' placement testing and a family interview with the principal) when/if the boys get to attend starting after the break.

Meanwhile, we hold "Nestor Elementary" as Mom (me) tries to keep the boys school-minded and in gear to head back to school. :-)

The sea of boxes was pretty much gone from the main living areas and bedrooms a week after their arrival. Derek got done with the garage yesterday. He was amazing getting this done and my car was able to park in the garage last night. (Some old appliances wait for Habitat for Humanity to come pick them up next week and this keeps Derek from parking his car in the garage, too.) Just need to get the boys on their schedule with school and we will be well settled in. It will be nice to enjoy Christmas with everything in place.

Finally!



Written by Heidi. Finally we got into our house (see photo above of the little guys who were very patient) and finally I am writing a post to say a little more about it!

To start a bit from the beginning... We drove to Louisville on Sunday, November 27. It was a pretty easy trip. The boys are fairly good in the car on trips anymore... and on this one they were in separate cars! In one vehicle was Mom (me), Davis and Duke. In the other was Dad (Derek), Dawson and both cats (Larry and Thomas). Along with each group were piles and piles of the extra stuff we wanted to bring with us. The movers were not unloading our furniture at our new house until Thursday. We wanted to be prepared with a few things while camping out in the house. The last couple of hours were driven in the dark and in the rain. It was nasty, but we thankfully made it without incident.

We expected our walk-through to be Monday, the 28th, at 10:15am and that actually happened as planned! We got so excited walking though the house! The people before us were super nice and had cleaned everything! The cabinets were dusted out, the carpets were cleaned, and not a cobweb was to be seen! The two things I was most excited about (the separate dinette area and walk-in pantry) were ready for us to move in and enjoy!

But we were waiting on the appraisal paperwork to be forwarded to the bank for all the final paperwork to be done. We waited and waited.
Our first night (Sunday, when we first got into town) was at a lovely Drury Inn and Suites. The downfall to this evening was that the dog was not thrilled about riding the elevator to the fifth floor. He was not too keen about the stairs, either. But it was just one night, so we made due with this. The cats had traveled surprisingly well. We did not have to sedate them at all and they seemed to be pretty normal. So normal, in fact, that they woke at 3am ready to eat and play. This is their regular routine... this is why we keep them in the basement of our house at night. :-)  So, out to the car they went at 3am... in the rain... in our jammies.

Monday, after checkout, was spent hanging out. Animals in the car and us at various places, but mostly at the Barnes and Noble (as referred to in a previous post). We didn't want to get tied into something like sight-seeing or taking in a movie, because we wanted to ready to go when the bank was ready to go with the closing! We wanted to get into the house!

But the paperwork never came. The bank said they were sorry, but that we had to get another hotel room for another night. The Drury Inn and Suites was booked. We found something at a Residence Inn that accepted pets... except that it was one of their premier rooms (cha-$$$-ching!). LUCKILY, the bank said that they would pay for the room... and we are still waiting for them to reimburse us!

The premier room was awesome!  We wished we had made the stay for the first night there! On the main level was a kitchen, dining table and living room area (with pull-out bed in the sofa) with a bedroom off of that with it's own bathroom. Up some stairs was a loft with another bedroom and it's own bathroom! This accommodated us very well! (And you see Larry enjoying the ledge of the loft in the photo. He felt like a king, I am sure, from there!)

We waited until the very last minute to check out from that hotel. We were comfortable there! And this extra night in a hotel was a blessing in disguise. While we were upset to not be in our house, at least we had had another night on a bed instead of sleeping on the floor in the new house! But we still hadn't heard anything about a scheduled time for our closing.

So, we waited and waited. Again, we were hoping Tuesday to be the day we took the boys to see The Muppets in the theater, but did not want to get tied down to anything should the closing pop up (ha ha ha!). We eventually did look around our end of town a bit.  We drove by where we thought the boys might go to school (ha ha ha!!! THIS is another story to be told later!!!) and we checked out some of the stores around that we might be shopping at. We heard NOTHING until 3pm and that is when we knew the closing would be at 5pm.

The closing went relatively fast and we were in possession of house keys and heading to our new home by 6:30pm. We were there for about 15 minutes and then went out to Red Robin for dinner. :-)

Sunday, December 11, 2011

More soon...

Written by Heidi. Just had to post a photo if a recent purchase! I have always liked these, but here I can buy (and find) these anytime! Tee hee! Am I going off the deep/southern end? :-)