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This week, Jason went to Lubbock to sit in on the final presentations for the environmental design class he has been advising. He flew in on Tuesday and gave a brief presentation to one of the student organizations. On Wednesday, he sat in on the presentations. The students did well and he enjoyed being part of their experience. The university has another professor lined up for next year, so they won't need us to assist them next year.
While Jason was away, Rachel met with the neighbors for dinner. They met at the salad bar at the grocery store. Kennedy insisted on eating dinner from one of those miniature grocery carts. Hey, at this point, we were just happy that she was even eating.
We really ramped up the packing this weekend. We even lined up a new refrigerator for the new house. Our house has turned upside down, but it sure feels better seeing everything going into boxes. We're feeling a little anxious about everything since there is still so much to do. Too bad we can't just snap our fingers and wake up with the move behind us.
We did manage a capture a few minutes this weekend out on the back porch. We took a couple pictures of Kennedy. She continues to surprise us with her expanding vocabulary. She has even started to pair up nouns with verbs and adjectives to form little phrases. She sure makes us proud!
Jason's foot has continued to bother him, so he is heading to the orthopedic specialist on Monday.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Jason's Work trip and Packing
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This week, Jason went to Galveston for the Texas Water Conference. On Tuesday, he served in an environmental service project where they placed oyster shells in the bay to help slow the shore erosion. The bags of old oyster shells also provide a habitat for wildlife in the bay. On Wednesday, he competed in a 5K. Although he hadn't been running much, his team got first place overall. On Thursday, he judged a safety competition. Ironically, he dropped a 150 pound dummy on his foot. After driving home from Galveston, he discovered that his foot was pretty bruised an swollen. He went to get it checked out and the good news is that it isn't broken. He'll just need to lay low for a while.
On Friday, Jason's parents made it to town. They came to town because Jason's company had their annual dinner on Saturday evening. Saturday morning, we all drove by the new house over in Grapevine. We also spent a few minutes checking out the HOA's private pond and playground. It sure didn't take long for Kennedy to feel at home.
Jason's parents watched Kennedy on Saturday evening while we went to the annual dinner. After dinner, we went out with a smaller group to have a good time.
Jason's parents also helped us to get some packing done. We've got a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks and they helped give us that head start.
This week, Jason went to Galveston for the Texas Water Conference. On Tuesday, he served in an environmental service project where they placed oyster shells in the bay to help slow the shore erosion. The bags of old oyster shells also provide a habitat for wildlife in the bay. On Wednesday, he competed in a 5K. Although he hadn't been running much, his team got first place overall. On Thursday, he judged a safety competition. Ironically, he dropped a 150 pound dummy on his foot. After driving home from Galveston, he discovered that his foot was pretty bruised an swollen. He went to get it checked out and the good news is that it isn't broken. He'll just need to lay low for a while.
On Friday, Jason's parents made it to town. They came to town because Jason's company had their annual dinner on Saturday evening. Saturday morning, we all drove by the new house over in Grapevine. We also spent a few minutes checking out the HOA's private pond and playground. It sure didn't take long for Kennedy to feel at home.
Jason's parents watched Kennedy on Saturday evening while we went to the annual dinner. After dinner, we went out with a smaller group to have a good time.
Jason's parents also helped us to get some packing done. We've got a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks and they helped give us that head start.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
We're Moving!
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We'll we haven't made a post in a couple of weeks. We've been pretty busy. More on that later.
A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner on the deck in the back. We snapped some photos. You can see how Kennedy is starting to act more like a big girl. She was sitting in her own chair and using her knife and fork. You can see her using her left hand to eat. We think that she may be left-handed.
Jason was able to walk down into a pump station on one of his projects. He started the design in 2008 and the construction started in January 2011. It is finally getting close to being complete. It was one of the most rewarding experiences in his career. He remembers when he was just sketching ideas for this structure on a piece of paper and now it's very much tangible.
We've been thinking about getting a place that has a little more room for our family to grow. We want to make sure that we have four bedrooms. The idea being that we have enough space for a potential second child and we want to keep a spare bedroom for visitors. We also want to make sure that long term, we are in a better school district. We've been hearing that the market is good right now, so we decided to test out putting our house on the market. A couple of weeks ago, we visited with a real estate agent.
She confirmed that the market is hot right now. For us, she recommended getting on the market as soon as possible since there is active new construction in our community and those are expected to be available in May. We naturally started scrambling that weekend to do some deep cleaning and de-cluttering. Whitney was in town that weekend. She and Rachel went to a Maroon 5 concert with Matt and Courtney. It turned out to be great. She kept Kennedy entertained while we were hard at work. Our house officially went on the market on the Thursday before Easter.
We headed back to Amarillo for Easter weekend. It's always nice getting to head back home an see all of our family. On Friday night, we gathered with Whitney and Nate to meet Brice and Lindsay in downtown Amarillo. We all got a chance to chat. On Saturday, we went to an early Easter service in an attempt to capture Kennedy when she's less cranky. Sure enough, she started wiggling and talking as soon as the minister started the sermon. Jason ended up taking her for a little walk so that she wouldn't disrupt the others. After the service, we headed over to Jason's parents house for a little Easter egg hunt. Kennedy definitely enjoyed it. After that, we went to the Kime house for some burgers and hot dogs.
While we were back in Amarillo, we had been getting several notifications that our house was being shown. Our agent called us on Saturday to tell us that we could expect an offer. Sure enough, we got an offer. After a couple of rounds back and forth, we had a contract on Monday. That was exciting, but they needed to close at the end of the Month! Yikes. It turns out that was a real sticking point for them, so we went house hunting on Tuesday.
We saw a total of 9 houses in Grapevine. Grapevine is where we first lived when we moved to the metro area. They have great schools and it is centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth. They also have good city services with relatively low taxes, so we had Grapevine in our crosshairs. We were able to narrow it down two houses. Houses in Grapevine have been going really fast and if we had any chance of not living in a hotel, we had to make an offer fast. We ended up making an offer on a house up by the lake. By some miracle, they countered with a very reasonable offer and agreed to our timing. Whoa. How lucky are we? We went on Saturday for the inspection. You can see the photos at the link below. It's not a done deal yet, but it sure is looking promising.
Click Here to See Photos of the House
We'll we haven't made a post in a couple of weeks. We've been pretty busy. More on that later.
A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner on the deck in the back. We snapped some photos. You can see how Kennedy is starting to act more like a big girl. She was sitting in her own chair and using her knife and fork. You can see her using her left hand to eat. We think that she may be left-handed.
Jason was able to walk down into a pump station on one of his projects. He started the design in 2008 and the construction started in January 2011. It is finally getting close to being complete. It was one of the most rewarding experiences in his career. He remembers when he was just sketching ideas for this structure on a piece of paper and now it's very much tangible.
We've been thinking about getting a place that has a little more room for our family to grow. We want to make sure that we have four bedrooms. The idea being that we have enough space for a potential second child and we want to keep a spare bedroom for visitors. We also want to make sure that long term, we are in a better school district. We've been hearing that the market is good right now, so we decided to test out putting our house on the market. A couple of weeks ago, we visited with a real estate agent.
She confirmed that the market is hot right now. For us, she recommended getting on the market as soon as possible since there is active new construction in our community and those are expected to be available in May. We naturally started scrambling that weekend to do some deep cleaning and de-cluttering. Whitney was in town that weekend. She and Rachel went to a Maroon 5 concert with Matt and Courtney. It turned out to be great. She kept Kennedy entertained while we were hard at work. Our house officially went on the market on the Thursday before Easter.
We headed back to Amarillo for Easter weekend. It's always nice getting to head back home an see all of our family. On Friday night, we gathered with Whitney and Nate to meet Brice and Lindsay in downtown Amarillo. We all got a chance to chat. On Saturday, we went to an early Easter service in an attempt to capture Kennedy when she's less cranky. Sure enough, she started wiggling and talking as soon as the minister started the sermon. Jason ended up taking her for a little walk so that she wouldn't disrupt the others. After the service, we headed over to Jason's parents house for a little Easter egg hunt. Kennedy definitely enjoyed it. After that, we went to the Kime house for some burgers and hot dogs.
While we were back in Amarillo, we had been getting several notifications that our house was being shown. Our agent called us on Saturday to tell us that we could expect an offer. Sure enough, we got an offer. After a couple of rounds back and forth, we had a contract on Monday. That was exciting, but they needed to close at the end of the Month! Yikes. It turns out that was a real sticking point for them, so we went house hunting on Tuesday.
We saw a total of 9 houses in Grapevine. Grapevine is where we first lived when we moved to the metro area. They have great schools and it is centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth. They also have good city services with relatively low taxes, so we had Grapevine in our crosshairs. We were able to narrow it down two houses. Houses in Grapevine have been going really fast and if we had any chance of not living in a hotel, we had to make an offer fast. We ended up making an offer on a house up by the lake. By some miracle, they countered with a very reasonable offer and agreed to our timing. Whoa. How lucky are we? We went on Saturday for the inspection. You can see the photos at the link below. It's not a done deal yet, but it sure is looking promising.
Click Here to See Photos of the House
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