No big news... but an update nonetheless

We just can't seem to stay on top of this thing! Probably because we have just been busy overall. I'm keeping very busy with work. John has taken a job locally, so very little travel now. All their work is within 100 miles of home, so the only time he has to travel now is when he goes to a training.

We've gained and lost family members since we last posted. We added an African Grey Parrot to our household in May. His (or her, we don't really know for sure) name is Joe. Joe is about 20 years old, and we are his 4th family. The third family only had him for a short time, and then took him back to the second family. When he was then ready to move on again, we got to go pick him up. He is bonding pretty well with me, but does not like John too much. He actually bit John twice, both in one night. I was going to add a picture here of Joe, but they don't seem to be stored where I thought they were on the computer. Maybe next time I can post some.

In late June/early July we had to put down Cutz (our newest cat). She continued to have problems adjusting, and we had tried to find other homes for her. She had been through a lot, but we just couldn't put up with her messing up our house, so she went up to kitty heaven. We were sad to see her go, but knew it was the right thing to do, both for her and for us.

This weekend, Anijah is going to come up to visit us for about 5 days, so maybe we will manage to post again soon with some pictures of our fun activities with her.

Long overdue post

So, where to begin. It has been way too long since we posted. We've just been plugging along like normal, keeping the house clean, taking care of our zoo, etc. John is back working with the company he left in Noblesville. Things just weren't going well with the company here, and I told him I'd rather have him gone all week, and get two good days with him than have him home all the time, but angry. So he quit and went back to working with the jails. We are not planning on staying there long term, but until something comes up (which in the current economy could be a while), he is "in jail" most of the week. My work has been keeping me busy. I have been carrying a pretty full caseload, and have started doing evaluations to qualify children for our program. I still love what I'm doing.

We haven't really done too much to the house yet. We did tear up some carpet in the basement that a previous owner's cat had peed on, and put down some laminate floor just after Christmas. It looks great, and no more pee smell:-) Here are a few pics from the two evenings of work.

This is after one night's work. Notice the wallpaper pattern at the bottom of the wall where the baseboard came off.

Elsa has to inspect the first night's work before we can contine:-)

John and Brian (and the girls) with the finished product, baseboards back up and all!

We have plans for some of the other projects we want to do to the house, but we need to save up some money first. We have also painted the room that will become the baby's room (no we're not pregnant yet).

In August we acquired a new cat. Her name is Cuts. John's grandpa fell and had to go into the nursing home, so we took his cat. Grandpa died on Christmas Eve, so the cat now has a new permanent home. There were definitely some rough times at first, and there still are figths, but it has gotten better. She is cute, and has definitely grown on us. We still think she would be better off in a house with no other animals, but at least for now, she's stuck with us and our zoo. Here's a picture of her (she looks a lot like one of our other cats, April). This is the only one we have of her where she doesn't look evil or isn't a blur.

Over Christmas Break we had Anijah come up and visit us for a few days. She enjoyed playing Wii and hanging out. We also took her to a movie and to go ice skating. It was her first time ice-skating, but she did pretty well once she found her skating legs. It took her a while, but she liked it, and I have a feeling we will be able to convince her to go again if she visits next winter (or if we are in Indy visiting).

Well, I should probably get going. I have a few things to do before I join Mom and Mel for dinner and a movie tonight!

New House

John is taking the blog back for at least one blogging here. So we have moved into the house and below are a few pictures of the outside. We are on the north side of South Bend - not far from the Michigian Line. Our lot is 3/4 of an acre and is about half wooded. I actually can mow this lawn faster than the yard in Noblesville.

Here is the front yard, please ignore the large dirt spot. Just last weekend there were some large and unsightly bushes that covered the view from the road. As you can see there is a lot of landscapeing that was done by previous owners but the bushes had to go.

And here is the back yard at an angle - the trees behind the swing set are ours. It goes on for another 30 yards or so. The lot diamentions are 100' by 308' (roughly a football field).
And another backyard shot and so ends this short post.

House update

We have another house that we are in the process of buying. It is a cute house and has a nice yard. We have a purchase agreement, and have had our inspections. We are now waiting for the inspection reports so we can respond to the inspections. There are a few things we are hoping they will fix for us, but haven't started that part of the process yet. If all goes well, we should be in at the end of the month. YAY!!!!!!!!!!! If I don't post before then, I will post pics when we get moved in.

I've been very busy with work. My caseload filled up easily, and I have even had requests after I had "closed out." It looks like I shouldn't have too much trouble keeping busy up here:-) And my Spanish has definitely come in handy. I haven't had any need for my French yet, but I have only been here for 2 months so far, and I only had 2 families who spoke French in the whole 4 years I was working in Indy. I'm off to watch TV and be a bum for the rest of the evening.

Still no house

Well, the house we wanted to buy didn't work out. We had found a house that was built in 1864. It was a cool old house on 4 acres (3 of them wooded). Unfortunately, it had foundation problems, and the septic was not a septic... there were 2 cess pools instead. So we have backed out of that house, and are now on the hunt again. John and I went last weekend to talk to some builders. We would still prefer to find an existing house at this point, but there amazingly isn't much new out there since we were looking before. We are going to see a few houses later this week, so hopefully one of those will work out!

My job transfer has gone pretty well. I have a lot of kiddos to work with, and have been getting phone calls to take more even after I have closed my availability. I guess my Spanish has definitely come in handy here:-) John has good days and bad at work, but hopefully things will calm down a bit as he learns more about what he is really doing, and is able to work more on an independent basis.

Not much else happening here - just hoping to find a house and get back to living on our own!!

Moving on up to the North Side :-)

We've been very busy with the move up to the South Bend area. Our house sold quickly, but closing got put off for a long time because our buyer's buyer had a crappy lender. They finally closed on that on Thursday (about a month later than originally scheduled), and I will be driving to Noblesville this week to close on our house and get that step over with. We started the house hunt process up here, and were really striking out for a while. We found a house this past week that we really like, and made an offer on Friday. We are hoping to come to an agreement soon on price so we can move into our own house.

John started his job and is liking it pretty well so far. He has been learning a lot, and is home every night:-). I have started working up in the South Bend area as well, and my caseload is filling up pretty quickly. I think I will have a full caseload very soon.

And, of course, what would a blog post be without a few pics of our four-legged children.

The girls helped me babysit John's cousin's little girl for a day when they were in town. Ebony was being "Nana" here watching over what she was doing.

Elsa looking sad and depressed, but really trying to also protect the baby:-)

Elsa keeping watch over the back yard. Better not try to do anything silly you ground squirrels or rabbits.

Ebony being camera shy in the backyard.

And as a final note, please keep the people of Haiti in your prayers. The rioting over the rise in food prices this past week has made life even more difficult. People are blocking the roads that lead out of Port-au-Prince that would normally be used to transport food to other parts of the country. Haitians live on an average of $2 a day, and the rise in food costs have made it even more difficult to feed their families. Haiti is not the only country being affected by this (Egypt, Senegal, etc), but since before our trip down there in November, I have felt the need to pray for the people of Haiti.

I'll post more once we know about our house situation!

Lots of News



Where do I even start? Things have been crazy around here. We completed the work we were doing in the laundry room (new floor, cabinets, and paint). Then John accepted a job in South Bend. He had started looking a little bit for a job that would keep him home more. So when this came up, we decided to move him up there, and that I would be staying here to sell the house. So, we contacted the realtor to get started on the process of selling our house. Patty (our realtor) came by about 2 weeks ago to look at the house and talk about what we could do to help stage the house for showings. While she was here, she mentioned that she had someone who might be interested in looking at the house. So, the next day, Patty called to ask if she could bring the woman through. By Saturday we had an offer, and about Tuesday of last week we had a sales agreement. This is all happening so fast, but at least the house sold and we aren't sitting here for months with it on the market. I have closing on the house on March 19th (13 days!) and we hand over the keys that day. We will be staying with John's parents until we get a new house. We haven't gone looking at houses yet, but have been checking some out online.



John has started his new job and is still learning the ropes. He should be home about 80-90% of the year, instead of traveling 80-90% of the year (yay!!). When he does travel, it will be international travel as his company sends their products overseas. So he might be making trips to Mexico, Europe, and possibly some other places. Maybe I'll get to tag along!



I would love to show off our work in the laundry room, but John has the pictures on his computer, and he is in South Bend.



This weekend is the big moving truck day. We plan to get almost everything out of here on Saturday, and I will live here with the bare minimum for the next week while I close out my caseload here before we close on the house!