The New Contract

We have a contract on the other house now. That is a relief. Now we have the home inspection and appraisal to get through. Let's all pray that everything goes well and we can close within 2 weeks.

Kids all had their check-ups today. It was kind-of funny to hear the Dr. predict how big they will be. He thinks Dan will only be around 5'10 and 155lbs. Kade 6' and 165, he thinks Kyrie will grow at least 4 more inches and Jake will be at least 6'3" 220lbs. Kade insists he will still be able to "take him". I guess we'll all have a few years yet to see if this comes to pass.

Updating the Update

So the housing crisis continues to loom. We found another home that we like, in a great neighborhood, 100K less than the other home, would meet our needs for now, and have put in an offer on it. Current owners are in Korea but hopefully will have an answer for us in 24 hours. If this one doesn't fly we might rent for a year and have the Waters build us a home, or just buy that new one I still love. The problem with it is "location, location, location." It is zoned for the worst schools in this town. It is such a great family home that certainly when we went to sell it a larger family would be the only one's looking at it and I don't know if they would even consider it since the public schools suck. We are putting our kids in private school, so it's not an issue for us.

The HOT sauce Kade secretly feed me is actually called "Endorphine Rush" I didn't feel any endorphines, just a lot of pain. Still have terrible heartburn.

Here's a funny quote from one of Kyrie's new friends here. We went to the library, Kyrie was complaining about how small it is and her friend said "well, yeah, why would it need to be any bigger, 1/2 of Polk County can't read, so why would they need a big library for illiterate people?" All said with an exaggerated southern twang.

Thanks Me Boy...

Well, it's a good thing I love my kids. We ate at Tijuana Flats tonight. They have a "hot bar" full of different types of salsa ranging from the mild to the flaming, burn your tongue off hot. I got one in the mild range to try, sat at the table, turned to help Daniel with something, then started to dig into the salsa. About my 2nd chip in Kade and Jake are snickering and I realize something is up. My mouth starts to burn, and I mean BURN. Burn like it was on fire. Nothing would quench the flames. I was almost in tears. I like spicy foods, but this was so beyond spicy it isn't even funny. I got sick and couldn't even eat my dinner. Kade couldn't understand why I was reacting like that, so I suggested he try a tiny bit. Three hours later, the corner of my lips are still burning and feel blistered, and I have the worst case of heart burn I can remember having, akin to the pain I feel when I am pregnant. As fate would have it, on Myth Busters tonight they have a show about salsa and spicy salsa, and salsa that is so spicy apparently it can kill you. Kade feels really bad and now knows that it is not so funny to feed unsuspecting victims poison.

Thank you "'Slap My (three letter word for behind) and Call Me Sally" the name of the hottest of hot sauces available.

To top it off Wade was teasing Daniel. He jumped across me from the floor onto the bed to grab him. I was afraid he was going to hit me so I rolled a little and just happened to stop in his landing zone. Imagine the knee pile driving into the thigh bone. Yet again today, I was reduced to tears. It hurts to bear weight on, it hurts to sit, my knee is starting to hurt a little and my foot is tingling. Life doesn't get any better.

What To Do, What To Do?????

Well, the appraisal review with Huntington Bank was a JOKE!! Too long of a story to post here. Short of the long, if we want to continue with purchasing this home we will work with a different lender, have to pay for another appraisal ($400) which will be the 3rd one and then there is still no guarantee that it will be anywhere near our contract price. If we go ahead and pay for this and it works out, great, we get to move in. But if it doesn't come in we are 2 more weeks down the road and still don't have a place to live. To complicate matters more the home that I feel in love with, brand new, 4600 square feet, beautiful lot on a smaller lake, but not the most desirable part of town for resale value, was just reduced by $51,000 from the last time I looked at it in May. If we bought this home we would be getting it for around $100 a square foot. It is a beautiful parade of homes winner that you couldn't build for maybe $165 a square foot. Our bishop and his wife are "the" builders in town. They went to look at it last night with us and both said "you need to buy this home." I don't know what to do. Wade doesn't know what to do. I know I want the new home, but I love the master bath and the pool/deck on the other home. We could put a pool in at the new home in a few years and it does have a community pool just down the road. The only draw back I can find is the poor seller of the home we were trying to buy. He has been so generous to us (we are living in his condo for free, which he offered to us until we get into a home) and is the nicest guy. If this falls through it will be the 3rd time it has happened to him in the past 2 years. His home is so well built and maintained it's a no brainer, but we just don't know with the market dropping as much as it is, if he would reduce his price any more. Suggestions anyone?

Their promises mean NOTHING

We were promised, over and over again, that we would have an answer to the appraisal review by the end of business yesterday. 5:00pm came and went, and no answer. This company really sucks. Considering we initially thought we could close by the first week of July, we are very frustrated. We are grateful that we are all together, we have a roof over our heads that is free, a kitchen to cook in so we don't have to eat out every meal, and we have air conditioning. On the flip side, the kids are bugging the HE** out of each other and me, there is really nothing for them to do except sit and watch TV which drives me crazy. I've tried to do something each day with them and maybe today we'll go the the theme park/water park here.

Daniel has just taken a basket full of my clean G's and put ALL of them on. He looks pretty funny. I guess it's moments like these that help keep my sane in a otherwise frustratingly crazy process.

Wow, I'm finally connected again

So, I finally got my computer hooked up today. We still are not in a home of our own. The lender we are using flagged the appraisal and was doing a review, but they have promised that they will have an answer for us on it on Mon. If they don't approve it we will have to use someone else, which is fine by me, except that means 2-4 weeks more time before we can close. We were staying in a condo in Kissimmee but are now in a condo in Winter Haven owned by the guy we are buying the home from. We could use some prayers that we will have approval on Mon meaning we can close on Tues or Wed. This has been an "adventure" for us for sure.

The only theme park related thing we have done is go to Gatorland. There were 1000's of gators of all different sizes. The largest was "Chester the Big Dog" so named because when he was trapped in Tampa in '05 he was 13 1/2 feet long and all of the neighborhood dogs were disappearing. He is now over 15 feet and HUGE. I mean scary HUGE. Even Daniel now has a healthy fear for gators which is probably a good thing. It has rained every day since we have arrived.

Kade had scout camp all this week and didn't end up spending the night once. The first night there he somehow got left by himself when they decided to abandon the sleeping out in the rain since everything and everyone was thoroughly soaked. I'm still not sure how he got left, except that maybe he was asleep in the tent? We were still in Kissimmee at that point, 45 minutes away. The only saving grace was that he had his cell phone and had actually called earlier wanting to come home for the night. Wade was on his way to get him and I think he was only by himself for 20 minutes. What we didn't know was that once the men realized they didn't have him they rushed back to the campground to search for him, by which time he had left with Wade. I had called the lady in charge of the camping and told her he was by himself but that Wade was almost there to get him. I don't know who communicated with whom, but I had a few frantic calls about 1/2 hour later wanting to know if we knew where Kade was. The scouts had searched they nearby orange grove for him and everything. I wasn't upset, things happen, he was safe but the men in charge were not happy with their "mistake" and have decided it was a good learning experience on how not to evacuate a camp in the future.

Wade is enjoying his job immensely and wants to be kept busier there. He is hoping to talk Lex into hiring a new cutter and purchasing another machine that they use for cutting and processing the biopsies so he can do more surgeries per day and hence earn more money. He got his first paycheck today. Wow, Uncle Sam sure is generous to leave us with something. Maybe I should say Uncle Sam is greedy and needs to back off of our earnings!!! Help us all if Obama is elected by the idiots of this country. We are both excited that he (Wade) now has enough time for a church calling and he was just extended the call of Elder's Quorum President. I have been put in as primary choruster (how do you spell that anyways?) The funny thing about it is we have a new bishop of the ward and he felt strongly that a Wade Foster should be put in this position, the only problem was there wasn't a Wade Foster in the ward, but low and behold he had to go to the dermatologist, went to the office where Wade's name was added to the sign outside a few months back, and saw his name. That confirmed for him that there would soon be a Wade Foster in the ward for this calling. So here we are.