LuLu's Birthday!!

LuLu turns 12 today! Hard to believe that she could be that old. We will go out for dinner tonight and then back here for cake and ice cream. My sister, brother in law, niece, Joe's grandma and Joe's step grandpa will join us for cake and ice cream. We planned on having the 'party' in our house (travel trailer) but Joe's grandma suggested we just come into her house. Probably a good idea since 9 people in our little trailer would be rather tight.

Things are going well. I've been busy with wedding stuff, Christmas and settling in. J went to the doctor on Monday and she is doing good. The ultrasound estimated the baby's weight at 6 pounds 7 ounces. Wowzers. Hopefully he won't be a 10 pounder like Joe was.

Next Thursday KiKi, LuLu, my sister, niece and myself will drive back up to Oregon. Joe and my brother in law will come up after work on Friday. We do have alot to do to get ready for the wedding. This is a Do It Yourself wedding so I anticipate a busy couple of days. I started feeling myself stressing out over it yesterday but last night I found some peace in realizing that everything will work out just fine. Angel's wedding will be nice. There may be a few little hiccups but I am determined not to let it cause me a 'breakdown'. I am putting this here so I have it in writing that I will not freak out. I figure I need all the help I can get with keeping myself together. lol. My mantra "I will not freak out" is going through my head over and over.

I still need to pick up a couple of Christmas gifts but for the most part am ready. We won't put up a tree this year until a couple of days prior to Christmas because of our space issues. And for the first time it will be a fake tree. I'm glad that I have one given to me by my former mother in law. It will be perfect.

We have just about all of our baby stuff ready. I need to pick up just a few things that are not essentials. We might even have a name chosen. I'm not sure yet though since we can't seem to stick with any of our choices more than a few days. We should have one picked out at least by the time he leaves the hospital.

Travel trailer living has been good. We are very comfortable most of the time. It is good that KiKi and LuLu have a separate trailer. Most of the time we are all in our trailer but they do sleep in theirs and sometimes read or play their video games. Most homework is done in ours, all cooking and meals in ours, TV watching is in ours and the bathroom is in ours. So we all spend lots of time together. I love it. I take the girls to and from school too and I really love that. I feel very connected to them. It is so different than our life was in Oregon. I no longer go to work each day (which is very weird but I'm adapting to it). I do have a couple of minor complaints. The biggest is my lack of internet. I either have to sit outside in the yard to get internet or go into Joe's grandparents house (that is where I am right now). I have a router set up that I hoped would give me internet in the trailer but there is too much interference. I'm thinking of looking into getting a repeater but that will have to wait until after the wedding. My brain can't handle anything else right now. In the mean time I'll make do. Today I'm in the house baking LuLu's birthday cake. I'm also doing a load of laundry. Usually I go to the laundromat but Joe's Grandma asked me to do my laundry here instead of going to the laundromat. She says it is silly for me to go there when she has a perfectly fine washer and dryer. I love that woman!!

Craziness Update

We have been having fun here.

Angel- Now has a wedding dress. It is beautiful. We were able to buy it off the rack and it only needs small alterations. A little hemming and the halter part of the dress needs shortened. She is also going to have a french bustle put in so the small train can be put up for the reception. They chose the location for the wedding and the reception. It is a nice place (and the price is right). They are working on the guest list and have picked out the invitations. Once the guest list is closer on numbers we will order the invites. 73 days to Wedding Day!

Bear- is still adapting to a full load at school and a 20 hour a week job.

Our House- We did reach an offer agreement and the home inspection was done today. Hopefully that will turn out well. We found out today that there was a law passed last year that is going to require extra work and money from us to satisfy our counties requirements for the 'lot-of- record'. I'm actually less than pleased with this new development. I understand it but it still frosts my butt. This will be the 5th house I have sold the second that Joe has sold. Neither of us has ever had such a stressful transaction and we are not even a quarter of the way through it. I think that a lot of it has to do with the way the market is. I will say so far it has been very educational and I am incredibly happy that we listed with a realtor instead of doing a For Sale By Owner like we originally planned. Right now we are scheduled to close mid-November. So that brings me to the next part of this update:


Where will we be living next month? Good question. We didn't plan on the house selling so fast. Once we heard that we were getting an offer we scrambled a bit to come up with a solution. We do have property in Wyoming. BARE Property. No house. The idea of living in a travel trailer or two through a Wyoming winter is more than Joe and I can handle. Plus our surrogate is in California. She is due in January. We do not want to be in Wyoming which is even further away than we are now when she goes into labor. So our solution is to winter in California. Joe is from Northern CA and his entire family is still there. His grandma has been nice enough to offer for us stay at her place. She has an RV pad with hookups (water, electric and sewer). We will park our trailer there and my sister will loan us her trailer. So we will be a family living in two travel trailers for the winter. Northern CA in a travel trailer is much more doable than Wyoming in a travel trailer. And Joe has a job lined up. It is a temporary job that will run from early November until spring. Our plan is to be down in CA the second weekend in November. Lots and lots to do in a short amount of time.


KiKi and LuLu- I expected them to be upset about living temporarily in CA but they aren't. They both tell me they are excited. They will go to school with Joe's nieces. I am hopeful that this will be a fun adventure for them.


J and Baby- Doing good. We get to go down and see J next weekend for her OB appointment. And we are going to have a 3D ultrasound. I am very excited that once we are down in CA we will only be 2 1/2 hours from J. That is nothing compared to our distance now. 94 days to baby day!

Summer's Here!

Finally, we have something resembling summer weather. Yes, it is September. But the last few days have been hot. Today is cooler but still very warm and dry. Looking at the weather forecast it is supposed to remain this way through the weekend.

Thursday night we are going to our local melodrama “Shanghaied” which should be a lot of fun. We have never gone before even though it has been playing for something like 20 years. With Bear visiting it seemed like a good time to go. Especially since she is a theatre major and very much enjoys plays and such.

The realtor is coming back tomorrow night to do some additional listing pictures. I have been looking at lots of decorating web sites and blogs and have some ideas for staging. This part seems like it should be fun but it scares me a bit. I'm not good at decorating. Things never seem to look right when I put them together. I love cottage style looks but can't figure out how to translate those into real life. That will be my task for tonight. Attempt to make my house look like a "Model Home". Model homes sport dog hair, right?