2 years old!

We celebrated Grant's birthday at a local park. He's 2 years old!

Easter & Jeff B-day 2011

We spent Easter at Abilene State Park with my family and celebrated Jeff's 10th birthday. He had a rice crispy treat cake for his party and then we had the egg hunt at the campsite. It was a blast!

Changes, Changes, Changes

Wow, so much has happened since the last post!

Regarding our house purchase: After MANY ups and downs with the bank we had no other choice but to opt out of purchasing the house. (Won't mention the name of the bank other than it starts with a 'W' and and ends in 'argo'...lol) We endured 3 months of torture with one problem after another coming up. So for now we are still crammed into a 2 bedroom apartment.

Kids: Jeff is still thriving in school this year and has stayed on the AB honor roll. He has many friends and a close friend that lives right across the building from us. They spend time together every day. Grant is almost 2 years old and is like a human sponge right now. It seems that his grammar is increasing by the day and he is growing up to be a sweet little guy who knows what he wants....and is sure to let us know!

Family life: About 4 weeks ago Shane ended up in the hospital to have an appendectomy. Scary, scary stuff. One day he came home for a lunch break from work and was complaining of having stomach cramps. As you probably know Shane, he stuck it out all day at work in severe pain. At 9:30 that night he decided to leave from work and go to the hospital. I told him I probably needed to drive him there but he insisted on driving himself. He stayed in the waiting room for 4 hours before seeing a doctor. 3 hours and many tests later it was determined that his appendix needed to be removed. Needless to say I got ZERO sleep that night as I was waiting for the phone to ring to hear the results. Weeks later he is recovering well and finally getting back to normal.

Living in west Texas has not been the most pleasant of experiences. We have decided to go back to where we came from so now Shane and I are seeking employment to allow us to relocate back to the Hill Country. Although I was born and raised in this part of Texas I just can't seem to call it 'home' again. We don't have any regrets moving here as it has made us appreciate everything we left behind. And it has given us an opportunity to spend time with family. I'm hoping the next post will be about when we are moving back......

West Texas Adventure

We decided to start off the new year with a trip to Fort Davis. Here are pictures from our adventure:



Fort Davis Lodging

Our cabin

Inside

View from cabin

Fort Davis State Park

Indian Lodge

Day Trip to Alpine

Elk?

Playing at the park

Fort Davis Historic Site

Marfa

Waiting to see the Marfa Mystery lights

We waited an hour after sunset to see the Marfa lights but didn't see anything. :(

We had a great time and plan to go back during the summer.

Christmas 2010

The boys had a good Christmas this year. With our apartment being so small Jeff was concerned as to how Santa was going to fit all the gifts under our little Christmas tree and also how he was going to fit down the small chimney. I told him that Santa always finds a way and he seemed to be happy with that explanation.

House update

After much searching we finally found a house we are interested in buying. We had given up on living out of town since all the houses were out of our price range and started focusing on houses in town. We eventually called a realtor and mentioned to them about wanting to live in a certain area out of town with acreage. That same day the price on a property in that area had just reduced by a significant amount! We scheduled an appointment to look at the property and a few days later made an offer; which was accepted by the seller. The closing date is set for early February. Our current lease for the apartment we live in expires in March. We plan to have Jeff finish out the school year at his current school so we will live in the apartment as long as possible to avoid as much driving back and forth as we can. It's a good 20+ miles one way from Jeff's current school to our new house. The property inspection has been completed and the seller agreed to do most of the repairs except for a few electrical issues, which I'm sure we will have repaired eventually. Next is the loan process; we were already pre-approved; and to get a quote from the insurance company. Hoping we won't have too many problems with the bank.

Update overdue!

I know...I know. I haven't updated our blog in quite some time. I'll start with updates on the kids.

Grant

Our baby boy is just days from being 18 months old; 1 1/2 years! He is trying to talk in full sentences and currently his favorite words are no, uh-huh, two, yee-haw (that's what he calls Woody on Toy Story), and sheepy (sheep). He also loves to play with swords and Nerf dart guns with his bubba. With all the fun stuff comes the occasional tantrums and stubbornness. We have been in the Terrible 2's stage for a few months but the majority of the time he is a sweet and snuggly toddler. And I'm not ashamed to say that he is a Mommy's boy. :)

Jeff

Our big boy is doing great in the 4th grade and has lots of friends this year. He is on the A-B honor roll and has been a great big brother to Grant. He, on the other hand, is more of a Daddy's boy these days.

The Move

In case some of you don't know we decided to leave the great city of Austin and move back to the good 'ole backwoods of west Texas. Shane decided to leave Sears and go back with Academy; so we packed up and moved in September. Jeff is thriving in his new school and says he likes it much better than the prior school. I will admit that it feels great to be back in conservative country. Austin was a great chapter in our lives and maybe one day we will end up moving back but for now we are focusing on our lives being spent here. We moved to an apartment and put most of our belongings in storage as we look for a house to buy.