These Boots Were Made For Walking

So the other night when we were at Old Navy buying out the toddler section, we also bought these cowboy boots for the boy. Now, if it were just me shopping, I probably would have passed them up. But Jim was with us and before I knew it, he had Jack trying them on and he loved them. So we bought them.

Now we have a slight problem. He wears them ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. And he insists upon wearing them with shorts, jammies, or anything he happens to be dressed in. When we went out yesterday, I tried to tell him that he can't wear the cowboy boots with shorts, but the boy does not care one bit about fashion faux pas, so I dressed him a pair of jeans and off we went cowboy boots and all.

Today he was so cute walking around the house with the boots on and putting his toy wrench and toy hammer in his pocket saying that he was going to fix whatever. I kept seeing him putting the wrench on door knobs, turning the wrench around the knob and then yelling "I Did It!". Evidently he was "fixing" the door knobs. He also was pounding on the walls with the toy hammer and saying "bam bam bam". Too cute. Love this stage.

Horror Stories

Being a cop's wife, I am sure that I will hear more horror stories than I want to. Already since starting the job, Jim has told me about going to domestic abuse calls where the woman is crying she still loves the guy who beat the crap outta her, which I think is very stupid and pitiful. He also tells me about the robberies, burglaries, and false alarms around the city.

However, yesterday was his first fatality accident and after hearing it, I don't think I will ever forget it. It has haunted me. There were two ladies ages, 46 and 23 who were driving on the interstate. They were in the middle lane when they suddenly got a flat tire and had to slow down to try to get over. And just at that time, another car changed lanes into the middle car and didn't see the slower car with the flat tire and smashed full speed into their car. Jim said that girl was probably going 70-80 mph and there were no skidmarks or anything. The car with the two ladies was pushed 300 feet killing them instantly. Jim said that their necks snapped by the impact. He said they didn't feel a thing, just bam dead. The other driver lived and was taken to the hospital, but they had to use the jaws of life to get her out of her car.

Of course he also told me about the lady driving having brain matter all over the dashboard and other gruesome details. I have no idea how he could deal with that kind of scene and still be able to do his job. If it was me, I would probably be crying and throwing up all at the same time.

I guess it just goes to show you that you never ever know what the day is going to bring and to relish every single day you have here. Oh and hug your children a little tighter.

Like It Was Supposed To Happen

You know so much of this move feels like it was scripted, like maybe somebody bigger than all of us was directing the whole thing. Because I remember back in March or April, Jim and I started discussing the possibility of moving to Mississippi. He was getting incredibly fed up with his job and wanted out badly. We were falling behind financially in California. I mean seriously you need to make a $100K a year to sustain a life there, and we didn't do that with me not working.

So then about that time, this job opportunity came along, to be a police officer for the city of Gulfport. Jim sent in his resume, kind of on a lark. And lo and behold they wanted him to come and take the test, interview about 5 times and next thing I know we have our house up for sale.

Of course, we pick a time to sell our house when there is NO house selling going on in the area. And the miracle couple who came through at the last minute to buy our house with cash. Seriously, who has more than a half of a million dollars laying around in the bank?

And then we move into this neighborhood. It is a great neighborhood with a community pool for us to use. We did use it the other day for about 20 minutes before the big black clouds came in and made us leave the pool. And since then, it has been very much fallish weather around here, so that might have been the last swim for the year.

Anyway, our little "cove" as they call it here, actually a cul-de-sac is quite amazing. Like we were all supposed to end up here. Our neighbors next door are named Erin and Ben. I won't forget their names because of my bloggy friend Erin and her son Ben. They are a young couple just married. And the weird thing? She went to the same college I did near Boston! Now, let me just tell you, I went to a small business college named Bentley College. Nobody has ever heard of the school outside of the Northeast. And to wind up next door to a fellow alum, is just mind blowing. Of course, she graduated a full eleven years after I did. And yes another reminder of my "advanced" age. Oh and then there is the cat connection with them. They have a cat named Sammy also. Just too weird.

The other thing is that of the five houses on this cove, every one is either active duty military, or retired military. And Sonya, the mother of Jack's little girlfriend Alison, is going to the Federal law enforcement training center, the same one that Jim went to when I was pregnant.

So again, it seems very scripted and directed, which is kinda cool.

Always the Ladies Man

We are in trouble. Big trouble. About the time Jack hits oh say 10, he probably will have had more girlfriends than I have had boyfriends in my entire life. You ask why? Let me just tell you that his father has been teaching him things.

Like on Sunday night, we had the uncles over for dinner. The weather has actually turned fallish and for the first time in months, I actually put a pair of jeans on. So I am coming out of the bedroom and Jack sees me and what does he say? Something that he has picked up from his father. He said "ooooohhhhh sexy." Yes that is right, my 2 1/2 year old son called me sexy. I am having future flashes where I see Jack with a whole multitude of girls all over the place.

And tonight, I decided that Jack was in serious need of some long pants. Like me, he has not worn a pair of long pants since May and when I went to try to find a pair of long pants for him tonight, I came up empty. There was no way his jeans or any other button, non-elastic, pants were going to fit. So I put a pair of athletic pants on the boy, only to find they are about 2 inches too short. Can you say growth spurt? Geesh. So, off to Old Navy we all go. And while we were in the store basically buying out their entire toddler boy section, there was another woman there looking at toddler clothes also. She was fairly attractive and about 25 or so. And what does the boy do when he sees her? He goes "wooo wooo" in the same way men whistle at ladies. Yes that is another thing his father taught him. Jim and I just about died laughing and had to run around the corner. And then Jim high fives Jack!! Oh boy am I in trouble or what?

No naps and Painting ... Not a good combo

I know that it has been a few days since I last posted. I blame it all on the fact that the boy is NOT taking naps anymore. I have tried everything from laying down with him (he just ends up jumping up and down on the bed) to putting him down later in the afternoon like Erin suggested. Nothing works at all. Except for yesterday when the boy laid down on the floor in the family room and crashed around 5:00 last night. Jim picked him up and put him on our bed where he slept until 7:00. I changed him and put his jammies on and put him in his bed where he slept until almost 7:00 this morning. It was over 13 hours straight sleep. So I guess he is just building it up until he crashes like that now??? Whatever the reason, I do not like it. Especially on the days that Jim works and I have him all to myself for 12 hours.

Today we made a trek to Target and when I say trek, I mean trek! The closest Target is in another state! I had to drive to Lousiana just to go to the oh great store! Granted it was only 45 miles away and I used to drive that everyday to get to work in California, but still the whole principal of the thing. But we had fun. I was in search of a toy box for Jack's room and found out that they did not have any toy boxes in the store, so it looks like I will be ordering online. And Toys R Us? Yeah that is nowhere around here either. I know, it is almost criminal! However, there is a Barnes & Nobel really close by, where I have taken advantage of the free play area of the Thomas train table. A good place to spend an hour or so with the toddler.

I also found a great toddler playland at the Chick Fila. It is great because it is geared just for toddlers, unlike those at McDonalds where the big kids run over the little ones. Yeah we spent a couple hours there today.

I had to take our dog into the vet today to get his teeth cleaned and a tooth extracted. Yeah another $300 gone. I swear, we need pet insurance badly. Anyway, while there I had Jack step on the dog scale in the waiting room. I was shocked when it read 35.6 pounds! The boy seriously needs to stop growing. He has outgrown most of his clothes and I need to go on a major shopping spree for him very soon.

I am also very tired of painting and really wondering why I took on painting so soon. Well, I know why, because the white walls were bugging me to death. But with Jack and his no napping, it has been extremely hard to get it done. I have the kitchen almost painted, except for a little bit above the cabinets and the family room is a little bit over halfway done. I also need to get the office painted in the next couple weeks before they come to install the new desk. I figure it will be easier to paint with nothing in the room. But the thought makes me weary.

Jim is enjoying his job and it is so funny because I keep seeing him around town on duty. Today I saw him three times. Once while he was reporting an accident, once while investigating a disturbance in a parking lot, and once he drove right by me. I swear everytime I turn around, there he is. Of course, I did stop at a yellow light when I normally would have gone through, just because I did not want him to pull me over! Jack is always talking about his Daddy policeman to everybody, including the other parents at the playland today. I have a feeling, he is going to be a policeman for Halloween this year.

Since Jim is working this weekend, Jack and I are going to check out the children's museum that is supposed to be really great and probably enroll him in their toddler program that has all kinds of activities. I am grasping at straws these days to keep the boy busy can ya tell?

Sick Day

Jack's first day of preschool was today, or I should say, was supposed to be today. However, Jack had to stay home sick. He has had a cold since Saturday and then last night he was coughing through the night and had some really nasty stuff coming out of his nose, so I made the painful decision to keep him home. And let me tell you he was very unhappy about not going to school today. I made a big deal about packing his backpack last night for school and he was so excited. When I told him that he could not go this morning, he started screaming and crying and yelling at me "I go to schoooolllllll". I wanted to tell him I felt the same way because three whole hours alone sure sounds like heaven to me about now. I did get him to take his first nap in over a week this afternoon and it was not easy. I had to lay down with him in my bed and it took a good 30 minutes of me telling him to go to sleep before he finally did. Such wonderful bliss.

It looks like Jack is going to be taking Chinese lessons. His Uncle Bill, who is way above most human beings in IQ, knows so many languages, I am afraid to count that high. His latest passion is everything Chinese, including learning the language and how to write in Chinese. He called us the other night offering to pay for lessons for Jack. I guess his teacher also teaches toddlers and older children the Chinese language and well I couldn't refuse any educational thing for Jack. So starting on Wednesday, Jack is going to learn how to speak Chinese once a week. My fear now is that he will swear at me in Chinese on a regular basis and I won't have a clue what he will be saying.

Pictures Finally!

The views from our backyard. We have been having a good time watching the ducks, geese, and cranes around the lake.

The back of the house. Eventually we will do a big patio or deck with a patio cover.

The front of the house.


The unpainted part of the kitchen. There are even more cabinets that are not showing in this picture.

The freshly painted, as in this morning, kitchen wall. There will be plantation shutters there eventually, but at least the view is pretty.


Our new dining room table and china hutch. Isn't it pretty? Especially with that paint sample there on the wall.


Our halfway painted family room. This is just half of the room, the other half is kinda bare at the moment.

Settling Down

Things seem to be settling down here. I can not believe that it has been only one week since the movers came with all of our stuff. It sure feels like a month. We are as settled as we can be at the moment. We need storage badly and last night we contracted a closet organizer company to put a closet system in our very small master bedroom closet. We also are putting in cabinets in our laundry room and my favorite - a built in office system. After all that gets installed, we should be able to unpack most of the rest of the boxes, except for the disaster area known as the garage. That place is just down right scary right now.

We have also managed to paint most of our family room a beigey color. It sure beats the stark white walls that were driving me crazy. Now we maybe lacking in garage and storage space, but we more than make up for having possibly the largest family room ever. We literally have half of it empty and I don't quite know what to do with all that space other than let it be Jack's playland, which I am sure it will end up being.

My next project is to paint the kitchen a bright yellow. I plan on decorating it in a French country theme of blue and yellow. Of course, I can not tell Jim that it is "French" because he hates all things French. I just say "blue and yellow". And again, I think I might have the largest kitchen ever. I even have empty cabinets!!

I promise, I will get pictures up tomorrow on here. I have been reluctant about taking pictures until at least part of the clutter crap was taken care of, but I think I have sufficiently reduced it to an acceptable minimum to show the internet world.

Jack has been making friends all over the place, although he still talks about all his friends in California all the time. Tonight, he met the little boy, Alezander, who lives behind us who just turned two. And let me tell you, those two were best buds in about 5 minutes having fun throwing dirt at each other and basically doing all-boy things and getting filthy at the same time. He also has a little girl friend named Allison who lives two doors down from us. She is an older woman at the old age of three and again, they have so much fun together.

We had to go to the county Health Department yesterday to get a form for his preschool showing that he is up to date on his vaccines. He had to get two shots to make him current and he was NOT happy about that and did not like it one bit. In fact, hours later he was talking about the "lady who hurt him".

He has a pretty good cold today and sounds so miserably stuffed up with red runny eyes. I don't know if it is allergies, reaction to the vaccines, or just getting sick, but I sure hope it goes away by Monday for preschool. I think I am more excited than he is for it.

And yes, I will post pictures of the house tomorrow for all those who were wondering what we now live in.

Rest in Peace ... Naptimes

I just want to take a moment to say goodbye to something that has been the best friend to this mommy for two and a half years. Something that I have looked forward to each and everyday with joyful glee. Something that I would go out of my way NOT to miss, no matter what. What is that something you ask? That something is the all important NAPTIME. It is history, gone bye bye, and the way it looks, gone forever.

I am NOT happy about this latest turn of events in the life of the Jackaroo. I do not know why he picked NOW to stop taking naps. I NEED him to take naps so I can get my house in order and get rid of the endless boxes that I swear multiply during the night. I need the nap so I myself can catch my second wind to deal with Jack on those 12-hour long work days that Daddy does now. But Jack has other plans. He has had a total of one nap since we have moved here and that was the day after the movers came with all of our stuff and the kid was beyond exhausted. I do not know whether it is because we are in a new house, his room now doubles as the play room and all his toys are in there, or he has just become a big boy and doesn't need naps. I don't care what the reason. I just want naptime to come back. Now. Please.

Jack's Preschool

I enrolled Jack into preschool yesterday. It is such a nice preschool with an actual curriculum and his teacher is so nice. It was really quite funny because the director of the school told me that sometimes 2-year-olds just are not ready for preschool and if he had a lot of problems with crying all the time, they would have to remove him because it is just too disruptive to the teacher and other kids. I told her that it would not be a problem with Jack, in fact, when we went into his classroom to meet the teacher, Jack took off to the other side of the room without even a backwards glance to me and started playing with another little boy. I turned to her and said "see he doesn't even care if I am here or not."

I am so impressed with this school. They have a new curriculum every week with topics like sharing, family, and self-esteem and it is all christian based ideals, which I think is very important for kids. They also have music class every Wednesday for 30 minutes where they get to learn how to play different instruments and sing songs. They also asked me to pack an old shirt for painting everyday because they have art classes where according to the teacher, it gets very messy. His teacher is really amazing, because if I had 7 two-year-olds to contend with for 3 hours a day, I would be running out of the building shriekding, but she seemed so calm and really seemed to treat each child with respect and listened to each one of them. My hats off to her.

And I am already looking forward to the little Thanksgiving and Christmas programs they put on for the parents. I am already stocking up on kleenex for the occasions.

Starting Monday, he will go two times a week on Mondays and Wednesdays for 3 hours. Yahoo! Next fall when he is in the three year old class, he will go three times a week. They add a day every year until they get to kindergarten where it is five days a week. I am thinking we will be keeping him in this school all the way through kindergarten.

And Jack's reaction to the whole thing? As we were walking out of the school, I said "I like your school." And he said "me too. I go to school!!!" He is just a bit excited to say the least. And me too. Six hours a week to myself!

Another Never Say Never

I know I said it last time. It being never moving again and the other it being never move into a brand new house again. You see, this is my sixth, yes that is right, sixth brand new house. I have been the proud owner of 2 brand new houses in Seattle area, 3 brand new houses in California, and now this brand new house in Mississippi. And while they are nice in that everything is brand spanking new, they come with their own inherent problems. Like, for the past 6 days, I have had no power in my bathrooms and the builder could not figure out why. The outlets were just dead. That was finally fixed yesterday.

Another problem we have occured is I guess since the hurricane here, the phone company just has not had the time to keep up with all the demands of fixing what was damaged and all the new subdivisions popping up all over town, mine included. So for the time being until they can get somebody here to bury phone cable (hopefully before the year 2007, but we shall see), my phone cable is running out my back yard and down the back yards of my neighbors to the main road. Yeah, I give it two weeks until it gets cut by some neighbor cutting his grass.

There is also all the stuff that you just don't have when moving into a new house like window coverings. Right now we are using the old fashioned sheet tacked up in front of the windows method. Lovely. And I give us about another month of that fashionable look until we get blinds/shutters put up.

Yesterday was a day from hell. I had scheduled the new furniture to be delivered, the new appliances to be delivered, and the satellite tv guy to come and hook us up. And yes they all showed up within 30 minutes of each other, and not just them either. No, I had to throw in the electrician guy fixing my dead bathroom outlets AND the phone guy stringing my phone cable out my backyard. Can you say insane assylum cause that is where I felt like going after all that. Oh and throw in an ahem "nice" chat on the phone with Jim's ex to top my day off. Yes, alcohol was consumed last night by the way.

Today, I am hoping to go enroll Jack into a preschool. I finally found a part-time preschool. It is about 30-40 minutes away, but it is worth it just to be Jack-free for 6 whole hours a week right now. He is so pushing my buttons right now and NOT listening to me. He even looks at me daring me to do something when he is doing something he shouldn't be doing. Yes, he got swatted on the butt many a time yesterday. I know that he is feeling out of his element, but with everything going on, I do not need him to be turning into a devil child in front of my eyes. So the preschool is Monday and Wednesday mornings for 3 hours and when I called yesterday, they had just one opening in the two year old class. I practically jumped through the phone telling her I would take the slot. So I am going there today to enroll him and he starts on Monday. And thank goodness Jim has this weekend off because I seriously might have dropped the child off at the nearest corner and ran away! Just kidding, mostly.

We are in!

Well we got into the house. We closed Friday afternoon and it has been a huge whirlwind since then. We just got our cable internet hooked up yesterday, so I was without internet for almost 5 days! GAH! And we still do not have our tv hooked up, hopefully today. We haven't watched any tv in over 2 weeks and I can say that I am having withdrawals.

The movers came with all of our stuff on Saturday. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came down to help me with Jack and unpack because Jim had to work that day. I do not know what I would of done without them. They were so great in keeping Jack busy and they unpacked my entire kitchen before the movers were even done with everything! I would of probably been in tears by the end of the day without them for sure. As it was, I was so sore the next day, I could hardly walk!

We have been busy trying to settle in and unpack. Our garage is about 1/3rd the size of our old garage, which makes things interesting. I don't think we will be parking in the garage for many months to come, if ever. My kitchen is absolutely huge with so many cabinets that I actually have empty cabinets! Gasp!

We also contracted to put a fence up. I was feeling so exposed with no fence because the people behind us who own the lake, are always driving right near our back of the house. I also have people coming to give me estimates about putting blinds/shutters in and doing a closet system in our closet. Our closet is half of what we used to have, which again makes things very interesting.

Oh and we also started to paint inside last night. We are having our new furniture delivered today and since I didn't want to move the huge entertainment system to paint behind it, I decided to paint that wall last night. And of course, it was a fiasco. I bought a quart of the paint to sample the color, then we went back yesterday to get another gallon. Well it turns out that the quart was two shades lighter than the gallon and I had to repaint the section of the wall that was painted with the quart. I did that at 6 am this morning, so now we have all one color on our wall, which is always a good thing.

I was going to start on the kitchen today, but decided that I just didn't want to deal with more paint for awhile. I decided to paint the kitchen a bright yellow.

Oh and during all this, Jack has decided to turn on the terrible twos big time. He has been a devil child and will not listen to anything either one of us says. And then the screaming, whining, and pouting that ensues is so much fun to deal with. I know that he feels out of his element and is probably confused about the whole thing. We did get his room sorta settled and all of his toys are in his room now. Of course, he has to strew the toys everywhere. You can't even see the floor right now.

I did find a mothers group in the area. I am going to meet them tomorrow for lunch at McDonald's playland. It looks like they have a ton of stuff to do and activities for the kids. I think we need to take a day off from unpacking and actually have fun. I have been trying to find a preschool to put Jack into a couple days a week with no luck. All of them are full time only and the mothers morning out program is totally full for the time being. So I guess I have Jack full time right now.

I promise I will post pictures in the next few days. I just don't want to take any pictures with boxes everywhere and outside the builder has a pile of pallets stacked in front of our house that is not very attractive. Of course they say they will take care of them, but that was 3 days ago. We shall see. I am getting mad about it now because I found out that is the reason why we are not getting any mail because they are blocking the mail box. UGH. It is always something I tell ya.

Anyway, that is the latest and it is really great to be back into the internet blog world again!

So far so good

It is 10 am and so far no glitches for the closing this afternoon. In fact the closer even called and said it was a go for launch! Still not gonna believe it until we get the actual keys though.

I have spent the last two hours on the phone getting the phone, satellite tv, cable internet, power, water/sewer and any other company that bills us monthly. Geesh that is work! So I think we have everything ready to go. Our cable internet won't be installed until Tuesday, so there will probably be no more updates until then. Hopefully next time I sign on is at our new house - finally!

We jumped the hurdles ... maybe

I think that if we stand on our head, shake our feet, and jump around in a circle 12 times, we might just might close on our house today. Of course yesterday I was feeling good about the whole thing until the closer called and said "oh didn't you know, we need X piece of paper". I go "uhhhhhh nope did not know that. Ummmmm don't have that particular piece of paper." After which she responded "well the close hinges on that piece of paper." And I go "ummmm well I guess I need to make some phone calls to get you the oh-so-very-important-can-not-live-without-that piece of paper." And she said "yep". Oh and because this is the south, she ended it with "baby" and "bless your heart" because in the south you can be rude but putting in a baby and a bless your heart makes it all okay.

But she was nice, I was just frustrated. So after maybe 4 or 5 phone calls between California and Mississippi, I do believe that they got the oh-so-very-important piece of paper.

At this very moment, we are set to close at 3pm and get our keys to our new house then. But because this has been THE wildest roller coaster ride of my entire life, I am betting on a few more glitches between now and then. But I also am betting that we actually DO get into the house today because the movers are set up to arrive first thing tomorrow morning. Of course I had to pay half of buuukoo bucks to get that to happen on a Saturday, but it was only half of the major buuukooo small fortune bucks that we would have had to pay if we did not close today. So I am happy, sorta. I do so hate to be parted with my money for stupid things like that.

Speaking of parting with my money, we went out and spent a small fortune buukkoo bucks on new furniture yesterday. We get to receive on Wednesday (Jim's birthday so I don't have to get him anything else, he gets a small fortune of furniture HA!) a new bedroom set (yay king size, Jim gets his whole side hehehe), a new dining room table with china hutch (I have never owned a china hutch before, now I do yay!) and an entertainment center for our big screen tv. The same tv that we were going to sell and buy a small fortune new tv, but because we didn't get the money we wanted for the house and the moving company is getting half of Jack's college education, decided to wait on the new tv. See, I can sacrifice.

We also have spured the economy even more by purchasing new washer, dryer and refrigerator. That was needed, well mostly. We couldn't bring our gas dryer into a no gas house (gonna miss my gas stove immensely) and the house does not have a refrigerator and well I also wanted a matching washer dryer ya know. So of course got the nice new front loading with pedastals.

Well that is the news as of right now. Jack is awake and calling me. Will try to update later.

Only a Week?

We have been here a week now and it seems a lot longer than that. We became official Mississippi residents last Friday by getting our new driver's licenses. Of course, just like in California, it was a huge long wait. Do they have some federal mandate stating that getting your driver's license must have a minimum of 2 hour wait or something? During our wait, Jack made friends with a little blonde named Hope, who was 6 months older. And when she was leavng he yelled out to her "bye girl!". Always the ladies man.

After our marathon wait at the driver's license, we headed to get our cars registered and after having dropped some serious cash (found something that is more expensive in MS than Cali) for two new license plates, we were all official and legal like in the state of Mississippi.

We spent the long weekend up at Jim's mother's house. Of course Jack was quite spoiled with all the attention from his grandmother and aunts.

Jim started his new job yesterday and got sworn in and all. I am very proud of him and he looks very dashing in his uniform.

We are hoping to be in our house by Friday. Of course that will happen if all the stars line up just right and we jump over about a thousand hurdles. If we are not able to get into the house on Friday, then we must spend about a thousand dollars for short term storage (as in 3 days) for all of our stuff. The moving company called me yesterday and said they are delivering our stuff no matter what and if we don't have a house, then all of our stuff gets unloaded into their warehouse and then loaded back up when we close probably Monday. Ugh why does everything have to be so hard and stressful. Trying to balance the builder and the mover is like doing a high wire act. And I am not very graceful!

We are staying with Jim's brother's house right now and even though they have been great to us by cooking great meals for us every night and letting our dogs run free of the house while their dogs are locked up, I still want my own house! I guess I should say I want my own bathroom more than anything. Cause I totally hate showering in somebody else's shower. I feel like I am invading their private space or something.

I have been planning in my head what I want to do with the house and how to decorate it. I even have all the paint colors planned out in my head and what theme I am going to use for the kitchen. It is really funny because the vinyl tile in the kitchen is almost exactly like what we had in our old kitchen. Hopefully someday I can replace all that out with hardwood floors, but for now they work. And the cabinets are the same cabinets except the new ones are a touch more cherry color and they actually have hardware on them. And I really didn't notice it until I was showing a friend the floor plan and she said that it was very similar to the floor plan to our old house. I guess we just know what we like and what fits for us. What I really like is that the community has a swimming pool that we can go to and wear some energy off for Jack. I will try to remember to take pictures today and post a few.

And as for Jack, well I have been trying to find a place to take him one or two mornings a week for some schooling and socialization. It seems that all the so called preschools around here are just daycares and do not have any part-time openings. However, just yesterday, I found that the church we might end up going to has what is called a "Mothers Morning Out (MMO)" program. I have never heard of that and it is just what I need to save my sanity. I didn't get all the particulars when I called because they were busy, but hopefully I can get Jack into that soon, like yesterday!

So that is our update. Really did not mean to write a novel here.