Also...

2 of our 3 PODS arrived! Yahoo! We had about 8 guys from church come and they emptied them in about 2 1/2 hours! All the furniture and outdoor stuff! Yippee! Now we are partially moved into our house. We got the family room organized, and after searching for a few hours we found all the screws for the beds, so we got most of the beds put together. Today the final POD comes with all the boxes with all the "stuff", so by this weekend, we should actually be moved into our house. YeeHaw!

It's SNOWING!!!

I can't believe it! I've never lived anywhere that snowed! Totally crazy! I was going outside to put something in the mail box and thought that I heard rain. Then I realized it was a softer sort of sound. I opened the door, and sure enough, it was SNOWING!!! For a girl from California, this is pretty amazing! I called D, and he didn't believe me! I would totally take a picture, but I can't find my camera and it's driving me CRAZY!!! Just believe me when I say IT'S SNOWING OUTSIDE!!! Not enough to stick, but more than enough to amaze this California girl!!!

Oh DeEr...

So tonight we were in our house - now you gotta know that we don't live there yet. Our stuff arrives on Saturday, so we're just kind of hanging out there right now. I was there today with Chad and Haley painting the laundry room (in preparation for my shiny new RED washer and dryer that are coming tomorrow - I'm so excited!).

Anyways, back to the original story... so we're in our house, and our new friend, Susan Neff, comes over. I'm touring her of the house, and take her out onto the back patio to show her the backyard. Now our backyard really isn't that back, and it's got bushes going all around it, but no fence, and we look down and there's this deer right on our lawn, hanging out in our backyard. We were totally amazed. Now to some of you this might not seem like a big deal, but to us from LA, this is insane. You only see deers at the zoo, and we have one hanging out in our backyard. We called the kids to see the deer, and Haley is yelling "hi deer!" to the deer, and I swear, it's little tail was wagging in greeting to her. It stayed there for a while and just stared at us, and then just moseyed off into the direction of the little brook next to our house. Crazy! Welcome to the wild!

It's OURS!!!

It's over!!! The whole thing is done! The house in Los Angeles is SOLD!!!! and the house here is OURS!!! Now granted, our stuff won't be here for another week and a half, but it doesn't matter. We have our own place... and the kids love it! Especially Chad! He just wants to move in. We have power, and got our cable today, so I am a happy camper. Now all we need is some furniture. One thing at a time. We are happy!

Sign on the bottom line please

We signed all of our loan papers this morning. They gave us little postcards with a picture of our new house on the front, and "Derrick and Shannon Huckvale have moved. Their new address is..." on the back. I have yet to put the new address anywhere because I don't want to jinx anything. Everything on our end is going great; now if we could just get LA to cooperate.

The LA house was supposed to be tented for termites today, and the termite guys decided that they needed to get into the neighbor's yard (for some odd reason), and no one was home to give them permission, so they left a note and said they would be back tomorrow. They are supposed to close on Friday, but now I am being told it probably won't happen. If the tent goes on the house tomorrow, it will come off on Friday and then they will do the repairs. Being as Friday is Veteran's Day, they can't close on Friday, something nobody seemed to notice before. So, both houses should be closing on Monday. Yikes! They really are trying to kill me!

Someone's prayers are being answered...

Well, we found out on Thursday that the guy got approved for another loan - YIPPEE!!! So thanks to all for keeping us in their prayers. Keep it up! Tomorrow they are coming to make sure that we fixed everything on our inspection list, and then on Tuesday the house is being tented for termites and then on Friday, the house is no longer ours - at least that's the plan. Then on Monday, we get ownership of our new house - as long as all works out!

Other than that, on Thursday and Friday I was able to go to a scrapbooking convention (CKC-Seattle) in Seattle which was a lot of fun. I took a bunch of cool classes and bought some stuff - of course! It's always nice to get a little "me" time. It was weird eating dinner and sleeping in a hotel by myself though. Now it's just a matter of getting us moved (we get the house next week, but our stuff doesn't come until November 25th) and getting our Christmas cards out - I know it's early, but if I don't get them done now, who knows when I'll have another chance! Just addressing my envelopes so that they're ready to go in the mail come the beginning of December.

Last night, Chad was able to go to the Blazers basketball game with a neighbor, and believe it or not, as "anti-sports" as Chad is, he had a really good time. I think it's in part to all the free food and running around the court that they did.