How I Met Your Father

Hey kids,

Back in January 2006 your dad sent me an email.  He was browsing on some dating website that no one your age has probably ever heard of and he found an old profile of mine.  I hadn't been active on the website for a while and I think it took me a couple of weeks to even see your dad's first message.  We only had email back in the day.  Not sure what you're using now.  Probably telepathy.  Anyway, I was tired of dating.  Men in my time were having an identity crisis.  Did they open the door for me?  Did they leave me to my own devises?  Did they pay for dinner or would that insult me?  It got old.

I almost deleted his message without ever reading it, but on a whim decided to see what it said.  The very first sentence was a challenge.  "Our age difference might be too great for you, but.." and that's all I think I read.  I got insulted.  He didn't know me.  How dare he presume that he was too old for me!!  So I sent him a very nice response with my best pictures attached.  He was going to be VERY sorry! :-)  Never mind that my last date was 8 years younger than me.  Yeah.  Your mom was a cougar.

We agreed to meet at a Starbucks.  Back in the day it was still kind of embarrassing to say you met online, so we told everyone (at first) that's where we met for the first time.. and it was true.  I got there early so I could get a place to sit and read a book.  I wanted to look smart.  I don't know how smart I really looked sitting there reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  He walked in the door and he looked just like Paul Newman (Google him).  He had the prettiest blue eyes I'd ever seen.  You both got his eyes.  Look out girls!

The rest, they say, is history.  We only dated for a couple of months before your father fell hopelessly in love with me and begged me to marry him.  I eventually said yes.  We were married December 9th, 2006.  

That's my story.  Your father might have a different one :-)

Sweet Berry Farms 2013

This past weekend was "Chris's turn" to go with me down to Austin to see Alice.  He had been asking me non-stop for weeks when were we going!  Aunt CiCi and Uncle Larry had planned a nice outing Saturday to go to Sweet Berry Farm for the day.  http://www.sweetberryfarm.com/.  They like to go right before Halloween because Alice can stuff a scarecrow and use it with her Halloween decorations.  This year she has a scary tombstone, lots of spider webs on the bushes and Frankenstein lashed to a tree so he can't get away.   Chris was VERY impressed.

The first thing Alice and Chris rode was the barrel ride.  Chris was so excited!  When it was their turn, he bolted through the gate and ran right to the orange barrel behind the tractor.  Alice, got the blue one directly behind it.  Basically the tractor goes pretty slow in a winding pattern around these pink barrel pigs, but the kids loved it.  When it was over, Chris said in his loudest outdoor voice, "CAPTAIN, WHAT IS THAT SMELL?"  I had to get the man driving the tractor's attention to let him know that my beautiful, smart son was talking to him :-)  He simply said, "Son, that's FARM smell!", and shook Chris's hand.  Chris was so proud!

 

 

We had a horse ride and fed the goats.

 

 

 

Got some sweet face painting.

 

 

 

Chris is admiring his in the mirror.

 

 

We went through the 'maize'.  (Get it??)  Alice was our leader.  She found the bell at the center and then found our way out!

 

 

 

We had a hay ride through Scarecrow Island.

 

 

 

Alice made her yearly scarecrow.

 

 

And then we had ice cream amongst the pumpkins.

 

 

It was a very fun day!  Thanks Aunt CiCi and Uncle Larry!

House sold? Lease signed?

After about 3 weeks on the market and a lot of interest, we got a contract on our house!  You can see our beautiful house HERE.  Happy that it sold so quickly, I felt like this:

 

We were so happy that we would be in Rockwall in about a month.  However, there are always howevers...  The inspection came back with some unanticipated problems, ones that I wasn't sure we would be able to fix.  For several days I was so stressed out and disappointed.  We had already found a lease house in Rockwall, one that I LOVED, and now we were going to have to let it go.  We didn't need to sell the house so we had decided we'd probably just retract our offer and take it off the market.  We could live here a couple more years and then try again.  But we thought we'd give it one last go, so we made some calls, got some estimates, and rechecked our level of commitment.  It's going to cost us, but we found a way to make it work.  We are currently out of the Option period, under contract, and scheduled to close November 1st, 2013.  BUT we are still waiting on the appraisal, the last hurdle I think.  My happy dance now has a slightly psychotic feel to it:

 

 

 

The rent house was still available and we jumped on signing the lease.  However... again.  The leasing agent came back to us after we had agreed on everything and said that, before the owners of the house would sign the lease, they needed more pet deposit money.  Paul went through the roof.  We were going to, AGAIN, retract the offer and start over.  Our agent was furious and stressed to the leasing agent that we were not going to pay additional fees NOT agreed upon at the signing,  That if the owners wanted more money then it needed to come out of her, the leasing agent's, commission.  She initially balked, but then conceded.  This wasn't our fault and we weren't going to pay for it.  We are currently waiting for the owners to sign the new lease.  Once it's signed, the house is ours, but instead of feeling happy I feel like I've been run over by a truck and left under a thunder cloud: 

 

Amazing how the world can beat you down. 

Pumpkin Patch 2013

Didi and I took the boys to the pumpkin patch out in Rockwall on Sunday.  BOY, did they have fun picking out their "poekins".

Artwork

Sean made me a LOVELY drawing yesterday!!!!
I guess I really didn't need that document.

Drives to School - 9/27/13 - 10/7/13

Weekly updates on the way to school.

Fri 9/27/2013 8:47 AM
Chris got somewhat angry at Sean for ignoring him. I had to talk him down from the ledge. Sean just was being quiet and Chris didn't like it. He quieted down and quit complaining when we stopped to buy gas. They got jelly sandwiches for breakfast. Love you, :o)

Mon 9/30/2013 10:38 AM
I forgot to write to you about the boys. They had a great time at the gas station because I rolled down the windows and they were playing peek a boo with people around the station who had no idea what they were doing. Then Chris spilled his cereal and beans on the floorboard. He got over it though. I scraped enough off the floor for him to feed the birds at school. Sean didn't get out of sorts at all which was great considering how he started the day. That's about it. Love you, :o)

Wed 10/2/2013 8:43 AM
They were sweet little kids today, no arguing, no whining about if the Sun was coming up, or anything else. They got pancakes for breakfast. Love you, :o)

Mon 10/7/2013 8:37 AM
Nice quiet ride to school until we drove near a skunk and the boys said that Blackie tooted. But Blackie's not in the car. They asked me who did it and I said a skunk and they laughed louder than I've heard them in a long time. So they asked me again who tooted and I said a skunk and they broke out in another fit of laughter. It lasted from Mockinbird to the school where they finally settled down from laughing. Then Chris said the skunk smelled like poop and it started all over again. They had bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. Love you, :0)