Winterization

The first snow came last week and we have been in the full winter mode since. In fact, it has barely breached the positive digits lately. Today I walked the kids to the bus stop instead of taking the truck because it was only -5. That's quite a bit warmer than the -17 it has been though! Funny that in a week's time I have come to think of -5 as not that bad. Apparently this is not normal weather for here. In fact, ever since I have moved here the weather has not been normal according to everyone here. The summer was too sunny and really warm, well at least it was really warm before I got here. Then the fall was not normal because it was sunny and mild and gorgeous. It never snowed once in October, which is definitely not normal and now once it finally did snow more than a week into November, it is been well below zero, something that usually holds off until January or so.

So even though I've been here for a while now, apparently I have no idea what it's really like to live here because the weather has been abnormal the whole time!


Sonny Boy has been loving the snow. He gets off the bus and doesn't even come in for a snack. He just goes and plays in the snow. He hauls his sled around and fills up his truck with snow and plays with his little backhoe. It's like the whole world has turned into his sandbox. Princess Blondie hasn't been quite as adventurous. She will go out and play with Sonny Boy for a while, but snow in the face will send her in crying. I'm just impressed that she will go out at all. When we went to Michigan for Christmas last year she flat refused to wear snow pants and never went out to play once. She hasn't made a peep about wearing snow pants this year. Strange, the phases kids go through.

Settling in...

So we have finally closed on our house. The whole process was... interesting, but at least we had a wonderful realtor! The kids and I flew up the end of July and we were all staying at my sister's while we looked for a house. DH looked at probably thirty houses before I came up. The day after my arrival we went and looked at two houses. The first was a definite no and then we pulled up in the driveway of the second house and it was perfect! Poor DH looked at thirty houses and it's the second one that I saw? Crazy.

The location was perfect, the house had great space and a good layout so we put a bid on it right away. Everything progressed along smoothly until just before closing. Suddenly the sellers find out that they are missing a deed of reconveyance. I had never heard of it before but when I found out what it was I started to worry. It is the deed that shows that the mortgage was paid off when they bought it. Without a deed of reconveyance this house was not going to be sold to anybody. Then, we find out that the sellers had bought the house from some guy who claimed bankruptcy because he got caught after he embezzled 52 million dollars! This screwed up a bunch of stuff because because now this whole legal matter was wrapped up in it. We were supposed to close on the house on the 15th of September and we ended up closing on the 1st of October. When we went to the closing, the people at the title company couldn't believe that the issue got resolved as quickly as it did. It truly was God's hand in this getting the right people and the right papers done at the right time.

So here we are in are new house. Unpacked but not necessarily put away yet. Still trying to find a home for all the odds and ends type of stuff and the right place to hang each picture. We have mostly finished the master bedroom. The only thing missing is a chair for the reading nook. Once we get that I think that is going to be my new favorite spot in the house.