busy 2 months

Well, it has been a very busy several months. Here's a recap, since I have been noticeably absent here for a long time.

Our house was on the market for 3½ weeks before we had an offer on it. During those 3½ weeks we had a fair amount of interest, but no bites. So we both left town for 2 weeks, and while we were gone somebody came and looked, liked our house, and decided to make an offer on it. I was in classes all day, so Sarah had to take care of the whole process by herself from about 1500 miles away. She did a great job. After about 15 seconds of negotiating, we settled on a price that both of us were happy with, and we soon enjoyed the thought of selling our home soon. Tip: if you are selling your house--and especially if you are selling it without a realtor--I would recommend not leaving town for an extended period of time.

The next 6 weeks (before closing) were very busy. I was in California for some classes, and when I came back I had to go to the Air Force Academy for a presentation, and then we had to get busy. There were a few things to do around the house in preparation for the sale (not very many) and then actually take care of moving out.

As we found out, moving is a little bit stressful. And we're wimps--we didn't even have to do anything. The Air Force provided movers came in, packed up all of our stuff, and loaded it onto a truck in 2 days as we sat around sipping lemon water. If we had a pool we probably would have been sitting by it. It was still a bit stressful though.

The buyers of our house were moving in very shortly (2 weeks before closing), but before they did we had time for one last gathering, so we had a housecooling party. It was--naturally--BYOC, and we ate ice cream and we gave away presents instead of accepting them. The presents were not that desirable though, so don't feel bad if you missed our party.

A week after we moved out the buyers called us and said that the air conditioning wasn't working. I went over to troubleshoot, and after seeing that it was still plugged in I realized that it could not possibly be worth my time and money. We called a friend who is a contractor, and he brought an electician over after work the next day and fixed our house-wide electrical problem for a completely reasonable amount of money.

We spent a great Memorial Day weekend in Phoenix with the Gertisers, and when we came back I took Tuesday off for our 2nd anniversary! We got to go out to a very nice restaurant for dinner and then went to see Star Trek. Sarah's present had not arrived in the mail yet, and in fact it still hasn't, so she is anxiously waiting without even an expected delivery date.

Two days before closing the buyers called and said that there inspection had revealed an undersized pressure relief line on the water cooler and they wanted us to fix it so that it wouldn't explode. After much angst, we had that fixed in a day by the same friend. Thanks Troy!

Closing went remarkably smoothly, and even with the angst over the water heater it turned out the easiest week I have ever had in my life. I worked for two days and between my actual job and the house sale, I made over $10,000. Not bad....

So now we are houseless. We are staying in the house of some people on base who are gone all summer. It is a nicer house than the one we used to own, and it is furnished with nicer furniture than we have. Also, our whole family is here together, so despite being houseless, we are in no way homeless.

While all of this has been going on, work has been kind of crazy too. We typically work 9 days every 2 weeks, and for the very first time I had to go in on my off Friday to get some work done. I don't mind one bit though, and it is still a completely stress-free but rewarding job. I will probably be busy until I leave now, which is fine with me.

That's our house. In the meantime Liza has continued to grow and learn. She is currently squirmy during 95% of her waking hours, and the other 5% is probably when she is eating (although sometimes she squirms while she eats too). When we put her on the floor she will roll and twist all around the room, making her way over to whatever catches her fancy and trying to put it in her mouth. I expect her to start crawling any day now. She is done with her pacifier, which makes naptime and bedtime a little more harrowing, but only for the 3 minutes that it takes for her to fall asleep. And she is of course very cute.