Packing Facts

My house is a mess. 
I suffer from paking ADD (the inability to work on one area at a time, always losing focus, and misplacing things)
I am not at all sentemental (like I once was).
The garbage men must hate us.
I have reached the point where the boxes are all just a hodge-podge, and every box is labeld "stuff".
I miss my bass, :(
I forget what is in a box the moment I tape the lid.
I keep going to closets or drawers for things that are no longer there.
Boxes with handles are precious... my precious.

Procrastinating? Yeah, Maybe a little...

What I should be doing is packing, packing and more packing, but I needed a little break and I thought I would fill you in on the exciting twist and turns of our life.

Were to begin.... Well, we are looking to move closer to Matt's work, so we decide to contact a realtor to sell our house. Our realtor comes over and has me fill out paperwork, I need Matt to sign so I keep the documents, and she is going to pick them up the next day. She comes over the next day to get our paperwork, and she needs to take some pictures of the house. When she's over, she casually mentions she might have sold our house... (What? It's not even on the market!) She calls me later that day and has some clients that want to come and take a look at the house. I get a call that evening telling me that they want to make an offer! WOW! House sold - Check. I can't even stress how strange this is, there are 5 houses just on our street for sale, and there have been some that have been on the market for 6+ months. We are shocked and excited, and now... a little stressed, we need to close by Sept 7th. Yikes! Did I mention that we don't even have a place to live?


We spent all day Saturday looking for houses closer to Matts work, we found one (okay 3) we really liked, we put on offer down on our favorite. So we are have contract on our new house, we are waiting to get all the loan stuff taken care of (which most likely will not be done by the 7th). I am packing, looking for a storage units to store all of our stuff while we are in limbo, trying to book moving trucks, and find temporary housing while between when we move out and when we can move in.  I keep gettin a little weepy when I think about moving away from all of our wonderful, friends, but I remind myself that if they are good friends, they will come and visit me (hint hint).
Although things are only going to get busier during the next couple of weeks, we are feeling very blessed and thankful for all that we have, and all the blessing we recieve.

Here is a picture of our new house... I'll post more when we move in and decorate (and maybe a few along the way)

1st Day!

I sent my little guys off to School!

Ian has been counting down the days to kindergarten.  I think he got a little worried at breakfast, but I overheard Jason reassuing him that it would be good. Ian has the same teacher from last year, so at least there will be one familar face at school.

My big 2nd grader, he was brimming with confience today.  He wanted to make sure his alarm was set so he wouldn't miss the bus. Turns out the alarm clock didn't go off, but he woke up before the alarm was supposed to go off anyway. 

I feel bad I didn't even get to say goodbye, because I was talking to the bus driver.  And, although I was very excited for them to go, I have to admit I did get a little sad when I relized I didn't say bye, but I'll get to see them in no time (and I'll be ready to send them back tomorrow!)

"On your left"

I finished my first triathalon today! Matt was in good form documenting the whole thing.  I was nervious, all week I was stressed out about it.  I tried to calm myself that this was just my "practice" tri, because I am only halfway through my training program (I have another tri in october). 

We dragged the boys out of bed at 5:00 am, but the sunrise over the lake was worth it.  Between the sunrise and a quick warm up in the lake, I calmed down and was ready!

A friend of mine gave me some advice: get in the front of the pack, so you don't have to swim through everybody or get kicked, however, in order to be in the front, I needed to be in the water (but I couldn't reach the bottom) so I had to tred water for 5 min before I swam. 

The swim felt great. I'm glad I was at the front of the pack, I even passed up some of the earlier wave. 

I was a pretty fast transitioner, just had to throw on some socks, shoes, helmet and glasses (I need glasses - bugs love to fly into my eyes)

Off I go! The bike was nice, the scenery was so beautiful.  I discovered one problem, being a fast swimmer put me ahead of the pack, but I'm still new to biking and not that fast. So it was a little depressing, I heard 45 minutes of people saying "on your left" because they were passing me!  Also the road was clearly marked 20mph, but I have it on good authority that some of those ladies were going faster then that!

Part 3, running!  Yikes it was hot, who in the world thought it was a good idea to do a race in August in Houston! My run/walk wasn't great but I finished strong.

Overall it was fun, and a really great learning experence. I know where I need to improve and where I just need to push harder.  Overall time 1:30.51, I was 252nd out of 480.

I got home and my suit was muddy from the lake, I had twigs and grass in my socks, I was sweaty and gross, but I had a smile on my face.

Hot summer fun

The Super Target near my house seems to think that Summer is over, I picked this Slip n' Slide up for 75% off, but the thermometer says otherwise.  Here are some pictures, sure to appease the Grandparents!

Ninja Roll

Wow - Did you see that?

Ian was my serious slider!

It's pretty hot, don't forget to stay hydrated

It was so HOT, I couldn't be outside for more then a few minutes at a time. But the boys played forever, in fact I had to finally drag their pruny wet little behinds inside for fear that they were getting heat stroke.

Picnic

We decided to have a Saturday picnic at Huntsville state park. All did not go according to plan. 1st - I was planning on doing a lake swim, however there was lake scum (yuck), and the swimming area was way to small to do anything. Swimming was a no-go! Oh yeah, did I mention I went in my trisuit (to give it a try... yeah that was a bad joke), and I looked absolutely silly. 2nd - We wanted to rent a boat and take the boys out for a ride, oops, it was 10am and already 100 degrees and the thought of paddling around for an hour - not fun. Boat was a no-go! 3rd - Make a campfire and roast hotdogs and marshmallows. Well, we failed to bring firewood, that's okay, we'll just collect it (nope, no collecting firewood), Fire was a no-go!

Luckily someone had the foresight to think to bring the Coleman grill (yep that was me, I know, I'm shocked too!) Instead of making it a wasted trip we decided that we would just have an early (very early) lunch. We still tried to make it campfire style (with the weapons, er, hotdog roasters). In the end we just put the dogs on the grill, but we had fun trying to roast them.

                                                     Sharp pointy objects & boys... sigh!

                             Wasn't it a pretty day! And despite the heat, the shade was really nice. 

So all didn't go acording to plan, but it was still a good day!

Crazy Fun

Galveston State Park with the Murphies!  We kayaked in the ocean, it was great, and unlike those San Diego beaches it was nice and warm (okay hot)!

The Houston Children’s Museum. The kids had a blast, I was so tired. Let's just say there were one too many of other people's kids! Matt really enjoyed making molecules out of these molecule building sets. He was making all sorts of fancy ones, to impress me, and it worked. He hogged the station forever. He could tell you what he built, but I can't remember. We're now in the market for a molecule building kit.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science! Ohh, I was in Terri Heaven- Fossils, Minerals, Energy oh my! Next time we'll just fork out the dough and pay to see it on a non-free day. Yikes, it was all just kids touching all the things it made me crazy. Ian loved seeing the Quetzalcoatlus (a pterodactyloid) as you may know his favorite stuffed animal is his "dactyl"

Blueberry Picking! Yum, we hauled the kids out for a fun day of migrant worker labor. The blueberries were so good, but even better when I turned them into blueberry sauce for ice cream and pancakes. Recipe below.




We also did things I don't even have pictures for, like going to Toy Story 3! Having fun at Chuck  E. Cheese's. Plus some memorable moments like Ian sitting at the table and asking "Why did Jesus make black holes?"

Matt officially started work and we're trying to get back to our summer schedule. We're missing having Matt at home but we are so grateful that Matt has a job.


Blueberry Sauce
Ingredients

2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 cup water
1 cup orange juice
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cold water
3 tablespoons cornstarch

Directions
1.In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the blueberries, 1/4 cup of water, orange juice, and sugar. Stir gently, and bring to a boil.
2.In a cup or small bowl, mix together the cornstarch and 1/4 cup cold water. Gently stir the cornstarch mixture into the blueberries so as not to mash the berries. Simmer gently until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, 3 to 4 minutes.