Today we finally got our cable modem up and running. It wasn't as simple as moving and plugging-in like they said it would be. We ended up with a different modem. Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that we are settling in and love the new house, it is FAR bigger than I had originally thought and the kids just love being able to play outside all day. A full story will come later.

Well, today was the day. The buyer signed his paperwork this morning, Brie and I signed our paperwork this afternoon and tomorrow this strange journey that began on October 11, 2001 will be over. Of course, it won't really be over until Wednesday when the movers come and take our stuff to our new home and we lock the doors up for the last time.

In most ways it's like someone has finally removed the weight from my chest, in a very few other ways it's sad. This house contained some brilliant moments in our lives. We brought our daughter home to this house and we had so many great times with friends and family here. I am sure that even better memories await us ahead in our new home.

I wanted to make sure to send a big shout-out to Cait. With 1 day notice she drove down from Vegas and helped us sort through so much stuff this weekend. I can't thank her enough for being here.

1. Do you live in a house, an apartment or a condo?

House, we just sold off our 27 year old 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 2262 sq ft. house on .52 acres and are moving into a newer, but smaller 4 bedroom, 2½ bath, 1750 sq ft. house on a smaller lot.

2. Do you rent or own?

On Wednesday, 6/26/2002 we will go from being first time owners back to being renters. We found owning not all it was suppose to be.

3. Does anyone else live with you?

Through the years Brie and I have had lots of boarders and roommates, I believe the number is like 12. Right now it's just our family unit. 3 kids, 2 dogs, and 1 cat. My mom had lived with us for 6 years until last May.

4. How many times have you moved in your life?

Between being born and age 18 I moved twice. Once when I was 3 and then when I graduated high school at 17 I moved off to go to college. After that though I've lived in (not counting a couple trips back home to regroup) sixteen different places.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?

This weekend we pack to move on Wednesday. I'm actually pretty excited, we've rented a trailer to take everything we are throwing out to the dump. My Cait is coming in from Vegas to give support and my wife and I are going to simplify our lives by getting rid of a lot of stuff. It's going to be fun!

I thought for sure that "I got great Customer Service from this website", was a phrase that I would never say. Today that changes. Being one of those people who doesn't really like to go browsing in the adult DVD section of my local rental store (not that Blockbuster has one). Brie and I choose and rent our adult DVDs from Xrent they've got a good selection and free upgrade to priority mail delivery for orders of 4 or more. Today I got an email that the movies I returned 5 weeks late were going to cost me $46 in late fees.. eek! I wrote them an email asking if they could lower the charge because I didn't intentionally keep them out late and gave them my sob story. Within an hour I got a response that they would lower it to $16!

That's excellent service and made me so happy I thought I'd let all 5 of you that read my Blog know.

Just wanted to document that fact the Sebastian learned how to whistle this weekend. He had been trying off and on for a while then this weekend it finally all came together. Now he whistles whenever he can, but it's not annoying... yet

1. How often do you do laundry?

With, three kids and two adults I could literally do a load of laundry everyday. It's neverending. I'd say right now we are doing about 6 loads of laundry a week and that's when we aren't doing linens, which we don't wash nearly enough. Laundry is one of those things that I must get more consistent at doing.

2. What's in a typical wash load?

Typically it's a load of cold darks, then warm darks, then warm whites, and cold whites. I'm really good about seperating colors and water temperature clothing. Since my wife and I must wear professional attire to work it's mainly our work clothes.

3. Front or top loader? Powder or liquid detergent?

Front loaders scare me. I'll always use a top loader. Powder detergent also is a bad idea in my books. Since I often forget to put the detergent in before loading clothes I found in the past that powder detergent tends to cake if you don't put it in before the clothes. I prefer liquid, but more than that I prefer liquid that is clear like All, since even with liquid if I forget to put it in first it can leave stains.

4. Do you use fabric softener in the rinse cycle?

The Downy ball has to be one of the greatest inventions in household tools. I have three of them. Since we have such hard water around here it's an absolute must to use fabric softener.

5. Dryer or clothesline?

When I was a teenager I was oustside stringing our clothesline when one side snapped and the lead pipe swung around and hit me in the nose making me black-out for a moment. Ever since then I have had a complete distrust of clotheslines. Besides clothes feel all crunchy when you dry them on a clothesline. It's dryer for me all the way!

Well, things are going along fine with the sell of the house. Yesterday was the inspection and sometime this week should be the appraisal. As I feel more confident with the sell, I begin to focus more on the move. Really not much time left. I was suppose to have 2 companies give me estimates on moving costs yesterday, but they both backed out. One rescheduled, the other said they were already booked.

Our most recent E-bay coup... with help from Brie we were able to win a 2nd PD-F1007 300+1 CD player for only $97! We needed another PD-F1007 because the new model doesn't allow you to sync the units together. With two PD-F1007 units we will have a virtual 600 CD player. That's almost our whole CD collection available at once!

I'm not one to complain (hehe), but I don't understand why the person over at Friday Five doesn't allow list members to provide Friday Five questions when they can't/won't. It's become a highly unreliable source of entertainment/community/self-discovery. Very frustrating.

Well, today the offer on our house was rescended. Apparently, even though they were told and an engineering report was provided about the structure of the house the buyers got nervous about the fact that this 27 year old home hasn't settled completely level. Though the structure of the house is in no danger, the only foundation damage that ever occured was repaired before we even bought the house, and we have engineering report proving this house is structurally sound they felt after discussing it with their inspector that it was best to not proceed.

What could be the silver lining is that within an hour one of our back-up bids was put in place. It's an investor who has been told the same thing about the engineering report and house settling and is still so eager to have the property he will close escrow on our original planned date from the other offer (11 more working days). He will come look out the house at 11:00 am tomorrow.

I hope that the "third time is the charm" rule applies.