Hey folks, sorry for the silence this week. I would say we are 90% done getting everything reading for shipping but I am trying so hard to have things totally organized so that when we arrive in VA unpacking can run smoothly!  I don’t naively think unpacking will be easy in VA but I have learned along the way that the more I do on this end gradually the less I have to do all at once there.  Here is a bit of our exciting (okay, not so exciting) week!

junk drawer sorting….done, whew.

and don’t worry, I didn’t drink all of these in one sitting, actually I found these bottled in a box in our storage room. They are from special occasions like my grad school graduation, Seth’s foreign service acceptance, our engagement, and others I can’t even remember.  Not sure why we didn’t just save corks but at the time it seemed fun.  I decided to take a picture for the memory and recycled these guys!   Reminders of lots of special times! I haven’t decided if the sorting every couple of years is therapeutic or will land me in therapy someday the jury is still out!

blueberry yogurt while nodding off before nap…(oops)

lots and lots of veggies and salads!  (although I am not sure it is making much difference!)

hedge hog bread…copied from this billboard. So cute, huh?! Ours were more a consistency of biscuits (American style..not cookies) but they were cute and Jackson was awfully proud.  Eating them with strawberry jam was a bit reminiscent of the armadillo cake on Steel Magnolias.

ohhhh, and I almost forgot. We tried a knock off recipe for a certain chicken nugget place back home which may or may not be Chickfila. I need to tweek it a bit and try a couple of more times before I share it. when I served them to Owen he immediately asked if he could have a “spwite pweez”.  He’s had sprite maybe 4 times in his life and of course it is a treat if he gets fast food so the fact that it is imprinted on his brain with chicken nuggets is scary.

So not too much to report here! If you took me up on the challenge to make a meal and deliver it to a friend write to me in the comments! I hope it was an encouragement to all involved!

Have a great week, y’all.   I’ll be back here soon with some yummy leek recipes in honor of Swiss cooking! Don’t be scared, if you have never had them they are really tasty!

Well, my lips have been relatively sealed.

To recap for those who have not had to keep up with the house hunting drama, here ya go….

We met our Realtor in early January while we were in the US, primarily just to meet her in person and to get some preliminary ideas of where we would be looking for a new home.  We thought we had a price range in mind but over the following weeks we ran the numbers over and over and decided we just did not want to be maxing out our budget. We have worked so hard to save for a home and it felt silly to save but then put it all into the house and then feel like we were scraping by each month. We wanted to be in an area with great schools, family friendly neighborhood, etc but everything was at least $100k more than we could spend.  So we actually offered on a house in an area with so-so schools and ended up withdrawing our offer. There were complications with the seller, i.e his house was on the market for months and he couldn’t decide if he really wanted to sell it.  So we moved on. Only the market has not been so slow this year and there are been so few nice homes within our price range! We initially thought we would be buying closer to March or April but with the market being so painfully slow and with so few homes that were even a reasonable possibility our agent really encouraged us to go ahead and make a move sooner rather than later. We had hoped initially for Seth or myself to be able to get back, tour houses and then offer but with the market so limited houses are being snapped up within a couple of days making it impossible to make the trip before making a decision. So we worked backwards knowing we could get out at inspection.

A couple of weeks ago as we scoured the list again a foreclosure caught Seth’s eye. It was one I had put on the “discard list” in the system. His thought was that it was in a wonderful area with wonderful schools but needs a lot of work. We could get it for less because it was a foreclosure and used some of our savings to make it our own. The metro is expanding out our way so we also knew that the house was much more likely to appreciate.

So we offered quite confidently because the banks agent had been quite open about what the bank was looking for. BUT, although they had been slow on offers, an hour before ours another offer came in. And within the next 12 hours 2 more came in. So the next day we learned we were competing with 3 other offers. The bank sent out an addendum asking for our “Highest and Best” offer. It was all a bit tricky because we were in the mountains with intermittent internet. We put in our highest and best and got word the next day that they had chosen our offer to negotiate with. We were pretty stunned. When we learned there were 4 offers we were sure we had little chance.  So then we began with their counter, our counter back, followed by another 3 days of waiting for their answer. On Wednesday we were starting to wonder if we should go back to their counter. Our realtor pursued up-ing our price but then decided to wait. On Wednesday night of last week our realtor called at midnight to tell us they had accepted our counter.

So, on Monday Seth flew back to the US for inspection and will be there for a couple of days meeting with various people to get estimates on work being done, setting up lawn care until we arrive in July, going to Jackson’s new school to get the big kindergarten packet, etc. The inspection was yesterday morning. There were no major red flags so we don’t have any major concerns. The house needs lots and lots of work but we are hoping to spruce it up and make it home.  There is some quirkiness that we are trying to work out like…say our queen bed barely fitting in the make shift master bedroom…but my husband assures me that it will all work out. If my side of the bed is pressed against a wall with no exit except for to climb over him does that mean I am exempt from night time response duty?! Yep, I think so. Push that bed against the wall. I will take sweet sleep over a bedside table any day. No really, the space will be a complication but we are working with a contractor to figure out how the heck we can miraculously push out some walls.  Because I am all about keeping it real here I will be honest and say that this process has been less than fun. For those of you that know me well our lifestyle of moving so much takes it’s toll on me. I have been dreaming of a home of our own for a long time. This house is a huge blessing and I feel very fortunate to have found it but at this point I haven’t felt a ton of warm fuzzies. Dealing with the stress of arranging for other people to look at homes for us and relying on a zillion other opinions to make what feels like a very personal decision has been humbling at best.  So I see so much potential in this house but there is nothing that makes my heart giddy at this point….most likely more due to the fact that I have never even stepped foot in it. I look forward to being in it and making it our own.  (Many people have mentioned their concern about us not having space for our furniture from this ginormous house, no worries. You should all know me well enough to know I have already made a plan for arranging and selling it. No good and useful furniture will go to waste in this move rest assured

We will be doing tons of improvements on the house so you can look forward to lots of “before and after” pictures. We are hoping to have most of the bigger stuff done before we move in. We will have a few weeks to work on it before our things arrive from Bern so we are going to try to take advantage of that wait time. We want to do lots ourselves but we are willing to have help on things we don’t have experience with!!  Obviously we know nothing is for sure until the keys are in our hands. But at this point things are progressing and we are waiting for the April 6th closing. Stay tuned!

Oh yea, and it is in Herndon, Virginia so we will be close to lots of friends and family. And a Chickfila. And a Wegman’s with childcare. I will be joining Community Bible Study and MOPs with Owen. And Jackson will be embarking on his kindergarten adventure (I am so not ready for this one!!!!)  And Seth will be starting a new job with Foreign Aide Department that he is really excited about. These things make me feel excited and anticipate this new chapter in the Kolb family adventures!

Happy Friday folks! Sorry for the here and there this week. Let’s just say that once we thought we were in the clear with jetlag we had some throw up action and we have a 2 year old that is persisting to get out of his bed. As in from 3Am on over and over and over again. In addition to the crazy sleep stuff we have had that bi-yearly surge in defiance and attitude from a certain oldest child and tantrums and teething from a certain 2 year old. It is a recipe for some insanity I tell you.  It is getting better SLOWLY but we are so very tired…thus, less posting about fun things!

But for some Friday fun I thought I would tell you about Canton!  For those of you that are not from Texas (I’m not technically, but I claim the state for my husband) you may have never heard of Canton.  Canton is a town in Texas that hosts First Mondays. It’s about 2 hours outside of Ft Worth where we were recently visiting my family. Here is the link  for First Monday Trade Days in Canton. I linked you to the Shopper’s page. I love how they give advice on how to dress in layers, etc. It is quite a mission to go to Canton but really worth it if you can get friends to go too!

It’s the most amazing flea market ever and it’s HUGE. There are organized pavilions of goodies plus lots of outdoor setups with lots of lots of junk treasures!!!You can find just about anything at Canton. Kitchen gadgets, house decor, clothes plants, pets, and on and on. And for the most part the food is all fair food like kettle corn, corn dogs (known as Corny dogs in Texas), turkey legs and funnel cakes.

I have been a couple of times and when I realized that the timing would line up to go over our Texas trip I was delighted! This time I went with my mom and my sister-in-law Tina and her mom, Lisa. We left groggy and excited at 6:30 in the morning. We picked up Lisa and headed to Starbucks…and then to Chickfila. Caffeine and nourishment. We were set.  We chatted away as we drove and arrived in time to be some of the first in the parking lot and in the shops. It was chilly when we started but warmed up quickly. We could not have asked for better weather. Did I mention that Seth graciously told me to go and had the kids for the day?!  It was SO nice to have a day away not worrying about feeding the kids, nap vs. no naps, yada, yada. And it is rare that my mom is off work and able to get away, so it was a huge treat that she came!

It was fun going to Canton this time around knowing we will have a home of our own soon to decorate. I came away with 3 botanical prints, a few vintage dishtowels, an old door (not a full size but a smaller one) that I hope to turn into a coffee table if Seth humors me, an old Dr. Pepper crate, an old wire lamp shade frame and some other little treasures.

Here are a few shots from the day. I didn’t even take my camera because I didn’t want it to weigh me down and hold me back from any spectacular deals….so Tina kindly snapped a few shots on her iphone. Next time I will force myself to take my camera because you just can’t imagine what all you see!

this is a baby goat someone had dressed up for a walk around canton. we thought for sure she was selling it. I’m telling you, you see the strangest things at Canton. You could spend a day just people watching! Of course it might have been more exciting to me in terms of people watching after living in straight-laced Switzerland.

redneck wine glasses

and here is the old door, can’t you all just see the potential?! Tina bought a full-sized door and drilled it into the wall as a headboard.

If you are ever in Texas swing by Canton.  In a couple of years I am going to try to talk my other SIL, Stephanie into flying to Texas with me for another Seckinger/Dyer ladies shopping day!

In other shopping news, I talked Seth into driving to Heidelberg tomorrow to do our 4 month monster shopping trip at the base. I cried the last time I finished the 3 overflowing carts so I thought he might be better to go this time…never mind the fact that a 5 item list at our grocery store can be a shopping challenge for him. I wrote the list yesterday and it is both sides of an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper.  I’m not sure if I feel worse for him or for me being home with the boot camp kids.

Hope you all have a great weekend whatever your plans might be! I am hoping for health, sleep and some snow!

As I mentioned in my previous post about Christmas, I kept our decorations simple this year. We are going home this year to Texas (YIPEEEEEEE!) so I knew we shouldn’t do a fresh tree and knowing that I will be coming back a week into January I was hesitant to create a ton of work for myself on return!  I also wanted  the kids to catch the simplicity of it and not get distracted by chaos. We are spending time after dinner each night doing our advent calendar. Each night the boys pull a small book out of the calendar. The books are each about part of the nativity story. They also normally find a little treat whether it be a clementine or a chocolate. It’s fun having both boys old enough this year to work on developing some traditions that they will remember.

We are keeping gifts really simple this year. Each boy is getting a few things and we will probably let them pick out a gift for their brother. Most of our shopping this year was done via the internet. We have saved a few things to pick out for the boys when we are live in the US of A but most have been bought and shipped without touching them.  If you haven’t checked out Zulily.com I highly recommend it for kids and mom gifts! They carry daily deals with great markdowns and normally boutique quality! Check out my friend’s blog too if you are looking for a unique gift. She makes super cute signs on old hardwood flooring.  Confession, I bought one of Jennifer’s signs a few months ago thinking it would make a great gift. Turns out the sign loves my kitchen and makes me smile so I had to keep it! I wanted to do a post and properly introduce Jennifer…and hope to still do so…but in the meantime I wanted you to know about her signs!! Here is a peek at the one I got….I love it because it doesn’t say this is the perfect life, or the calmest, or the easiest, it says it’s “the finest kind of life”. Despite life’s ups and downs we are blessed.

A few weeks ago I realized that I wasn’t as stressed about shopping as I normally am. Seth and decided this year that instead of gifts we would spend an overnight in Dallas going back to our favorite places where we met, fell in love and spent our first year as a married couple!  I am so looking forward to our time together and I have to admit I am relieved to not be obsessing about the best gift for Seth.

Well, I am guessing you have all gotten your dose of random from me for the day! Hope you are all enjoying the holiday season!