Our New Place to do Life

We fly home today!  Hooray!  

Mission: Accomplished!

Feeling MORE THAN READY to see those kids! We've missed them so unbelievably much.

Yesterday, we had dinner at Bonefish Grille, right near Tony's office.  Unreal!  It really was so delectable; I can't wait to go back again.

Here are some additional pics of the house... phone camera quality-only... :)

The shutters will be stained to match garage doors.

kitchen

kitchen/dining (backyard out dining window)

standing in dining - kitchen/living

dining

living room

living room

master

master bath

master bath

stone floor shower in master bath

Tile, plank, and carpet that will be used, throughout.
I got to pick out the carpet yesterday, which was fun :)
 Hopefully the flecks of black/brown will hide any incidental stains, and the overall look
still light enough to flow with the light-colored tile.

Front bedroom, will likely use for school and for visitors :)

ceiling beams, front bedroom

ceiling fan, back patio :)

The only room upstairs, Ava has claimed... :)

G & S's bathroom

standing in master closet - laundry room ahead

laundry room/lockers

Praise God, from whom ALL blessings flow! Feeling content with how this trip went and think we'll really like the area. Closing here, is tentative for 8/15. Now, if someone would just buy our Appleton home... ;)

We are getting fruity.  Time to go hommmme.  What a week.

The Offer is In...!

And so it is.  

Optimism + prayer = amazing things. This was Tony's fortune from his after-dinner cookie at Mama Fu's last night.  :)

We also had the most magnificent dessert there, because we totally needed that.  We absolutely needed to find out, firsthand, how cheesecake, cinnamon, and raspberry sauce combine to make magic in your mouth.  Ohhhh my goodness! 

We started off today, around 6:30am.  I did my scolio exercises and showered and we "rinsed through" - as Tony would say - different scenarios and aspects of our move on both the WI and AR ends.

We then went downstairs to breakfast, where, for the 3rd day in a row, I feel like a Loser with a capital L... it's so weird to not be taking care of anyone else!  I just look at what I want to eat and then eat it?  

No drama 

(well, except for the bitter kitchen worker hollering "HOT FOOD", rather than, "Excuse me, please", as she restocks the hot food items).  

No overflowing waffle iron (just the beeping of that thing makes my blood pressure rise in anticipation of batter overload), 

no, "Please eat something healthy before the Fruit Loops or donut."  

No spilled juice toppling from a 4oz Dixie Cup or one of the kids excitedly, yet somehow completely surprisingly to themself, ramming into other hotel guests.  

Nope.  Just us, and our ham, eggs, and coffee.  Weirdness.  

I do get over it pretty quickly so that I enjoy myself :)  hehe  

Above, is Tony, working via phone, with his replacement in Appleton, while also awaiting return phone calls from relo consultant and our lender.  I was on the left for moral support ;D (ok, maybe some Farm Heroes/email/Facebook too), and also trying to get in touch with a plumber to fix a minor issue needing correction, for the buyout. I also spent a couple of hours editing, my dear Dana!  I'm almost there!

It was time to leave to drop Tony off at the office for meetings.  We'd had the necessary conversation with our relo consultant, but were still waiting to hear back from our lender.  Yesterday, we'd found the house we want to call Home, and we just wanted to be sure all things were in line, so that we could make an offer today!

I took Tony to the meetings, and kept my phone on alert so that I could talk with our lender when she did return the call. 

Ava's really been wanting me to try and find the Duggar family... I googled and searched best I could, but could not (not surprisingly)find an exact address.  I decided to go to Springdale "for Ava", anyway.  I had JimBob's car dealership address; it took me to a dealership, but not one with his name on it.  In one of my searches, I ran across the Duggars' eldest son, Joshua's (Anna)address.  It was listed as only a few miles from where I was at, so I decided to go for it.  

I arrived at the address, and texted Ava...

After the cruise south, I got back on highway 540 and headed back.  

I wanted to stop at the church that we are planning to attend!

From there, I drove to the house, thought I'd see what the drive was like.

It took less than 15" to get from the church to our (praying!) new home.  And the drive was so pretty!  It's unbelievable how much this area resembles WI.  With its' winding country roads and tall trees, you'd hardly know the difference between the two, in some areas!  But then something like an armadillo reminds you that things are not always what they seem.

On the drive, our lender called, and I was able to speak to her about estimated costs of taxes and insurance here, in AR.  I also let her know we were planning to place the offer (and the amount - we'd already done pre-approval)today.

I picked Tony up after his meetings, and off we went, to the house, to pull together an offer for this house! It's a beautiful drive, too, and less than 4 miles from his office.  :)

The absolute best thing, to *me*, about the house, is the functional laundry room with lockers!  My, never-waning enthusiasm for this, above.

The laundry room comes right off of the garage entrance,and sits between the entryway and the master bedroom closet. There is a pocket door, between laundry room and closet.  This will all be so helpful in helping control clutter!  I am trying to be very intentional about the things I keep... and controlling the visual chaos.


After we looked at the house some more, we signed the offer.  We then went to Abuelo's (another 1st)for dinner.  After dinner, we decided to take a drive out to Bentonville's Aquatic Center.  It was closed but we were able to assess the amenities, somewhat.  Looks like a super fun place for the kidlets!We drove, too, to Rogers area to check out the Sport Complexes, and the new Aquatic Center.  It's more like an all-out water park.

 

Skype with the girls! I was sooo happy to see them smiling, and no tears at all tonigh.  It's been rough on all, to be apart. Soren seems to handle this by focusing on having fun... We have not Skyped with him or heard much, except that he is having a total blast.  :)

We really love the location of "our" house... the space... everything about it - will be praying God feels it's as great of a fit as we do, and that we receive confirmation, quickly, in the form of an accepted offer, tomorrow!

LoVed these signs at Grace Lutheran, visible to members as they leave church.

It's Getting Intense.

Another busy day at the hands of our spicy, southern realtor! 

I don't have much to post on, tonight, because Tony thinks I will jinx us by posting pictures, and so he asked me not to. Though I certainly favor prayer over wishing, and blessing over luck, I guess I have to agree with him.  It's been an incredible day of odd circumstances and opportunity.

We came across a home today, that we found kind of by accident. We were in a neighboring neighborhood, and did a walk-through, as we were there, anyway. (And only in THAT neighborhood, as I'd found 2 new ones there, last night.) This was pretty, we thought, and a different builder than we'd seen so far, with lots of craftsman touches.  My dream-come-true of a laundry room with pocket door to master walk-in closet, and also housing 3 (It's a sign!?)built-in locker cubbies.  Another big difference was an additional room upstairs (3 + master downstairs)with closet. Hello, Ava-space! :) The extra bedroom would also mean there would be a room for a school and visitors. :)

It immediately felt homey to me, but we soon learned it was more than we wanted to spend. Dear Dave Ramsey, we want to stay true to you, especially now.  We walked next door and incidentally met the builder.  We moseyed out, to discuss, leaving our realtor inside with the builder. She came out with some pretty spectacular news. We had no idea she was in there negotiating; we'd kind of written off this, as it was out of our price point. Never been big on "stuff". However,thinking about how the flow of life would go in a home that fits our needs so well, calms me and eases anxiety, especially with being home so much with the kids/homeschooling. 

"He said he'd come down 20 grand.  Pretty much unheard of, with new construction, but reason being, he has more lots to buy and wants to move these, first.  I also asked him for a fence, a washer/dryer, refrigerator, and for you to be able to choose carpeting stlye." This. WOMAN. Also, resale potential for our return!  We don't ever want to try and sell an ancient house, again!  It ain't easy.

We compared all day, to the home from last night, and went back to see them both, again - as well as others.  

Currently, we're doing all the math in the hotel room and morale is crumbling under quickly depleting blood sugars... ultimate FAIL at eating at regular intervals while we've been here.  Without kids to feed, I don't know what to do. I didn have my very first Chick-Fil-A experience at lunch today, though... thumbs-up. 

We are trying to assess all angles, lots of talking deliberately, with eyes closed in concentration... this is a trip.

Here's Tony, trying to organize and email all of our thoughts to our realtor.  This should be helpful... written down, in specifics, hoping to have good discussions with relo consultant and finalize with bank, tomorrow, in order to feel confident in putting together an offer.

Ava will be excited to hear that if we do buy this home, we will be just 8 miles from The Duggars. . .

In other news, we did have a showing at home, today, and tomorrow, some electrical updating is getting done.

Missing the kids a TON, and knowing they miss us too, is heartbreaking at times.  My arms ache for those squeezes!  They are en route, home, to feed the zoo, and then off to friends' until Friday.

Carrie & PJ, Mom, Dana, and Brenda...
God Bless You!

It "Could" Be The One.

Our relocation realtor makes me very happy. She is a "grandmommy", with the energy of a grandbaby.  Times 10.  And, her driving paints me an angel.  :D  Also, she is not perturbed by opening up a property, only to have me say, after about 13 seconds that I don't like it.  I'm not trying to be rude, but it only takes me about that long to decide if something is for me, or it isn't. She stopped in the middle of streets to read spec sheets, and consistently answered her phone while doing u-turns and jumping curbs. Did I mention that she also bought us, "tax write-offs" lunch at Las Fajitas, even though our trip is already paid for, by KC?  Yeah, I like her. She has a Boxer, too.  I kind of want to keep her forever.

These are the reasons we could see 20+ properties today!  Long story, short (and because I'm tired and want to drink wine and watch Jimmy Fallon with Tony), we did find a home we really like, today!  There may be something tomorrow that trumps it, but this is by far our fave of the day. There is a playground and fishing pond around the corner. :)

We had dinner tonight at the Mellow Mushroom, which is a pizza place.  Tony had to been to one on a biz trip to Georgia and was a huge fan.  It truly was totally delicious. When we sat down, T ordered a Miller Lite (with confidence).  The waitress says, "Yeahhhh... we may be out of that..." Exsqueeze me??  "Out" of that?  Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore.

It turns out there was plenty of "Cores" (Coors) Light in-house, though.  Close call.  I had no worries - when you're a Pinot Grigio fan, life is easy. :)

With bellies full of pizza, we headed back to Tony's new office so that we could drive over to the Maybe House to check out the commute (and honestly, I had no earthly idea of the relation of anything at this point).  We also trolled past a house we will see tomorrow.

Ok.  I just turned on a light to finish this post, and Tony is trying to go night-night.  He says the bedside lamp is reminiscent of a store's grand opening.  So I shall turn off the beacon so he can snore in peace... :)Wine pour un.

Arkansas: First Impressions

My head feels exploding-like. This is going to be (even) more tangential than usual.

Our flights were uneventful.  Well, mostly.  I did misplace (just for a sec) my boarding pass which created scrambling and caused us to be the last ones aboard our connecting flight from Mpls to Bville.  Whoopsie daisy.  Hey, at least I found it.  No, not true, either; Tony found it.  I realized this as he wildly waved it in the air as I gazed down to the terminal from the coffee shop where I was searching for it.  Poor guy.  He's used to traveling alone, when flying for work.  I think he's going to need some intervention on the way home - like a sedative.  I'm kind of like a child.   

Because scoliosis doesn't take a vacation, and could care less if
it's inconvenient to fly...

My scolio cantilever. The only baggage we checked... Yayy.... (??)

We start our hunt for a home tomorrow, at 9am.  Word on the street is that between tomorrow and Tuesday, we will see approximately 31 houses. We'll use the rest of the time to take second looks, or look for others.  

We landed around today, around 11am. It was a smoldering 90+ degrees. ;)We were so excited to tool around and see everything we could, in the Bentonville/Rogers area!  Tony hadn't been here in about 2 years, and finally, I could see what this place is like!     

We first took a drive through some of Bentonville and then into Rogers.  We found some of the streets/neighborhoods that we had seen online/some of the houses we'll be seeing.  It was fun to check it all out.

Next, we headed toward Tony's workplace - FUN!

And his company car, as promised, was parked in the lot :)

Things are starting to feel pretty real...

Above, is new Amphitheater for live shows - it shares the parking lot with KC.  This looks fantastic.  Must check out soon.

We had a quick lunch at Jimmy Johns, and then headed out to see the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, which I can't WAIT to take the kids to!  We didn't go inside today. We also checked out Pinnacle Hills Shopping District.  Noted, that the entire mall is an outside mall.  You walk OUTside of the stores from one to the next. Cool.  I guess that a when a state does not experience winter for 8 months out of the year, this makes sense...! I took this opportunity to let Ava know that she need not fear!  PLENTY of shopping options. ;) 

Next, we drove back toward Bentonville, to the birthplace of Walmart. For those unfamiliar, Walmart is Kimberly-Clark's largest customer.

 

Say whatever you will about Walmart... (I'll say it, too...), but Sam Walton truly lived an absolutely extraordinary life, which was full of a passion that made him successful in so many ways, and that benefited so many others!  It was really fun to learn the history of the franchise.  Walton's 5-10 is now a museum, dedicated to its history. It was more interesting than I expected!

Sam's office, left much the same as when he died, in 1992.

*Ridiculous Walmart Returns*

"The Customer ALWAYS Comes First!"

Check these out...

This outdoor thermometer was returned to a Walmart store
when the customer complained it never had the correct time.

Defective merchandise slip for this toy set cites the reason
for its return as "fishing pole didn't work - no fish."  

According to the defective merchandise slip,
this pencil sharpener was returned
because it "doesn't sharpen any ink pens."

 I think if Walmart was run by anyone today, like it was in Sam Walton's day, it'd be a terrific shopping experience... rather than seriously begging for a dress code :)

After the Walmart museum, we continued north, to Bella Vista.  There is a WELS church there, and we will try it out soon.  We anticipate choosing the other option, Grace, in Lowell, as it has a school and seems to include more families.  

Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, Bella Vista, AK

Ok.  So I decided to splurge a little and hit the nail salon for a pedi.  Different! The nail tech worked a massage and pedi with diligence, for over an HOUR.  This was easily the best pedi evahh.  Ahh. But, this was an interesting experience for a few reasons...first the exemplary service, then outlines and numerous laminated choices for big toe design.  I am a big toe design kind of pedi-girl.  Sorry I'm not sorry for this.  But, I think maybe it's taboo here??  They seemed startled when I asked for it, and I got a whole lot of stares from other design-less customers... Also, here I am getting my design "fanned"?

As I was leaving, I noticed a candy bowl on the counter and asked if I might be able to take a piece for each of my kids.  I thought it would be fun to bring something for them that would show them I was thinking of them even when I was busy and having fun.  Before the tech even answered with words, she began digging her hands into the candy bowl and depositing large amounts into my purse!  Diamond Nail and Spa was an experience!

Back to the room to relax!  Accomodations are great - clean and cozy.

Things were going fine... until he opened his email... haha

Random thoughts from today:

*We found ourselves on a Sunday Drive, out in the sticks of Benton County, country music on the radio. Enjoyable.  And VERY much like WI...  UNTIL the dead armadillo in the middle of the road.  Too cold in the Frozen Tundra for those guys!

*There are these bright & beautiful pink flowers everywhere here.  I haven't seen them at home.  Must be a flower that thrives in hot weather...

*People here are friendly and nice so far and I am g l a d. I really like it so far!

*I hope we can find a home with a neighborhood like one we drove through today - basket ball hoops all faced the street :) Kids would love nothing more than some street ball!

*I've begun a list of all of the things I want to do with the kids when we come down, and I'm sure I will be growing the list all week. :)

-Hobbs State Park

-Check out Athletic Complexes (need to get Ava registered for vball and Soren for football, while here, if possible)

-Check out the Aquatic Center and all other swimming availabilities

-Museum of Native American History

-Crystal Bridges Art Museum

-Pea Ridge Military Park

-Eureka Springs

-Silver Dollar City

-Hot Springs

*This alone-time, together, is amazing.  Is this real life??  But, WE MISS THE KIDS! BADLY! :(  This is hard, no doubt about it.  Leaving her babies is the hardest thing a mama can do - no matter what! Amen?! And the kids are pretty teary when we talk to them.  Tonight we Skyped and all is well, except the miles between us! ;D

All 3 kids have been with the amazing and talented Carrie and PJ since Sat eve, and will stay there until Tuesday evening.  Then, they will be scattering with friends, a bit, before teaming up with Nana at the end of the week :) Our friend, Garmin is doin' it up at Tailwaggers all week! :)

Pics from today.  

Carrie Danielson photo cred. Love.

Pool Day!