Hi everyone,
Well this has been a while! But to be fair Jessica is totally at fault for all of this.
So the biggest news is that after 3 1/2 years of stability Jessica's itchy feet came up again and we'll be on the move next month. It would be hard to beat our 2010 move of 50yds but we've come close, moving just 31 doors up the street to buy Natalie & Andy's house, parents of Sophia (Ryan's school pal) & Hayley. The opportunity came up suddenly and caught us very much off guard, but after some quick research and checking it became apparent if we didn't take this chance we'd probably regret it down the line. It means a lot of tough decisions will come up in the next years, Ryan is already bemoaning the lack of carpet and beach trips but I'm sure he'll come round once he's settled in.
Obviously this is the first house I'm involved with buying here, and there's a fair few differences between US & UK, not least the way the interest rates are calculated & offered, with the recession back in 2008 it's clear that more attention is paid to offers available, and as we weren't in the market we really had to thin down our numbers very rapidly but I think we've got a good option overall.
Yeah, it's stressful buying here too........ good job Jessica already made me lose my hair.
Hannah is showing progress with her words and attitude, though she's not going to make many friends if she continues to grass up her partners in crime "Harper bite" is her current tattle of choice. Though it's equally conceivable that's not a finger pointing exercise, more a command to her minion.
Ryan has been working really hard on his reading, we've swapped swimming for extra tuition and he's taken to it very well, he's about to begin baseball once again and hopefully this will all give him further opportunity to grow. He has finished his initial IEP with Lowes Island and that is being updated to move away from speech and concentrate more on his attention/concentration issues. With both his speech specialists expecting babies late in the summer, it's probably perfect timing to move onto the next stage.
We had a tornado warning in the week here, and that led to a fun escapade by me. As the rain poured down I heard a rumble from our deck and looked out the window to see our rather heavy umbrella lift up and cartwheel over onto next doors deck... after 30 mins the rain stopped and I could see it sat on the deck, so it was easy enough to grab a step stool, hop over, grab it and put it back on our deck. Of course I didn't take the step stool with me so how did I get back? Well, with some difficulty! Got up on the wooden posts easily enough, but the gap was wider than it seems and down below was the fence splitting our gardens, and of course due to the rain they were a little slick. Anyway I made it, but suffice to say if the umbrella flies again it's over to Jessica or Ryan to get it back!
Yesterday we went out on the annual Easter Egg hunt, and it turned out a bit hotter than we thought it would, so now the only one without a slight case of sunburn is Ryan because he stayed under cover in the bouncy castles most of the afternoon. Must mean summer will soon be here and that also means mowing the lawn.....D'oh!
Hopefully 1 more update prior to the move, but packing & chucking out inherited crap will be taking priority!
Have fun,
J,J,R & H.
Note: Harper isn't Hannah's minion and Jessica disagrees with any notion that it may have been implied above.
