(Sorry I can't get the paragraphs to seperate...ugh....)
Whew! It's almost 9:45pm and it's about time I sat down to fill in what's been going on! This post will be about a few things, so stay with me! :)
(There are pictures at the bottom!)
First, HAPPY EASTER! Hope you all had a great day with friends and family to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord! We started off the day with church and then lunch at Olive Garden before heading home for nap and a lazy evening. (Well, lazy for the kids...I've been keeping busy with cleaning, sorting, organizing, purging our apt of stuff, etc!)
So, Friday morning at about 7:40am, we left for Nebraska!! I had the boys sleep in their clothes and made banana muffins the night before and got a bunch of fruit, etc ready so the kids could just get up, have a few muffins and jump in the car...and that's just what they did! We drove straight thru to Columbus NE (Ariella slept the whole time!). It took about 3 hours and 20 mins, so not too bad! The drive home went just as nice and ended with Nathan and I playing the ABC game with words on the billboards...he won...and he was driving...pathetic... :(
We had 3 places that we were going to look at. 1) a duplex (cheapiest) 2) a 4 bd ranch home (second cheapiest) 3) a 5 bd house (most expensive). We called to look at the house first. The house was "on the other side of the tracks"....literally....and they say that phrase for a reason... This was in the part of town you'd rather not be walking in at night. Run down houses, junk and garbage take the place of the grass in the yard, and lots of minorities. We pulled up to the house and I jumped out to take a look first while Nathan stayed in the van with the kids. The guy showed me around the house, and yes, it was fairly big. There was 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 4 flights of stairs...plenty of places for the boys to play hide and seek. BUT...it was a dump. It pretty much matched the rest of the houses in that area. It made our place in Garner look like a palace...and you know what our place was like there!! So, this was a big fat NO!
The second place we looked at was the duplex. I'll spoil the suspense for you and just say that this was the place that we will be renting. After looking at that house, pretty much anything would be better than that, so this duplex looked fabulous to us! :) It's an okay size, not huge but not tiny...probably about the same size as our apt is now (minus the walk in closets). It's a 3 bedroom, 1 bath place with a nice size laundry room right off the kitchen! THAT will be nice! It's been 2 years since I haven't had to pay per load or since I could access a washer and dryer without having to leave my kids (or take them all with me) or coordinate doing laundry when Nathan's home! Anyway, the place was fully remodeled 2 years ago with all new flooring, paint, etc and the guys who own it also own a heating and a/c business so that aspect of the duplex should be very nice! He said it's very energy efficient and even has an air purifier! It also has an attached single garage. I don't have any pictures of it right now, but i can guarantee you i will post some when we move in!!
The third place that we wanted to look at, the 4 bd ranch, was already rented. I was a little disappointed because I had made sure the guy wasn't going to rent it out before Friday since we were driving from MN and he said that it would be available. But when I called him, he said that he wasn't going to show us because he was going to choose this other lady to rent it. I thought that was a pretty easy answer though....not going to be that one!
The thing that's interesting about finding the duplex is that it was never on the list that I got from the realtor. We found it this way: Remember that guy who I talked about a couple posts ago about having 100 rentals in town?....Well, he took note of my name and number and called me back the next day with a couple names of people who might have a rental. I thought it was very nice of him to call me back with some info. Of course none of those were open, but he did say that he drove by a place earlier that day with a 'for rent' sign out in front. He thought it was owned by the heat and a/c guys so he gave me the number to their store and had me go from there. I called and the nice lady put me through to the voice mail of the owner. He called me back and said that he did have a duplex and it was available! Whoo hoo!! The strange thing?...there wasn't a sign out front when we were there on Friday....hmmm...
We think it was a total blessing from the Lord that Mr. Jones saw the sign that day and made a point to call me. It was because of that, that we found it! So we gave our deposit and we were on our way!
We stopped at the park (the pic from the previous post) and ate our picnic lunch before heading back. We also stopped at Walmart in Columbus on our way out of town and got a plug in for our laptop so the kids could watch a movie...great idea! :)
How's Columbus for a town?...Well, it's about 25,000 people, with lots of Mexicans. We felt like we were the minority at most places we went. It has a Walmart, a new Hyvee (grocery store), Dollar General, Family Dollar...everything I need...hehe :) But really, it has most things ya need. It will be different being in a big town compared to Luverne and Garner, but it will be nice not having to drive 30-45 minutes to get to a Walmart, etc! But the bad part is just having the business of a bigger city. Our duplex is on a pretty busy street, so that's a bummer, but what do ya do??
**Side note** While I ran into Walmart to get the plug in for the computer, I walked past the infant/toddler clothes since I picked up diapers too and I saw some super cute little girl dresses. This is what thought ran through my head "Oh, those are so cute! I hope someday I have a little girl so I could buy something like that...." Then it hit me! I DO have a little girl and I CAN look at that stuff to actually BUY!!! But since all the fam was in the van waiting for me, I just glanced at them for a few seconds and smiled and walked away. I'm still not used to having a little girl. I often think I have a boy that I'm just putting in pink :) But I assure you, Ariella IS a girl! :)
Speaking of Ariella...do you know how much she weighs?!?! I weighed her last Sunday, 8 pounds...remember? Well, I weighed her today, one week later, and she's 9-1/2 pounds!!! Holy smokes girl! A pound and a half in a week!....3 pounds in 3 weeks!...what a little pig! I told you she eats like her brothers!! She's even big enough now where Nathan doesn't mind holding her because she's not "as fragile" :) My baby's already growin' up!
Oh, just an FYI: Nathan thinks he'll be done with work this week and that we will be signing a year lease with the place in NE (we don't have much choice, that's just what they do there since the rental market is so hot). And speaking of that, if you need work, move to Columbus!! Everything is growing there that every business is insanly busy and people are moving their like crazy. It's an extremly hot market there right now. Also, because of that, the owner of the duplex told Nathan that if he needs work next winter after the line is done (they are saying that it's going to be done in December) and before the next one starts, that he's got at least a years worth of work that needs to be done at his other sheet metal business, so Nathan could work for him if he wanted/needed to. What a blessing!
Well, Ariella didn't fall asleep until about 12:30am last night so I'm a little tired today (although I got to take a 2 hour nap!!) so that's about all for now! Have a great night!
Ariella in her cute dress she got from her Aunt Christine! I thought it wasn't going to fit for awhile but she's getting bigger a lot faster than I thought she would!!
(sorry the pic is turned!....her booties say "Thank Heaven...for little girls" :)
Sweet Angel
Taking a pic of these 4 (especially the older 3!) is a lot harder than it looks!
Kisses for sister!
Our four blessings!
Sweet Easter girl
Before we went to church.... (after this picture I changed my clothes to match the rest of the family....white button up shirt and a jean skirt :)
Brayan was throwing a small fit and in the middle of it, he backed up into a pot that was on the floor (don't ask me why it was in the middle of carpet...ask the kids!) and he actually fell right into it! He got stuck in it and that didn't make him any happier...Nathan just had to snap a picture! :)
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