Under Contract

We got the contract. We are one step closer to being homeowners. :D

Nail Biting

For us to qualify to buy this house, we have to get the contract today. Our wonderful real estate agent has been making calls advocating for us. This afternoon we have already signed another addendum and emailed it back. At times like these it comes in handy having a scanner available. Now we are biting our nails and waiting. Our agent thinks that we will get the contract today. We really hope so. The loan officer is leaving the office soon to take care of a closing, but we have told him to expect our contract today. We thought we had until tomorrow, but the loan officer told us this morning that we need it in by today. Werty has had this fear the whole time that it will come down to the wire, we will have everything in place, and then our loan officer will be home sick or on vacation that day. See, a new law is going in to effect on Monday, so we need to get this loan started before that law or we can't buy this house. It seems that purchasing a home is always complicated in one way or another.

Some quotes for your enjoyment:
"I'll be honest, if someone in a van offered me candy, I'd get in." - IB student
"On your blog can I have the nickname 'The hot student'?" - same IB student
No, I did NOT give them the address to this blog. No, that will not be any student's nickname because that sounds so inappropriate coming from a teacher and I want to keep my job, thanks.

Yesterday we started the WWI debate. One girl, very quiet, hadn't said much yet, just busts out with "Well, I just hate Serbia. I think you're evil." It was just enough to flame further discussion. As the teacher, I know it was a cop out for someone not as well prepared. But, knowing how quiet this student is in my class, it was nice to see some personality from her. I think this is one of the best debates we have had so far. I think the key was I cut out GB and F, and just left the other four nations to blame each other. Most of the kids this year also enjoy debating. I still remember being team Russia with JiHo pointing fingers at A-H. JiHo didn't usually get that animated, but he did that day. It's one of my favorite IB lessons all year.

Potpourri

BooBear got his second haircut. It looks pretty good considering the fight it took. Eventually, I read him a book while I cut off his curls in back piece by piece without really being able to see what I was doing. When one of the sisters at church asked me if I had cut his hair yet (Yes, once) and did I know that the more I cut it the thicker it will get (Oh, ok), I realized that she was politely suggesting a haircut was needed. But it was curling! I was letting it grow to see if it would curl and it was! I guess if his hair was as curly as the other little blonde boy that just moved out of our ward was, then it would be okay. His hair is a mop of curls. BooBear's just curls in back whenever it gets wet. I'm not ready to put product in his hair at this age, so I cut those curls off. /sniff. I will post the pic I took as proof that his hair is curly. The nice thing about hair is it keeps growing. Our neighbor's little girl continues to have short hair, even though she is about 16 months old, it just doesn't grow much yet. But it is bright red, so that's pretty cool.

Last Friday I was invited to be a committee chair for the accreditation team by my principal. I say invited, but as another teacher pointed out, since I am not tenured, I don't have the choice to refuse. So, I will be writing the report on how our school is doing in regards to following curriculum standards, and providing statistical data to back it up. How much fun is that? The committees meet tomorrow. It's a little strange to be a chair when I have yet to participate in accreditation before. The administration seems to have confidence in me, at least. The funny part was that I had to fill out an application. Under "strengths that qualify me for the position," I had to come up with something besides "I was told to do it" or "No one else wants to".

We are still waiting to hear about the house. "Please, oh please, oh please, be my prisoner."

Moving Forward

Last night BooBear slept through the night! Unfortunately, I woke up every few hours out of habit. Ha ha. We wore him out by having a busy day on Saturday. We looked at a couple new properties, and revisited the home that is our new top choice. It's the best of anything we have seen, and is in a great location. There is an elementary school, literally, right across the street. My sister came with us to give an objective opinion. It's a short sale, and that often means waiting around to hear from the bank. The bank got back to us in less than a week. The bank's firm response was much higher than we expected. It seems the homeowner had two mortgages, so the bank needs to recoup more. We really want this house, so we are proceeding. It's really exciting to think that we might be moved into a new house by Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, our landlords are going to list the condo for sale. I am not looking forward to having lots of people coming by to look at it while we are still here. I think they are listing it too high, so I am afraid there will be a lot of people "just looking" and inconveniencing us without them getting serious offers.

We went out to dinner with Rena and Mecedes. She is hoping to go into labor any day now, especially since her insurance plan is over at the end of the month. Her doctor stripped her membranes on Wednesday. The parents-to-be are very excited. I remember having the same feelings last year - the desire to finally meet your baby and see what his personality is like.

Werty applied for the job at BYU-H, which took him about 20 hours. It is not a simple process. I imagine that is because every job position at one of the BYUs gets tons of applicants. We weren't sure about moving that far away, but the job position was so perfect for Werty's skill set that we needed to try. In the end, he only received 5 of the 6 letters of recommendation he needed. He had the director of audio/visual for the whole church, who used to be the big boss guy at Werty's old job at BYU, agree to write it. He even had a backup plan for someone else to write it just in case. However, the backup was out of town on vacation all week. And the first guy was too busy preparing for General Conference to finish the letter he has started. Werty heard back from BYU-H. They said they couldn't process his application because he was missing the 6th letter. So, to my friends in Hawaii, this is sad news. To the rest of you who have no idea what I am talking about it, I didn't want to mention it unless Werty actually got an interview or anything. But this week there was talk in our house of whether we were buying a house in Orem or considering a move to Hawaii instead.

Tired, Hungry and Sad

Last night was PT Conferences, which means a 12 hour workday. Tired, very tired. When I got home I found a frazzled Werty (from 12 hours with a BooBear while trying to complete his job application to BYU-H) and no dinner. Hungry. Tired and hungry. BooBear was having mommy withdrawals, so he he did not want to be put down under any circumstances, like when I was rummaging around to find leftovers to eat. Werty fled the house to water the garden and fix a duplicate charge from a restaurant we went to. We got our bank statement, and we paid for dinner twice. By the time he was back, I was putting BooBear to bed. When he went to the restaurant, they said they would rather give him some free takeout rather than fix the error, so he came home with food...but only for himself...and he had eaten most of it by the time I had finished putting BooBear down in bed. Sad. Tired, hungry and sad.

Tonight is NHS inductions, so I will be here at work until past 7pm again. But this time, I am going home for a couple of hours first! Otherwise BooBear will wonder what happened to his mommy. This morning he woke up with me at 5:30am. I'd like to think he wanted to see me before I left for the day. So, I got him dressed and ready for the day before I left this morning. :P

Still Looking

We went looking on Friday at a few properties. One was a definite no, one an okay, one a maybe. Not as thrilled as we were about the last one. And these are short sales, so they could take a while.

Yesterday was Soyjoy's baby shower. Sue and I hosted. There was a lot of running around getting the food and getting ready all week. I decided to create an adaptation of Cr@n1um for the baby shower games. I think it went really well. No baby food tasting or baby diaper smelling when I am in charge. Everything was on schedule until our Realtor called us on Saturday morning so we could put together offers on the two properties we had seen. That was an hour and half that I hadn't scheduled for. I just barely got the food done in time to rush to the shower just before it started. Sue had to set up the decorations without me. :( In the end, I think it went really well. Plenty of food, and when it was over, people stayed for a while chatting. It's fun having my newest sister-in-law Maeby around.

Randomness Online

So, we didn't get the house we wanted. Sniff. Goodbye big kitchen. Goodbye big yard with a view. Back to house hunting again.

Occasionally I get "Do you know this person" emails from the professional networking site I casually use. Usually, I don't know the people, so I just ignore these emails. But I checked my email this evening and the subject line was "Do you know MM or AW..." both of whom are ex-boyfriends of mine. It's not surprising that these two might come up since we did attend the same university, but the random coincidence of both names showing up together in an email made me laugh. What the heck, I invited them both to be in my network.

12 Month Stats

BooBear had his 12 month check up and shots this week.
Weight 23 lbs. 4 oz. - 60%
Length 30.5 inches - 70%
Head 49 cm. - 100%

BooBear at Work

Silly guy. You work AT the desk, not IN the desk. Werty took this picture while I was at work. He came in to check on him, and found him inside the drawer space trying to turn around. Now that he's walking, he is getting braver about climbing into new spaces. Too cute.

Some classroom quotes for your amusement:
A totally innocent classroom discussion took a sinister turn.
"She chose the telephone." - first student
"Did you ask her what she was wearing?" - second student

"Who doesn't love ninjas?" - 8th grader

BooBear is Walking!

The past few days he started taking a couple of tentative steps. There were a few times when we were suspicious he was walking because he moved when we weren't looking and there wasn't anything nearby for him to hold on to. This afternoon he started trying to walk to us. We took him outside where he got some good practice. Now he's walking down the hall like a pro. There's the occasionally pause to catch his balance, and then he keeps going. Here's a brief video I captured of one of his first attempts outside. It's official - he started walking at 12 months old. My baby is getting so big!

BooBear's First Birthday!

Happy Birthday shout outs to my sister FBS, sister-in-law Rena, my FIL, and BooBear! It's a busy week!

We gathered for a cake and ice cream party at a park Tuesday night for BooBear's birthday. Here are some photos for your enjoyment.


No idea why, but whenever we put BooBear on the grass he lifts up his left leg like he is afraid of the grass. Only his left leg, mind you.


King of the Jungle cake. I ran out of time to finish the grass - it was supposed to define actual legs on the lion, so we stuck paws on it instead. It was the paws that BooBear wanted to eat, so it's okay.

His cousin G fed him his birthday cupcake. BooBear really liked the frosting, but he ate the rest of the cupcake too.