Holidays

It's been nice b/c for the first time since I graduated from USU, I have not had to work for 2 weeks straight.  There are no distractions, such as moving across the nation, traveling to conferences or to visit family and friends.  We have been schmucks and waking up after 10 AM everyday.  Dennis is enjoying his time with mom and dad and being able to play with his bounty from Christmas day.  The interesting thing about Dennis is seeing how his attention span is growing.  He loves to have friends over and see others do things and learn from watching their actions.  He is such a little explorer and is now mimicking our ever behavior from telling him he is in trouble, to tones used in speech or pointing at Aulie etc.

Anyway, we have taken on more water in the basement again and have been pressuring our landlord a bit to take action.  We are expecting more mixed rain and snow tomorrow, so we have gotten some pallets so I can raise our boxes up and out of the way of the water.  The sad thing is that our landlord laid vinyl down on the concrete taking all the water.  Also, we learned that about 5-6 years past a tree fell on the house and ruptured the foundation, that was not disclosed in our rental lease and according to our provisions and expectations.  We're dealing with things and we'll see where things are going.  Real Estate isn't that bad out here and there are a few things that we should consider chasing as it is a great price.

All things considered, it isn't too bad out here.  The mentality is horrible, and they aren't willing to embrace new and better things, even if they will look you in the eye and tell you they want the better, but the concept of change is so frightening to these good Christians.  Someone needs to tell them that the whole concept of Christianity is all about 'change' in and effort to become eligible to attain the promises of Christianity.

Well, we saw some property today...it's a nice piece of property...it has it's pros and cons...the thing I am battling is why I was prompted to drive out there the other day....the realtor lady was rather nice.  The Mennonites out here are some of the coolest and down to earth folks I have come across while out here...She was able to respond to Liz and her various questions and also able to provide us with some details about this property as she is the representing agent...

Liz and I went over to help out a friend in the branch.  Their family is going through a situation similar to Liz and I and I think the wife is struggling to come through things.  We went out and grabbed pizza and spent the late afternoon and early evening with them until the husband came back.  I often wonder how Liz and I survived our 8-9 month saga.  I have come to understand the strength of my wife through our adversity and the humility it takes to overcome a stressful situation like we did.  I think Liz and I both hope that our friends are able to make it through their trials and we're happy to help when we can.

Anyway, this has been a good week thus far and I am looking to bring in a new year.  Liz and I have another 7 months to wait on our lease in this house before we should really think about purchasing a home, or we need to find someone to take over our lease.  We have an abatement on our rental amount which will reduce our rent from $825 to $700 for the month.  The question though is will that resolve the overall problem.  I am still not happy about the fact that the disclosure about the foundation of the house due to a tree falling on it never occurred or it being mentioned in our lease agreement.  I am not sure if there is a statute of limitations or other mitigating circumstances that absolve our landlords from needing to share or offer that in our agreement.  Anyway, I guess we'll figure it out as we go.

This has been an incoherent ramble that took about 6 hours for me to complete....another spledidly bland observation by none other than me....

cheers!