So the past few days have been, for lack of a better word, crazy.  Last weekend we went to see Sesame Street Live (yes, I have videos but I've been too busy to edit them down for posting--read on).  We happened to be there with our realtor, who helped us score primo seats.  During the intermission, she got a ring-a-ding-ding on her cell, and it was an offer on our house!  After some hand-wringing due to technological delays with our realtor and her email and the buyer's agent's lack of understanding of how to spell, it took a while to get the offer.

Fast-forward two days later, and we have the offer in hand.  Given the state of the real estate market, it was of course a bit of a low-baller, but we expected that.  After counter-me-this-counter-you-that, we struck a deal which was amicable to all parties, and we are currently in escrow on the sale of our house!  Closing is on October 14.

To you gentle readers who are in the know, you probably are aware that this falls dangerously close to our highly anticipated trip to Paris/Amsterdam.  If you didn't know, well, consider yourself enlightened as to our calendary* situation.  Luckily for us, we already had a buyer's agent and had spent considerable time scoping out our options and schools and what-not, so finding the house was really a matter of having the right one on the market at the right time.  Wouldn't you know that we found it?

That's right, only a few days after entering escrow on our current house, we located the perfect home for us and the family, in a great school district, in a great suburban location that is quiet, wooded and nestled in among near-by schools and conveniences.  We are very happy with the pad we have chosen, and we're hopeful that everything comes together.  Believe me, when I relay to you the sequence of events that will occur in three weeks' time you will understand that these cogs are more intricate than a Swiss Master Clocksmith's finest work.  Well, perhaps not, but I digress...

As I mentioned, we close escrow on our current pad on 10/14 and vacate by midnight.  As soon as closing is over, the kind folks at Bekins Moving will show up, pad down the joint and pile our 12,000 lbs of stuff (yeah I hardly believed it myself) into a trailer.  Said trailer will be removed to the Bekins Storage Facility (hopefully not a nearby Wal-Mart parking lot) where it will sit.  Meanwhile, we will check into a local room and board facility for lodgings for the night, and then we'll wake up bright 'n early, and Karyn will knock on our door to watch the kiddos while we close escrow on our new home.  Then we'll pop by the new home, show it to the kids, and then take off for Charlotte...  And, a few days later we "take possession" of our new home and Bekins will show up to unload all our 6 tons of junk.  All while we are away, as Deb will be overseeing the installation of our stuff.  Kind folk, Deb.

So then after vacating, we'll be back in the saddle of unboxing and setting up shop in East Cobb... Look for us in November.  Until then, we'll be busy boxing and taping.  And boxing and taping.  And boxing and taping some more.

*made up word

A few gems from The Maya:

- At dinner at cheap mexicans, we ordered some guacamole, which the kids love.  As soon as the green delight appeared at the table, Maya immediately started shouting "whackamoley!  whackamoley!"

Devin woke up this morning about 7:15am, and I went in to tell him it's not time to get up yet.  He listened for about 15 minutes, then complained about it for 5 minutes.  Steph and I decided to weather the storm, and this tactic worked.  He was quiet until 8:00am, at which point I arose and retrieved Mr. Man for some breakfast.

While I was getting Devin changed and ready to eat, I heard Maya in her room, talking to her toys and probably saying something about how Daddy needs to come in here and get her up.  After Devin was situated with his morning milk and vitamins, I went in to retrieve The Maya (this is what Devin calls her).  I opened her door, flicked on the light, and was greeted by my child holding her diaper out over the side of the crib, saying, "Maya needs a dry diaper!"

I looked around in the crib, and she had removed her pajama pants and unfastened the diaper all by herself (assuming of course that the manatee, monkey, and Dora didn't help) and luckily there were no, um, solids to be disposed.

I suppose at this point she needs to have a potty in her room and we have to start letting the sides of the crib down.  Or perhaps we need some sort diaper-lock underpants?  Yeah, that's probably better.  The longer we can keep the kids contained overnight, the better, however I would not enjoy waking up to see my child and her bed covered in..."stuff".  I'm going to imagine that my child will enjoy staying clean.  I'm going to chase that dream.

If you're a regular user of Picasa, you may have overlooked a newly-released feature of Picasa Web Albums.  After you've marked and uploaded pictures to a web album, surf on over to Picasa's web site.  From there, look for the People tab and click it.  Once there, you can look for the face tagging section on the right, and go through the process of identifying faces.  For my albums, I had about 1300 faces that were identified in about 5 minutes or so.

After that, you start the identification process - which basically links identified faces to your Google account contacts.  You can create a contact without any special information, just a name will do.  You can also identify faces that weren't automatically found by Picasa.

After about two hours, I successfully identified about 1100 of 1350 "faces".  Approximately 222 of the 1350 were either not faces (very few) or just people I didn't care to identify (very many).  You can share the name tags (make public), share some album's names, or share none.  Right now, I've left mine as public.  Head on over and check it out.  Maybe you'll find yourself!

This morning I was getting Maya dressed for school. As we were putting her shirt on I said, "Are you ready for school?"

She replied, "Maya wants to get some breakfast first."

"That's fine, we'll get some breakfast before school," I answered.

Maya responds with, "Breakfast, thank God!"

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Occasionally, Maya will refer to Stephanie as 'Mom' and myself as 'Dad'. Apparently she's decided to act like she's 13 already.

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Also this morning, I was asking Maya how she slept, and she answered with, "Friday, we see Varelie!" FYI: Varelie is Aunt Valerie. So, Varelie, your plans for Friday have apparently been made.

Check out photos from a Labor Day dive trip!  Jason Walden, Martin Walker and I trucked it down to Vortex Springs for a 2-day, 7-dive trip in the 68°F water of Vortex Springs. Pictures and video are in my Picasa Web Album - just click the album picture below!

Vortex Springs Summer 2008