Just a quick post to say how much we're enjoying Amsterdam. Yes, we've enjoyed Paris as well, but we didn't have free internet access there, so we're taking advantage here in Amsterdam. By the way, if you happen to travel to Amsterdam, you **must** stay at the Amsterdam Hilton. It is a fabulous hotel, and Amsterdam is a fantastic city! If you can get past the red light district and coffee shops (unless you're in to that sort of thing) then there is a wonderful city waiting to be explored here. More later, getting ready to head off to another political discussion with an Egyptian doctor we met here in the Hilton Executive Lounge.
It took 9 months, and it was probably less painful than birthing a child, but we have finally done what we set out to do back in January. We've sold our house on Montview Drive, and purchased our home for the next 20 years. Our stuff will be getting moved into the home in about 24 minutes, in the meantime we will be getting ready to head off to the airport. Yes, somehow we managed to close on a house sale, a home purchase, travel with 2 children and 2 dogs up to Charlotte, remotely contract for fence construction and also get some work done in between diaper changes, dog feedings and general chaos.
Now, we get 10 days in Paris and Amsterdam. It will be a much needed break for Stephanie and I, and as much as I would like to stay "disconnected", I will probably be checking in to deposit pictures every couple of days or so - Steph still has a bit of homework to get done, so that will give me some time to upload pix. And, I don't want a repeat of the Greece trip of '06*. We'll see you in Paris!
*That was a the one where I had to go to Miami right after the trip, and my laptop got stolen with hundreds of pictures from our trip. I only saved about 250 that I had previously uploaded, so this time I'll be proactive in getting the pix saved.
I’ve been using Windows Live Writer off and on for the past few months, and overall I’m happy with it. It’s great for off-line posting. I recently upgraded to the latest version, and found this interesting graphic in the installer package:
Yesterday we went to Los Bravos (a/k/a “Cheepmex”) for dinner. We went slightly early, as to avoid the rush, and since I was flying solo without Steph, I wanted to go before the kids started getting all over themselves with hunger. It worked out pretty well. I didn’t give them a snack after nap, so they were eager to chow down on some “whackamoley” and salsa with rice. It was a good time, so we went to the playground afterwards.
Devin likes experimenting with gravity, especially when it’s with his cars/trucks/airplanes, and Maya loves to swing on the monkey bars.
This morning I decided to take advantage of my Georgia Aquarium Annual Pass and take the twinkles down to look at some sea life. This is my “pay it up” trip – the annual passes pay for themselves after the second trip, so after this visit, the rest as gratis! And we like gratis around here.
Since Steph is still out of town visting Tara until this evening, I met up with Kim & Tony & Natalie, and Natalie’s Nana, which meant that we outnumbered the kids – which makes for fun times usually. This was no exception. The twinkles were fantastic and had a great time! And strangely the Aquarium was not crowded at all – we got to spend plenty of time in the touch tank rooms (well, Devin did – Maya is not interested in that sort of thing) and we got plenty of wall-time in each of the rooms.
Before lunch we got to see Deepo (the Nemo knock-off character that is the avatar for the Aquarium) and friend in a 3-D movie that was surprisingly cute. The twinkles were not interested in wearing the 3-D specs, so I bet they didn’t get as much out of it as I did. It was well done – water sprinkles, bubbles, and simulated jellyfish tentacles sans nematocysts.
Here are some pix from the trip. I’ll post some additional ones later, once I get them from Kim. You’ll notice Devin is in most of these pictures and that’s because he really loves animals up close. Maya prefers to observe/enjoy from a distance. Unless we’re talking about sea otters or turtles.
Things are moving along, albeit slowly, with respect to the closings on our house and home. Due to some !#$*!$ neighbors who bought houses they couldn't afford, and !#$!$% lenders who loaned money with too much risk, and !@$#% federal government that failed to provide oversight and @$%*@! Wall Street pricks with too much avarice, the first unofficial appraisal for the house was lower than it should be. Luckily, it was unofficial, so the buyer is getting another appraisal, hopefully from an individual who uses common sense. We had to file an amendment to extend the due-diligence period by 5 days, so we will hopefully know where we stand by October 10th. Which would be good, since 4 days after that all heck breaks loose in terms of our personal schedule. I'm hoping we don't have to maneuver too much to get this to work out, but I'm steeling myself for the possibility. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
In the meanwhile, the kids have been pretty good lately. Nothing super stellar to report as we've been engrossed in the housing market garbage for the last few days. I'm home with the kids myself this weekend while Steph is off to visit her sister, so perhaps I'll come up with some gems from the weekend.
