Welcome to Denver(?)

Okay, so July was an 'interesting' month. Fortunately I spent the whole month on leave so I could concentrate on getting the family moved. Allied sent a three person crew to our house on the 13th to pack everything up and get us ready for the actual movers. They were there pretty much all day and even worked through lunch but by the time they left just about everything was in boxes and ready for the movers to pick up the next day. I say 'just about everything' because they missed our drawer of cooking utensils and they weren't allowed to pack up our chemical cleaning supplies, but other than that, they got it all. The movers showed up the next morning with a HUGE truck and a five man crew. I gave them a quick tour of the house and they got right to work. They did take a break for lunch, but not a very long one and they loaded just about everything and drove off with our stuff around 4. I say 'just about everything' because I forgot to take a mirror off the wall and there was a medicine cabinet type item behind the door of the bathroom that no one saw. Still, it was pretty impressive (and scary) how much stuff we got onto the truck. In fact, the foreman/driver said he thinks we have more than 11,000 pounds of stuff, which is our limit as far as the Gov't is concerned. I don't know what that means as far as money, but I guess we'll find out. For the rest of the week, the four of us slept on the floor in the family room (too hot upstairs) and Jennie and I cleaned while the kids were at church camp (aka VBS). We got that all done and our landlords came down with their new RPM guy to look the house over on Friday. Since they agreed to change out the carpet before putting it back on the market, I cancelled our appointment with Stanley Steemer... Why pay $300 to clean carpet that's going to get ripped up, right? I also fixed the hole in the wall put there by my son in a classic AFV clip. He had the treadmill up too fast and fell and... well, you get the idea. We got everything cleaned up and ended up leaving the keys in the lock box provided by the RPM agent. Jen had taken the kids to church Saturday evening to "graduate" from VBS so. I didn't go because I was waiting for the landlords to come back (they never did) and I was pretty nasty from working all day. After church was over we all moved in with Jen's mom and had a camp out! Actually, we all went to Souplantation for dinner and had a pleasant visit before we all crashed out. The cats had spent the whole week at Grandma's and were very happy to see Jen again. =) So that was July week 2...

July week three was spent up at Forest Home, on Mt. San Bernadino. It's a family camp and the week is spent getting closer to God and leaving technology behind for a week. The whole camp is very similar to Ridgecrest or Glorieta, but more primitive. The camp's construction tries to minimize the impact on the the woods around it so there are trees used as pillars and supports for beams. It's actually pretty cool. There were a couple of reasons we chose this particular week to go. For starters, with moving out and trying to time our departure for CO, this was the best week to go. Also, since we got to prorate our rent for the month, we could use the money to pay for our camp fees. We went to FH a couple years ago and the speaker was just amazing so we picked the week that he was scheduled to preach. Lastly, we figured we needed to have a good family week to draw closer together because Jen and I figured we'd get on each others nerves living in a hotel for an extended period of time. So, we got home from FH after hearing an awesome series on the Wisdom of God from Proverbs by Dennis Keating, pastor of Emmanuel Faith Baptist in Escondido. Jen and I had a good time with our friends from church, Kelly and Sheryl and our kids had a blast with their programs and our CCA (Child-Care-Assistant) who happened to be the daughter of one of our small group members. I think that's probably the coolest thing about FH. They will provide you a babysitter for the evening so you can spend time with adults and you can even bring your own 'sitter if you desire. Week 3 three was a much needed calm before the storm.

When we got home from FH, we moved into the new South Mesa Lodge on Camp Pendleton for the weekend. I originally had reservations at the old Ward Lodging up on main side, but for just a few bucks more I was able to give my beach bunny wife a view of the ocean for our last couple of days. I figured I had to. =) Anyway, we did laundry and got ready to leave again. On Monday the 27th I got to spend the day at the garage. I took the Ford in for an oil change and asked them to check on why the battery light was on. Half an hour later I'm told that I have a bad alternator. (AutoZone had already tested my battery and alternator and told me both were good to go.) He put in a new one and then told me that it was putting out the same amps as the first one. His thought was not that there was nothing wrong, but that he'd gotten a bad part. So he put in a brand new alternator (we're after lunch by now) and told me... same test results. (Grrrr...) So, he put the original alternator back in and sent me on my way. I paid $13 and my entire day for an oil change and tire rotation. (Did I say "Grrrr..." yet?) Oh! And to top it all off, I had to push back our dinner reservations by an hour. Did I forget to mention that Monday was our anniversary? We went to dinner at Donovan's and had a wonderful dinner experience. It didn't completely make up for the rest of the day, but it was a great dinner. The next morning I got up early and ran out to U-Haul to pick up an auto transport that I had reserved. (I borrowed the mechanic's car to run out to the U-haul dealer to sign paperwork while he had my Expedition on the lift.) I grabbed it and went back to the base. Our friends Kelly and Sheryl allowed us to keep my Saturn at their house while we were at FH and I went there to load up. That was actually the easiest part of the day. I got back to the hotel and rearranged stuff to keep the back of the Ford open for the cats. I loaded up the Saturn and put some stuff on top of the Ford. I had planned/wanted to get on the road by 8 because we were planning to drive for about 11 hours on day 1 and I wanted to get going. We were on the road a little before 11... just a bit late. :-P
Well, I was accurate in my estimate of how long we would be on the road. We got to Beaver, UT right around 10 after a very long day. We checked in and got to our room. I would highly recommend that anyone stopping in Beaver for the night that you find a different hotel than the Paradise Inn Best Western. There were bugs all over the place! We got out of there in the morning after a decent breakfast at the restaurant right there and got back on the road. We got to Eagle, CO later that evening and had a MUCH better experience at the Best Western Eagle Lodge there. Since I'd signed up for their members club when I made the reservation they bumped us up to a deluxe room and we were right next to the pool. After dinner the kids and I took to the pool for about 45 minutes which allowed the kids to burn off some energy. Since we only had a few hours scheduled for Thursday, we took advantage of the full breakfast bar and then the kids jumped back in the pool while Jen took a shower and packed up. We checked out right at 11 and headed for the pass. The weather was very wet and quite chilly. I don't care who you are... 40 degrees is chilly! We got into the Denver area around 2:00 and got into an accident at 2:10... seriously. I was slowing down for an interchange... it was crowded... the road was wet... the car in front of me stopped short and I ran out of room... HOWEVER, Jen had taken a picture of the interchange sign for scrapbooking and you can see the car in front of us. More importantly, you can clearly see that her tail light and bumper already have damage. I took a picture of her car right after the accident and the pictures look virtually identical. I made two calls right after the 'wreck' one to 911 to get a cop out to us and the 2nd to our insurance. The agent advised me to take the 'after' pictures and Jen found the 'before' picture as she scrolled through her camera later that evening. Unfortunately, I now owe the city of Denver $110 and I'm going to have 2 points on my DL. Yep, I was cited for "following too closely" and found at fault. The officer was apologetic and wished us luck, but that's a heck of a way to announce our arrival in Denver. Anyway, we finished the last 15 minutes of the trip and got checked into our Extended Stay Hotel, which we'll call 'home' for at least a month. We called our realtor and she met us yesterday. My dad had called her to get us connected. Thanks, Dad. We spent a few minutes at her office just talking about the plan for the day and then we got into her car and started driving. We looked at 5 or 6 houses (I can't remember which) and then went back to her office to pull up a few more and make a plan for today. I liked the 2nd house, but the lot is odd shaped and there's a long shared 'drive-way' that we'd have to either back up or down (or use the neighbor's driveway to turn around). Still, it's a solid possibility. We saw one house that is way over-priced for us and we didn't like it anyway. It's not ready for showing in my opinion... Nevermind, we scratched that one pretty quick. The last house we saw also had some possibility, but it would take more work than the 2nd one. After lunch we drove past a few more houses and called Wendy back to set up some more viewings for this afternoon. These would be much closer to the base where I'll be working so that's a plus. They're a little less expensive so that's another positive. There's one that we both have high hopes for. It's at the end of the street, which is a cul-de-sac. There's a paved path from the end of the street to the community center on the other side and it's in a good school district. I'll post more on FBook this afternoon after we get to see inside. I have high hopes and I'm very optimistic that we'll be able to find something we can make an offer on maybe even before I check into my new unit on Friday.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We're tired of living in a hotel and even if we make an accepted offer tomorrow, we'll still be here for at least a month while we close.