Friday, June 20, 2008

It's Official....

The kids and I will depart early July.

The first major part of our trip will happen pretty quickly. The littles will become American Citizens together... upon our arrival into Los Angeles! This will be a thrilling event.... I am certain I will have an emotional outburst that will cause everyone in the immigration lines to squirm.... they will just have to get over it! We have been waiting for this moment for Abby for over 4.5 years. I have all the special "red, white and blue" clothes just ready to go! Changing a 3 and 4 year old in the lavatory on a 747 during the end of a 14 hour flight... sounds FUN!!!

Now... Joe and I have been working with an agent in Huntsville and spending hours with thousands of MLS listings from the Huntsville area. These are our favorite 3 houses at the moment...





They will probably all be scooped up in the next 2 weeks before I arrive... but I am hoping one of them remains... or 2... or all 3! We do have a list of 24 homes that would "suit us"... so I am going to be a very busy bee when I arrive in Alabama. This is so exciting... We have been living in someone else's home for so long... Embassy house after Embassy house after base house after rental. I am so ready to live in a home that Joe and I own ~ to plant flowers and trees and watch them grow.

We bought our first home in Atlanta in the early 90's. It was truly my dream house... I had to pinch myself more than once to make sure I was not dreaming. We had orders for a 4 year tour; however, 10 months into it, Uncle Sam changed his mind and we were off to the West Coast. The house sold in less than 2 weeks at a decent profit. The day I drove out of our driveway for the last time and paused for a second to look at my newly planted crepe myrtles and river birch trees, I could not help crying. I sure do hope the people who live in that house now love it as much as we did. And... they better be watering my garden!!!

House hunting back then was easy. We were a family of 4. Joey and Holly were my littles. They likes all the big empty houses... it was fun to run and jump and play while mom and dad were going over all the details of each house. Fast forward to now and we are house hunting for/with a family of seven. They all study the MLS information with us... "How big is my room?", "Does that neighborhood have a pool?", "I don't want that pink room!", "That is cool mom and dad... buy that house NOW!", "That is weird... I don't like that one!", etc. etc. etc. It should be a a real circus... oh.. I mean a real pleasure to house hunt with all 5 kids in tow!! Hope my real estate agent has ear plugs... and a big van!!!

It will be worse for Joe. Going from grand chaos to a huge house with no noise... no giggles... no arguing... no family dinners.... no family. I am sure he will spend most of his time at work... the govt. will get it's money's worth over the next year ~ as the govt. has for the last 29 years!

We are hoping he will get to the US maybe in September and again for Christmas and New Years. I can't wait already... : () )

Enough for now... wish me luck!!!

2 comments:

ellieshine said...

wishin' you luck :) you will find a house you LOVE! I know it! you so deserve it. I can't wait to visit you :)

sad sigh . . . .

Mel, Pete and Clara said...

Rebel, I check in on your blog every so often and love to hear whats new with your big family. I am still getting used to having 2 "littles", I can not imagine how you do it with all yours! Best of luck in your move, happy for you to be back in the U.S. and know it will be a crazy time for you coping with all the decisions and 5 kiddos till Joe comes. Good luck! Can't wait to read about it!

Mel C., Minneapolis
Mom to Clara, 4, Yangjiang and Lu, 2, Xi'an