House Plans

We got to meet yesterday with our builder.  His company is working to get a name in the area as builders and they have built Beautiful and Efficient homes all over the country. It has been fun working together to get this project going.  But it is so slow!  The process that I think should take not too long will take a week.  And there are so many hoops to jump through.  We designed and built a couple of houses in Mongolia.  There was no inspections of anything from septic to electric.  No one cared what you were doing as long as your house worked for you that was good with them.  We designed the plans in Microsoft Excel and went on our way with building.  Here there is first, second, third drafts, then stamped plans have to be approved.  Everybody and their brother needs to have a permit for whatever they are doing.  It is quite a process.  Making sure those ducks are all in a row!  It is going to be an adventure.  It is exciting and I am getting excited to get started though!  I think we are getting down to the final stages of plans though and so that is fun.  In some ways it is nice that it is going slower as if it was at full speed I don't know if I could keep up.  My brain cylinders are not quite running on full juice these days. 

Update on my Dad.  He is home.  Doing better.  His and Mom's best friends are coming down for a visit this coming week.  So that should be fun and good for all.  I called and chatted with them today to say Hi and share how life was going for all of us.  Dad sounds much MUCH better than he did at Christmas as he is off most of his Meds that were making him loopy.  My Mom sounds tired and I wonder when I will be heading south.  My suitcase is still packed.  I kind of feel like I am living half ready to leave all the time.  Fortunately school travels well. 

Church

So, when we first came back from Mongolia, we felt that there were enough transitions in our life right then that working on finding and looking at a bunch of churches every week for the first 3 months or 6 months or year would not be helpful to our family.  So we picked a nearby Christian church and attended regularly.  We enjoyed it.  Made good friends.  Had fun!  Attended Awana club.  Went to Sunday school.  This last summer though we were all feeling like we had this living back in America thing pretty well under control and now we could go check out some other churches and see if we were interested in switching.  We had also made some good friends at other churches and so decided to try that out.  In doing this we were in no way putting down our church as we had enjoyed much good fellowship there!  It was just time we felt to move on.  So, we have moved on and are now attending "Burger Baptist" or truly the First Baptist church in Ontario.  It is right behind an old burger joint - closed on Sundays - and so has a nickname of Burger Baptist. 

Life & Lowes

We met on Monday with the concrete & foundation contractor  at our building site which was quite exciting!  We now have a final floor plan and can start moving forward.  This is very exciting to be moving forward.  Dustin has gotten the road built into the house and now we need to get that road rocked.  Then it will be ready to begin moving upward.  We need to have a couple of meetings and figure out some stuff but we are moving forward. 

Today we visited Lowe's building store.  This was SO fun!  I had a ball.  Didn't buy anything, but had a grand time wandering around.  It is a store that you could spend a lot of money in if you wanted, but we were mostly just looking!  I could have had a fun time just wandering around in there for a couple of hours and would have totally enjoyed it!    We found some great plumbing fixtures and kitchen cabinets and appliances.  It was fun!    

Interesting Christmas etc.

So life is interesting!  I never did get a Christmas newsletter sent out.  I who used to send one out just about every month, from Mongolia! with not too many failures, haven't sent one for quite a bit.  Seems my brain is only firing on a few cylinders.  I guess I better write one!  Sorry!

Christmas was fun.  It was in Reno, NV with all family, even my youngest brother who lives in Tenn.  So that was fun.  We had a girls day out and a boys day out.  The boys went to Cabelas, and UNR and the Reno Planetarium - very cool place!  Girls went out for lunch and some shopping at the book store and Old Navy.  We had a wonderful Christmas despite everything.  No business discussions, but lots of how can we help, who needs what, and lots of "I love You!'s" were said!

Cancer land is an interesting place though.  It affects all who are involved to some extent.  Even though we are not there directly helping my Dad get to the hospital every day and dealing with the ins and outs of doctor appointments it is definitely directly involved in our lives every day.  I have a suitcase packed in my closet ready to go to help my Mom at the drop of a hat.  I am not booking myself for much of anything on a more than day to day basis.  I who love to plan about 5 years out and 5 months out  and 5 weeks out am having a hard time planning anything hard and fast that is more than 5 days out.  Cancer really puts a damper on much planning as everything is so uncertain.  This week is the last full week of treatments though he goes through Wednesday of next week due to some skipped days during the holidays.  Dad has been doing OK, but boy Drugs are nasty things.  They make you think and do things that are weird!  I know they are supposed to be helping, but they sure do their own damage.  Dad has gotten much weaker - using a walker now - and the other day got up to go without the walker - well gee he hasn't needed one for 66+ years!  And fell and broke his shoulder.  This adds further complications, but so far seems to be OK.  Surgery is tomorrow, so I guess I will see if I use that packed suitcase.