A Belated Merry Christmas!

How is it that Christmas has come and gone so fast? I don't know that we've come up for air yet, but I'm determined to get at least one post written before the New Year. I've fallen so behind on this family journal of ours. We are (mostly) all settled and enjoying our new home. Our Internet is up and running, Christmas presents abound, my family is here from Oregon and Illinois and ... drum roll ... for the first time in ten years, we own a washer and dryer. And, they're washing and drying our clothes as we speak. Do you hear a Hallelujah chorus playing in the background?! I do. We both do a double take every time we enter the garage. But that's the latest good news. In spite of our deep gratitude for our new dwelling things haven't been going so easily, as we now know to expect (if we're going to be realists).

There seems to be some sort of a pattern with our family in that anything joyous or highly anticipated just has to have some sort of a wrench thrown in to it, ya know, for some added flair. The most recent example I can think of is our experience bringing Gavin home from the hospital. Who brings home a baby the day bird mites on an outside patio begin looking for a new host in the house?! Somehow, with us, nothing can be as simple as it should. So, in true RuMin form, the week of the big move (something we were soo excited about) the boys brought home a nasty stomach flu. Both boys missed the toilet by a mile (if you know what I'm sayin'). Then, the highly anticipated day we got our keys, Rudy caught it and we had to cancel our special "first time in our new house" plans. It also meant that I began the move solo. Then, on the big moving day, that nasty bug got passed to me. I was down for the entire move, laying on the apartment floor throwing up every hour for a solid 24 hrs. It was a day that my parents, sister, Rudy and I are not likely to ever forget. 

Not long after we were in, Rudy injured himself pretty badly and has been completely out of commission for more than a week. So, during a busy, important week of his precious vacation time he's been trying to cope with intense pain and we've not been able to enjoy our time together or get anything done around the house. My parents and sister have been lifesavers more than once this week. We had all these fun Christmas plans and were excited to celebrate in our new home, but instead Ru spent the 25th in agony, and went to Urgent Care. We missed him on Christmas. And I missed him on our 10 year anniversary. We had made plans almost a year ago to get away for 24 hours but had to cancel our reservations. :( Today was the first day he started to notice some relief and we are all thrilled. 

So, that's a little of what's been going on here lately. On the bright side, the boys are loving the new house and really enjoy being able to run outside and play. It's a lot of fun watching our kids be kids. 

A few random shots of the boys on Christmas Eve:

Kyle pulling off the last link on our Christmas countdown chain.

It's been 80 degrees (as it usually is on Christmas) so this snowman was all the "cold" we got. Thanks, GG. 

Poor snowman didn't last long. :)

I'll try to get more pictures posted soon. 

We're Moving!

Yes, its just a few weeks before Christmas and we are boxing up our things and heading out of here. Crazy timing with the holidays but pretty cool that we'll be leaving exactly 10 years after we first moved in. Ten years!! That's a decade of living in our 2-bedroom, barely 700 sq ft, newlywed apartment. We've loved our little place for many reasons. The location has been the greatest thing, but we've also enjoyed fun neighbor friends for Kyle, the pool, and a great community/outdoorsy/beach vibe. Our rent has always been incredibly low and has only increased by $40 throughout our entire time here. Because it's been so affordable, we were able to manage when Rudy was in school and I was either laid off or working part-time. It has also meant that ever since Rudy's been working as a PT, we've been able to save. We knew that if we even considered moving just one apartment over, we'd increase our rent drastically. So, we stayed while building up our nest egg for the hope that we could one day buy a home. A crazy dream in Orange County.

In late September, we started really exploring our home-buying options by enrolling in a class and finding a lender/meeting Realtors. We pretty much had everything out on the table, including moving out-of-state. We prayed a lot for direction and after looking in surrounding areas for quite a while, we knew we'd need to keep saving. In the meantime, for multiple reasons, we realized it's best for our family to move on. Searching for an affordable rental home, however, was more depressing and time-consuming than we could have imagined. We spent countless hours over the last few months looking at properties online and driving the boys from house to house only to come up dry. It was so discouraging and exhausting. Kyle would say, "No, not another house!" Anything remotely affordable was either a scam, too far away from our jobs, or snatched up before we could even pick up the phone to inquire. It generally boiled down to a few things. We wanted to find a property that felt safe, clean (surprisingly difficult to find), and one that wouldn't practically triple our current rent (and therefore prohibit us from saving as much as we'd like). We were also looking to find something closer to our jobs. Were we asking too much?! :)

Sadly, we just couldn't find anything that fit the bill. Day after day, scam after scam, and lost house after lost house...we started to think we'd never find a place. Finally, we found some legitimate options. We were faced with a lot of decisions and ultimately we chose a house that was an improvement in just about every way but was also the most affordable. This one, although not much to look at from the outside, just felt right. I'd heard it said that after looking at dozens of homes you'd just "know" when you walked into the one meant for you. It's true! This place felt exactly that way. The area, neighborhood, and property (on the inside!) just felt like home. And the price was right! Hooray!

This past couple of weekends have been spent boxing up our belongings and getting the apartment ready for inspection. In our ten years here we've really made the place our home, so there were lots of walls to prime and nail holes to patch.

Ru's been amazing at tackling our proyectos. Thanks to him, we have a shot at getting our deposit back! ;)

Thanks to my family, we've had hours of uninterrupted time to work. :)

Kyle's been super excited to go to a house where he can run around and be a kid. He's helped in many ways. :)

Counting down the hours till we get our keys and start the process of moving and settling in. It's a TON of work but will be more than worth it! 

Thanksgiving Weekend

The weekend was beautiful!! Usually on Thanksgiving we are sweating in our sweaters in 90 degree heat. We wear them, the sweaters, just because we want to pretend it's fall. Well, this year I was not going to sweat. Instead, I wore a t-shirt and was pleasantly surprised to feel a little chilled by nightfall. It even rained on Friday!!! (Kyle has been waiting for months and months and months to use his Cars umbrella.) This was what the outside looked like on one of the only days we got to enjoy it. (More on that later!)

 We had a Pilgrims and Indians Thanksgiving dinner with hats courtesy of Kyle and Rudy's handiwork. :) Kyle had four feathers and Gavin had one.

We enjoyed a lazy day together. Well, that's after all the hard work my parents did!

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for a delicious feast!!