HOME OWNERS!! We are home owners!! Yes, it became official at 3:30pm Central Time on May 25, 2006. The Larabie Family has their first home that is all their own (well, ok we are sharing with the bank but ya know what I mean). We saw the house for the first time at 2pm and really liked it. A sigh of relief from my mom who was starting to feel a smidge of pressure that we just might not be completely happy with it. But we do so no worries there. Now to do all the new house things like get it ready for move in, think about paint colors for some rooms, removing wall paper from our bathroom,etc. Corey is actually at the house now waiting for the DirectTV guy. My mom and brother will be helping us out by working on our little "to do" list between now and move-in 2 weeks from now. Aren't they sweet? I have pictures but can't upload them to my mom's computer so everyone will just have to wait a little longer. The kids love their new rooms and the back yard. The family next door has 5 kids (the previous owner was telling us) so maybe some playmates there.

The next 2 weeks are sure to be busy. After we get back to Tampa we have Morgan's dance recital coming up next weekend and my mom will be flying down for that. And we have to finish packing, get Morgan's homeschool evaluation for the end of this year and get it sent off to the school district & close out our FL homeschool. The movers are scheduled for the 9th or 10th of June...we will know which in just a couple of days. And then a few days to get our stuff delivered to us.

Ahh, the weekend is over. We got a lot of packing done and more loads of trash taken care of. We had another bathroom flood...SEE why we want out of here so badly!! Thankfully it was taken care of quickly by maintenance. We got the kids to help go through all of their stuff and get it organized to make packing easier. We are saving their stuff for as late as we can.

Today we decided to go to a Tampa Bay Devil Ray's baseball game. They were playing the Florida Marlins today in the last game of the series. It was a fun game and we won! LOL! Alex was really into the game this time too. So it was a nice time for our last game in Florida. The kids got hats free when we came to the game and they got them signed by the new Devil Ray's closing pitcher.

We are really getting excited now. Tomorrow we finish packing for our trip to TN and then early Tuesday morning we leave. We are celebrating with family on Thursday after our closing. We can't wait! LOL!

Getting close.....exactly 1 week from tonight we will be *in* Tennessee. Then on Wednesday our final walk-thru and then the closing on Thursday. We are so excited!! We got moving estimates and are booking through Mayflower for a pick up on June 9th or 10th and delivery 3-7 days later. We have close to 30 boxes packed already and it feels like we have a lot more to go but the estimator didn't think so. LOL! We are taking a little stuff up with us on our trip for closing. And of course we will have a little stuff with us when we go up after the movers pick up everything.

Corey has already started setting up our utilities and such. Yea! We got the appraisal completed (above the price we are paying) and everything is on target for closing on the 25th.

This is Morgan's last week of classes. We will work in some good-bye play dates after her dance recital performances.

Tomorrow I have to get a tooth capped (yuck) but then we got to Orlando to meet my friend & her family at Downtown Disney!! I'm so excited!!

Today the kids and I headed over to the Florida Aquarium here in Tampa. We have a membership that expires on the 14th and we wanted to make sure we got another visit in. Unfortunately today was field trip day for a bunch of the local elementary schools. There were groups of kids everywhere with very little adult supervision. It was really sad to see these kids going wild and the adult volunteer in charge of them (group of 5-10 kids) was talking on a cell phone totally not paying attention. We tried staying between groups so we weren't TOO overwhelmed. It did make Morgan realize how glad she is that she doesn't attend a school and have to deal with this. LOL! After a semi-quick tour through the aquarium we headed out to the explore-a-shore area. Thankfully groups can't go out there so the kids had some freedom, space and tons of fun. They wore their swimsuits so they could get completely wet. We spent a little time in the gift shop picking up a few items for my mom's fish bathroom and for Alex's new aquarium themed bedroom. He picked out a small stingray & baby sea turtle (both plush).

Morgan had dance tonight and the routine is coming along very well. They know the entire thing now and are just practicing and refining it. Trust me...refinement is needed for some of the girls. LOL! They are still cute and the routine is precious. Morgan didn't go to the photo session at the studio because we were camping so I took some pictures of her in her costume here. I'll get them up this weekend for sure.

Tomorrow science class and a library visit. My dad and stepmother will be in Florida this weekend & the upcoming week (I believe) so we are hoping to get in a visit with them next week. We are also seeing my friend & her family in Orlando. Yea! A busy week coming up. Corey has a comp day since he's on pager this week.

I can't believe it will be Mother's Day this weekend. I told Corey and the kids that I would be VERY happy with homemade cards and getting to sleep in...a yummy breakfast would top it off nicely. I don't want any gifts,etc. Save the money for our new house! LOL!

It is RAINING in Tampa!! Oh my goodness. We seriously haven't had RAIN since March. We need this so badly. So all I can say is "COME ON RAIN!! Mother Nature do your stuff baby! We need it." We've been having brush fires all around and it has just been soooo dry. We went camping this past weekend to celebrate Beltane with several friends & their families. We also celebrated a couple of birthdays and just had a good time hanging out. Unfortunately because of the dry conditions you couldn't have campfires so we couldn't do s'mores, roasted hotdogs,etc. But fun was had anyway. ;-) We have much to do before moving but we really needed and wanted to take this weekend out and just relax, have fun & be with friends. Now it is time to hunker down and get the packing done,etc. LOL!

Speaking of packing...things are moving along. We are getting more packed each day. Corey is on pager duty this week so we can't stray far from home so will be getting more done this week.

In just over a week we are meeting a friend of mine that I met online when I was pregnant with Alex. She's coming to Disney with her family and we are all getting together for dinner one night. We have a nice little story that is part of our history together. Her parents took her daughter with them on vacation to FL to visit her grandparents. While down here, her grandfather had some health problems and had to be taken to the hospital and then was transferred to a Tampa hospital. Everyone came to Tampa but weren't sure what to do with her daughter who was only 2. Her grandpa was in the ER and getting tests done and her parents & grandmother were all trying to be there for each other and grandpa. No one wanted her daughter to have to be around all of that, especially since it would be long into the night. I told my friend that I could go pick up her daughter and she could come spend the night with us. She would get some sleep, be fed and play with my kids until everything was okay and she wouldn't have to be around the ER and all the germs & tension,etc. After much discussion all around....see my friend and I have never met in person, we've only known each other online. As a huge demonstration of trust in me, she arranged for her mother to meet with me and if all felt okay then her daughter would come to our house. We met in the ER parking lot and talked for a bit. I passed the test and we got everything together and her daughter came home with me. My kids (then 2 and 5) were already in bed and we set her daughter up in Morgan's room to sleep. Bless her heart she snuggled right in without missing a beat. The next day she played with the kids, even visited with my dad and stepmother who were visiting from Saudi Arabia. We took pictures and sent them to my friend so she could see everything was okay. LOL! Later in the day, my friend's parents had decided that her dad would return back to WI with her daughter so we met up to bring her back. I must say that it felt wonderful to be able to do something for a friend like that. Just an amazing show of faith that she had in us, to entrust her one and only daughter with us...just an honor. It wasn't too long later that I got to meet my friend in person. She flew down to see her grandfather in the hospital but unfortunately he passed away just before her plane landed here in Tampa. I met up with her on the morning she was going to head back to WI with her mom and grandmother. It was a quick meeting...grab some coffee & talk for a bit and during a sad occassion. It will be GREAT to see her and her daughter again and meet her hubby for the first time under FUN circumstances. :-)

We leave on the 23rd to go to TN for the final walk-thru and closing on our house!! We close on the 25th. The inspection went well and things have been taken care of. The appraisal was yesterday and so far we haven't heard anything which according to our realtor is a good thing. LOL! The mortgage broker has all our paperwork and all that is going smoothly. And we are all getting excited!

Morgan's dance recital is getting closer and closer. Four days after we return from the closing on our house (closing on Thur, coming home on Sun) my mom is flying in for the recital. The next day we have blocking and then the next day is dress rehearsal and performance #1, then the next day performance #2 and my mom returning home.

Then we are hoping the following weekend will be MOVING weekend!!

ACK!! Will we make it in time? How will we get it all done??