Big News

I have 2 big updates for everyone! The first is that we found out today that are permits have been in for 2 weeks (more bad communication with our builder) and the slab start day is today!!!! We are now talking to the "higher ups" within KB about the problems in communication with our sales associate. I wonder how long it would have been before they contacted us! Anyway, we are happy things have begun and are hoping that communication will improve from here on out! Immediately after I got off the phone with this gentleman I jumped in the car and drove to our plot and sure enough, there was a frame for the concrete pour with a huge pile of dirt in the middle. When I was there taking pictures a worker came on a tractor of sorts and began leveling the dirt! At this point things should start to go much faster! We'll probably drive by everyday now so we can keep up with what's going on! We will obviously keep all of you updated!

The second piece of news is that I got a new job! There are no opportunities for moving up at the zoo right now and I was having health problems too. In addition, they pay zookeepers so little that it was hard to justify staying when we are building a house and hope to start a family soon. Of course I love the zookeeping field and am going to have a real hard time leaving, but I know it's the right thing to do right now for us! I will be starting my new position as Communications Manager (basically an assistant manager) at Petco on the 14th!

Update...

I don't have much of an update, just some randomness I thought I would share.

We still don't have the permit for the house, but there are 11 coming in this week. We should be one of them! If that's the case, we'll have a meeting with the construction manager next week and things can get started. I've talked to a lot of people who say that they are not surprised that it is taking so long. "It's the city"... is the most common response I get.

On Sunday, Dave had this wonderful idea to plan out the whole day! We started by dropping Fenway off at a friend's house. It was kind of like taking our child to daycare for the first time...it was weird to leave him. Then we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see a temporary exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci! It was amazing! They had prints of his drawings and art and models of tons of his inventions! They were just incredible! All of them were way ahead of his time! It was fascinating! After walking around the rest of the museum we went to lunch at one of our favorite sandwich places, PotBelly Sandwich Works. I'm not sure where they are all located, but if you have one near you, you should definitely try it! Oh and their ice cream is to die for...so save room! After lunch, we went to the theater to see Juno. We've been meaning to see it for awhile. We really loved it! It had a great message, was very entertaining and flowed extremely well. The main actors were wonderful! I loved Ellen Page as the very believable character, Juno! It is an inspirational comedy! I recommend this movie highly! We will be adding it to our collection when it comes out! Following the movie, we went back to our friend's house to hang out for the rest of the night. We watched some tv, played a couple games, consumed some adult beverages and played with the 3 dogs (they have 2). It really was a wonderful day! Thank you honey for planning the whole thing!

Although Dave's birthday isn't for a few months, I wanted to treat him to something special and I have no choice but to give him his present early. I bought us tickets to a new show called, Walking with Dinosaurs. It is a live show at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston next week. I got tickets for the opening night! The show consists of life size dinosaurs and a ringmaster who guides you through the daily lives of dinosaurs, as well as the years of their existence. Dave has always been fascinated by dinosaurs and really enjoyed seeing them at the museum this weekend. I've been thinking about this as an option for his gift, but when I saw him staring up at the models of dinosaurs on Sunday with a look of amazement and this child like fascination, I knew it was the right gift. He chose to not be surprised, so I told him yesterday! Anyway, check it out and we'll let you know how it is after we see it next Wednesday.

Our Dirt is Still Just Dirt

Unfortunately, we have nothing to report on the new home! Why am I blogging about nothing you ask? Because we're incredibly FRUSTRATED!!! We are not doubting anything. We are still very happy with our decision, however, it is hard to stay excited when there is no progress. Let me explain...in mid-January we went to the studio and picked out all our features and upgrades for the house! It was tons of fun! After that was completed we were told that they could apply for the permits and then the building would start. The permit process was only going to take 2-3 weeks. Well, do the math...it is 6 weeks later and we are still waiting on our permits! It's not that they won't be approved, it's just that the city is bogged down with lots of permit requests right now. Or at least that's what we've been told. The builder is doing a better job at keeping us updated since we complained a couple weeks ago and they said that it shouldn't take more than another week or two. We'll see. So, to keep our excitement elevated we have started making some purchases for the house. We have picked our decorating themes for each room and bought several pictures for our new Antique French style bedroom and Naturally Organic living room and kitchen!!! We're pretty happy with how we think it will turn out. So, today we will be looking at paint! We want red for the bedroom and master bath, sage for the living room and kitchen and a very pale yellow for the downstairs powder room. All other rooms will stay white for now.
Well, cross your fingers that we get a permit soon!