January 26, 2006

Hi everyone,

Well.....so much time has passed. We're still looking for a rental house. Lori found one in Dallas, but we're haven't see the inside yet. We are scheduled to see the house next Tuesday. It is going to be a little small (1400 sf) but it will work.

We are also in the process of signing papers for a 5 acre parcel west of Monmouth. It's a beautiful peice of property with a southern exposure overlooking the Willamette valley and a great view of the Pacific Coast Range.

The developer purchased 1000 acres in the mid-70's and has been developing the property as time permits. He will own the private road and we'll pay him $300 a year for upkeep. The parcel is surrounded by other parcels that are no fewer than 5 acres in size. At this point, there are three lots that share the ridge with ours, and there are more houses planned for the now-vacant lots on the other size of the road (and down the hill).

Lori and I found plans that we liked, and gave them to the architect (Robert Pauls). He is going to make a first cut at the plans, and should have that first draft ready for review some time this weekend. We'll review and then hopefully he can turn them around in a few days. From there, we'll give the plans to two builders, who will create estimates. That estimating process should take about 3 weeks. After that, we'll flip a coin and see who will be the contractor. We really like the first guy that we met (they were both nice). The first guy is long-time friends with the developer and the banker, so it should go very smoothly.

In the meantime, the developer is getting the final approvals ready for the parcel and is getting septic approved (permitted). We have obtained approval for the loan, and put down a chunk of money so that we could get a floatdown, in the event that the interest rate goes lower. The floatdown ties us to a 90-day window to get everything approved and the loan closed.

Anyway, that's the long and the short of it.......should be a busy couple of months here. In the meantime, Gaylia is getting married - Joelle is coming for the wedding and will stay with us for a week or so. That's all happening right at the same time that we're moving out of the Residence Inn and into the rental house (February 17th).

Another newsworthy event is that Allison found out this week that she has been accepted into the honors program at WOU. That was great news for all of us.

Happy Friday the 13th!

My lovely wife found a rental house for us. It's looks fairly new and consequently well cared for. The house is on the west side of town, off of River Road. The only down side is that the house doesn't come with a butler.

The family ate at "The Old Spaghetti Warehouse" tonight. The fare was acceptable, the service was kind of weird, and the atmosphere was noisy. We had a nice discussion about Socrates, Plato and other random topics.

After dinner we drove up to Keizer and looked for a "For Sale By Owner" house that a co-worker had mentioned to me. We didn't find the house, but we did find some rain, several one-way streeets, and a couple of erratic drivers. The highlight of the drive was a family discussion about the merits of animal rights laws. Is it appropriate to concentrate on saving animals while at the same time allowing babies to be aborted? We decided that the both issues need attention and that the real problem are the individuals that would choose to save a baby whale, yet sanction an abortion. Since Allison is into Plato and Socrates, the conversation kept drifting to the question about whether or not we can even think about things that we don't know about, and if our thoughts are even relevant. No great answers were found, but the conversation was definitely engaging.

We're all home (Residence Inn) now, and getting ready to tuck the little tikes into bed. I hope you all have a great weekend!

-Shannon

Hi again.

Here's the latest on the house.......home inspector discovered that the front porch was falling off of the house! We talked about it for just over 30 seconds and decided that we would pass up the house. Too bad, because it was a really nice place. Our new plan is to move into a rental and start building a house. Our target rental location is Monmouth, but that could change, depending on what's available, the number of M&M's in a King Sized package, monthly preciptation in South Africa and the overall intensity of solar rays penetrating the ozone layer over Costa Rica.

Cameron is big into sound and video systems these days - after I promised that whatever house we moved in to would have a home theatre. That was a bad move on my part, but a promise made is a promise kept - so they say. Cameron is reminding me that I will have fun watching football on the home theatre screen and that he will never stop thanking me and that I will be a very popular dad. Wow, I'm motivated now. Let's go buy that home theatre!

Elaina and Faerynn had a tea party today. From the looks of the pictures, I wasn't sure if it was a seance or something else. Low lights, candles, tea, food and flowers (I'm sure that there were rock crystals close by too). Seriously, I think they had a great time, and it made for some cute pictures.

We had pizza tonight for dinner (compliments of the Residence Inn and Figaro's). Cameron had ?? pieces. I told him to stop, but he just kept stuffing it in. Daniel ate so fast, that I couldn't actually say for sure that I could see his jaws moving. It was a big blur.

Speaking of Daniel, he is enjoying RuneScape these days. He has a friend (sycobites) in Idaho that he helps regularly. Apparently they are coloring all of the civilians in the town.l

Bethany is doing great, but had a meltdown yesterday and today. Moby Dick and advanced chemistry are getting the best of her. I have no doubt that she will rally.

Take care,

Shannon

A new day

Hi everyone,

Welcome to my inaguaral blog, and thanks for visiting. The Glasscock family is looking forward to moving out of the Residence Inn and into a "normal" house. Monday is the big day to go down to the title company and put the house in escrow. I sure hope that we're doing everything right, since we're not using a real estate agent. We found the house on craigslist.com, for sale by owner. We're hoping to be in the house by the end of the month. That's all for now. Have a nice week.

-Shannon