...will you see a sign that reads "Church zone ahead". You will see signs that say school zone ahead and things like that, but I have now seen my first Church Zone ahead sign. I didn't know there was such a thing as a church zone!
We moved the first of our (well Jason's) things into the house today... so now all of the stuff we own that's in Tennessee is at our rental house. Don't worry, I took pictures, although you can't really tell how big some of the rooms are until we have stuff in them... but at least you'll be able to see the front and the back of the house.
Jason and I met with our realtor yesterday... just because we've been talking to her online and on the phone for at least a year and wanted to meet her. Well, while we were sitting there talking to her, one of the other people there in the office stopped by and started talking to us too. Turns out she is a newly resigned (as of May) county commissioner for Smith County (where we want to live and work eventually), so she gave us a couple of contact names and numbers and told us to tell them she gave us their names. It definitely helps to know people around here, so we'll see what happens with that! Jason applied for another position in Smith County today too.
So yeah, that's what the update for now is. It sucks that I can't put pictures up on here, so I'll have a BUNCH of updating to do when we get back to WA, including continuing with Hawaii stuff. :)
Oh yeah, and Cindy (Jason's aunt) surprised us with a video slideshow of Jason and me... sneaky sneaky... MOM! We're going to have it playing at the wedding so everyone can see it because I almost cried when I saw it, and then when I watched it again with Nana I almost cried again lol... I'm such a weenie!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
The strange thing...
...about trying to get a place to live: if you make too much money, you can't live some places, and yet, in a month, we will be making no money at all.
We went apartment hunting today since we can't get a home loan because they all require job offer letters for getting pre-approved regardless of what's in our savings account and the fact that a mortgage would be less than renting, but that's another story. SO yeah... we went apartment hunting. Due to all these home foreclosures and whatnot, the apartments are all at about 99% capacity... and here in Lebanon, TN, most of the apartment complexes are "tax restricted". I got corrected for asking if a place was income restricted... she told me no, they were tax restricted... ok, same thing. We would have to apply for the apartment now, and since Jason is in the Army and gets paid to live off post, we make too much money to live in any of these places. There are only 3 apartment complexes in Lebanon that are not tax restricted... one has no vacancies, one has ONE condo/townhouse that would be available (brand new) in September... but what if it's not done on time, and the other is a pretty shady area of town that we don't want to live in.
We decided to look at duplexes and houses for rent after going through all those hoops at those places. There's a house pretty much around the corner from Jason's Nana that is for rent... PRIVATELY rented, by the way, so we wouldn't have to deal with a rental company, so we decided to give them a call. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath with a TON of space (and room enough to convert into two more bedrooms if you really wanted to), granite counters in the kitchen, a HUGE dining area, a large storage area in the back, and fenced backyard for Taco to run around in, and a nice area to park cars... like 4 or 5... or 3-4 and a boat (yes, we have the boat now). We were able to go see the house today because they were having people paint the inside, so we wandered over there, let them know we had talked to the owners and they told us we could look through the house. It's NICE... we like it... a lot. SO... can you guess what I'm going to say??
We're meeting the owner in person tomorrow, talking through all the logistics and whatnot, and if nothing fishy goes on, we'll have a rental house secured for ourselves for the next year... giving us plenty of time to secure good jobs and find our own house after that!
If we get it tomorrow, pictures will be to come so you all can see what I mean about it being nice. We will have to buy a washer and dryer, but hey, we'll need one when we get our own house anyway, so we'll just be starting early. ;)
Now if we can just find ourselves some good jobs!! Wish us luck-- I have a "meeting" with a probation guy on Friday!!!
We went apartment hunting today since we can't get a home loan because they all require job offer letters for getting pre-approved regardless of what's in our savings account and the fact that a mortgage would be less than renting, but that's another story. SO yeah... we went apartment hunting. Due to all these home foreclosures and whatnot, the apartments are all at about 99% capacity... and here in Lebanon, TN, most of the apartment complexes are "tax restricted". I got corrected for asking if a place was income restricted... she told me no, they were tax restricted... ok, same thing. We would have to apply for the apartment now, and since Jason is in the Army and gets paid to live off post, we make too much money to live in any of these places. There are only 3 apartment complexes in Lebanon that are not tax restricted... one has no vacancies, one has ONE condo/townhouse that would be available (brand new) in September... but what if it's not done on time, and the other is a pretty shady area of town that we don't want to live in.
We decided to look at duplexes and houses for rent after going through all those hoops at those places. There's a house pretty much around the corner from Jason's Nana that is for rent... PRIVATELY rented, by the way, so we wouldn't have to deal with a rental company, so we decided to give them a call. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath with a TON of space (and room enough to convert into two more bedrooms if you really wanted to), granite counters in the kitchen, a HUGE dining area, a large storage area in the back, and fenced backyard for Taco to run around in, and a nice area to park cars... like 4 or 5... or 3-4 and a boat (yes, we have the boat now). We were able to go see the house today because they were having people paint the inside, so we wandered over there, let them know we had talked to the owners and they told us we could look through the house. It's NICE... we like it... a lot. SO... can you guess what I'm going to say??
We're meeting the owner in person tomorrow, talking through all the logistics and whatnot, and if nothing fishy goes on, we'll have a rental house secured for ourselves for the next year... giving us plenty of time to secure good jobs and find our own house after that!
If we get it tomorrow, pictures will be to come so you all can see what I mean about it being nice. We will have to buy a washer and dryer, but hey, we'll need one when we get our own house anyway, so we'll just be starting early. ;)
Now if we can just find ourselves some good jobs!! Wish us luck-- I have a "meeting" with a probation guy on Friday!!!
Monday, July 21, 2008
Hawaii, Part 3-- Aquarium
After the zoo we walked down to the aquarium. We walked just about everywhere... even to the shopping center that was at least a mile away.
I thought it was cute to see the clown fish in their anemones (sp? blogger says this is right) just like on Finding Nemo. They did go in and out of them quite a bit too!
Some other tropical fishies swimming around.
Jellyfish... these guys are hard to take pictures of!
The shark tank... the sharks weren't all that big, but they were still neat to watch. Jason really liked them. There are also some big groupers in the tank.
Jason is touching a sea urchin. Don't worry, there was an aquarium worker there with the non-poisonous sea urchins so we could touch them. The weirdest part is if you put your finger between their spikes, the spikes will move and grab your finger... THAT was cool. Don't touch sea urchins without supervision!!
The one and only seal there. Apparently Hawaii's animal places only have one of most animals... like the meerkat, the ostrich, the rhino, and the seal. I suppose it's hard to ship those things to the islands though!
This is a coral farm. Notice all the clams in there too... I didn't realize how colorful they were, but then again, I only see dead ones.
This is a HUGE clam. It was probably at least 18 inches tall... so that gives you some perspective.
And here's a picture of Jason and I outside the aquarium, which was right on the water.
Right next to the aquarium was this:
Sadly, it was closed. I think it was an old memorial though because it doesn't look like it is ever open anymore. But we did find this monument thingy in the park in front of it.
So that was most of day two. We also went wandering around the little shops in the area and whatnot, but I'll post more pictures later. Right now I need to go get things packed and ready to leave for Tennessee tonight... we have a red-eye at 1140pm... ugh.
I thought it was cute to see the clown fish in their anemones (sp? blogger says this is right) just like on Finding Nemo. They did go in and out of them quite a bit too!
Some other tropical fishies swimming around.
Jellyfish... these guys are hard to take pictures of!
The shark tank... the sharks weren't all that big, but they were still neat to watch. Jason really liked them. There are also some big groupers in the tank.
Jason is touching a sea urchin. Don't worry, there was an aquarium worker there with the non-poisonous sea urchins so we could touch them. The weirdest part is if you put your finger between their spikes, the spikes will move and grab your finger... THAT was cool. Don't touch sea urchins without supervision!!
The one and only seal there. Apparently Hawaii's animal places only have one of most animals... like the meerkat, the ostrich, the rhino, and the seal. I suppose it's hard to ship those things to the islands though!
This is a coral farm. Notice all the clams in there too... I didn't realize how colorful they were, but then again, I only see dead ones.
This is a HUGE clam. It was probably at least 18 inches tall... so that gives you some perspective.
And here's a picture of Jason and I outside the aquarium, which was right on the water.
Right next to the aquarium was this:
Sadly, it was closed. I think it was an old memorial though because it doesn't look like it is ever open anymore. But we did find this monument thingy in the park in front of it.
So that was most of day two. We also went wandering around the little shops in the area and whatnot, but I'll post more pictures later. Right now I need to go get things packed and ready to leave for Tennessee tonight... we have a red-eye at 1140pm... ugh.
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