Ready, Set GO!!

The offer has been accepted!

See more pictures of our future home in flickr.

Now we have to finish getting our house in shape to be listed for sale by April 7th.

Official offer talk is happening

Since Tuesday we have started the official offer talks between the real estate agents. It sounds like counter offers are winding down and we are coming to an agreement. We are supposed to have our house ready to be for sale by April 7th, which means we have to kick the prep work in high gear for the next week-and-a-half. We have actually already knocked a few things off that to-do list, which feels good, and makes us feel like we can actually do this.

Little man’s got a job. And he does it well.

His room was tidy when he got up that morning.

Next Steps

We are ready to make an offer on the house! After looking at the police reports of the block the house lives on, and finding out some more structural and practical facts about the house we are ready and confident enough to take the next step.

As far as the crime stats on that block they basically confirmed what we expected. The bulk of it is property-related crimes such as break-ins & attempts, loitering, abandoned cars, excessive music complaints, etc, etc. Particularly two neighboring houses, unfortunately exactly across the street from ‘our’ house are responsible for 95% of the police report entries. On the one hand it’s nice to know that those are the only properties there making trouble, as opposed to the entire street. But on the other hand they are there across the street.

Here at our current home we’ve been hard at work getting things started mentally, and somewhat in practice. We have already sold our dining table and chairs, as there will be NO room for a set that size in the other house. The designated dining room there will be my work studio until we come up with an alternative place for this and so our eating will have to happen on a much smaller table in the kitchen. We have also sold my HUGE desk for the same reason. Our house already looks so much more roomy- which will really help when we try to sell it.

I will post pictures of the other house as soon as an offer gets accepted!

Oh my goodness, is it really happening, are we moving?

Well, nothing is set in stone yet, but it’s really starting to look that way. A few weeks ago we found a really REALLY adorable house in downtown Raleigh. It’s in a poor section of town, but from the look of all the changes and revitalization that have been happening in Raleigh, and on all sides of the neighborhood where this house is located it looks like in about 5 years it’s going to be much different. Greg and I have looked at houses downtown on and off for several years, with the hope of one day finding a great house that needs some love and is therefor very affordable and in within reach of our budget (unlike 99% of the houses in downtown Raleigh). Within the last year we finally stopped looking for a house like this because we pretty much figured this was a dream that was just NOT within reach. We started looking at houses around Raleigh, then we stopped looking all together, deciding we would just stay in our current house a few more years. Then suddenly we changed our strategy and started looking around for a VERY cheap house, figuring we would probably find something right outside of Raleigh, but that’s when this house fell into our laps. And it was pretty much EXACTLY the kind of house we had been dreaming of that whole time we were looking to spend more money on a house (pending various inspections of course), the kind of house we stopped looking for!

As I mentioned earlier, the neighborhood is at a point where it’s likely not incredibly safe- as far as property is concerned. We don’t believe personal safety is an issue there, and he have talked with police officers that patrol that area, and are waiting for the police department to send us the crime stats for the neighborhood of the last year to make sure we consider the facts and let our excitement not blur our safety. So far the only impression that we keep getting is; do we have to do what we can to expect/avoid property break ins and theft- yes, do we have to worry about gang violence around there- no, do we have to worry about personal safety- probably not. We really, really believe that this neighborhood is going to change around for the better within the next 5 years. A police sergeant that we spoke with today as a matter of fact was extremely positive when I asked him about the prospects of the neighborhood, despite his bitter answers when we asked him about the safety around there today. He even said he definitely saw the area turning around within 3 years as opposed to the 5 years Greg and I expected.

So right now we are waiting for the various answers from the police department and our real estate agent who is asking some important questions about the house, things she knows more about than we do- and assuming everything comes back with answers we are satisfied with, we’ll be putting an offer in this week!

This also means that we need to be getting our house in tip-top order to sell. We figure we will work towards getting it ready to hit the market in two weeks, and with the help of Google documents and calendar Greg and I have two weeks for kick-ass hard scheduled work to look forward too. Yippy!!

Sleepy Head

Yesterday while I was working Nolan suddenly got veeeery quiet. When I walked into the living room I found the little man dead asleep. He looked like he went to sleep while playing with his Lightning McQueen.

Sweet cheeks

Milko update; The past month

It’s been a while since the last Milko update, which is not because nothing has happened, but more because they just keep being shoved around and lied to and no real changes are happening. But in broad descriptions, here is what has been happening since the last update.

Two days before the second court date of February 28th their ‘great’ new lawyer suddenly decided this was a difficult case and he became too expensive. So yet again they had to show up in court on the 28th without a lawyer.

The morning before the court date, on the 27th- Milko was asked to come to the police station because, as he had been told ‘someone from the NIA was going to be there to add something to the case.’
After sitting around for an hour waiting for this phantom NIA person who never showed, they were suddenly told they had to go back to the Kanilai to look at something there. They had just been to Kanilai two weeks previous where Milko signed the statement that he did not take anything that wasn’t his. So they had no idea why he had to go back there, but they did realize that the NIA person story had yet again been another lie to keep them put where they wanted them. Before they left they chatted with one of the people who works in the department of serious crimes and he told them that the day before he had overheard people talking in his department, and that everyone there thought that Milko was being treated terribly unfairly, and that they all knew the whole case was about absolutely nothing, and that the whole case should just be closed.

Milko and three police men then left for Kanilai, and he called Beppie shortly after getting there to tell her that he had just been told that the case of the stolen generators was going to get closed in the court the next day, and that instead they were going to open a new case based on ‘stolen parts’ and the ‘cheating’ for making a profit on the parts, which wasn’t supposed to happen, or as they said at the NIA ‘this is not appropriate if you are working for the president’. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? (in that case I suppose not a single NIA employee makes any money. The must work for free then, right!)

As far as these ‘stolen parts’ are concerned, Beppie and Milko know for a fact that the parts they list as stolen were on those generators as the NIA picked them up. So if they are missing the ‘disappeared’ some time after that.

The court case on the 1 of March was strange again. Milko and Beppie didn’t meet any police officers there that they knew from before and they had to sit and wait and listen to all the cases that were called. After 1.5 hour the judge asked for a ‘rise’ and left the courtroom for 5 minutes and when he returned he asked Milko: “Are you interested in listening to all these cases”. Milko replied: “No, not really”. “So let’s move on with the case of the white man”, the judge told the policeman that was present. The policemen asked for a new date and the judge answered a bit annoyed: “And what are you going to tell me then next time?” The policeman said in a low voice: “If you give me a new date then you will here it then……” The eyes of the judge went up to the ceiling and he made a kind of apologetic gesture towards Milko.

Tomorrow is the new third court date, March 14th. We’ll see what happens then

There are some great things happening that I am not at liberty to discuss here on the site in order to keep progress going, but rest assured things are looking up!

Birthday Bash Nolie Style

Nolan got to enjoy his first round of gift receiving in the morning. As far as he is concerned, it’s never too early so start ‘ripping it’. Though he has trouble understanding the part where when you get more than one gift you unwrap all the gifts and then
start playing with them. Nothing to complain about from my perspective, I’d rather have him so much into every gift that he forgets to move on to the next, than the opposite. But basically the ‘first round’ of gift receiving had several stages.

And after he unwrapped this basically all came to a halt and nothing else was to be unwrapped until he got to play at least an hour on the new piano!

Greg’s sister Tamara and her boyfriend Damien, or according to Nolan, you can refer to them both as “Tamien” the Wilson version of “Brangelina,” brought these AWESOME cookies which she baked and they both decorated. Not only did they look awesome, they were mighty tasty too!

Thanks to the intense over-the-top merchandising Pixar did for the CARS movie (which I used to despise, but now I am grateful) I was able to order Nolan this killer cake.

Before stuffing the little crowd with tons of sweets and chips calories we had them run laps around the house, to avoid the potential backlash of sugar ovedose.

Nolan showed off his mad ball kicking skillz. It gets him all the ladies

Speaking of ladies..

Then it was time for the birthday song and candle blowing.

Nolie listened with intent, I think he still doesn’t exactly ‘get’ why this happens every year, but he taked it in stride.

He amazed us with his candle-blowing-outter skills. I suspect he’s been practicing.

Then he had to make the difficult decision between the cake and the new lightning mc queen toy.

Of course the cake won.
And all his palls followed suit;

Blase only got to watch this year- next year we will put him right in the center of the cake and eat him too.

Then, when we got them good and hopped up on sugar it was time for the gift ‘ripping it’

And like a birthday party at this age should, all guests are more than helpful when it gets to that part. Nolan didn’t have to lift a finger.

Last exciting activity of the day was the pinata, thankfully I had come across one made for the little kiddies, which had strings to pull instead of having a big ol’ uncoordinated whacking party in which everything and everyone but the pinata gets hit.

Unfortunately the strings didn’t actually break the pinata, but thanks to Greg’s brute force the kids were able to go home with bags filled with additional sugar and preservatives.

And like a true birthday boy should, Nolan dug into a second round of birthday cake pleasure.

Then it was time for Nolan to break free from the party activities and have some patented ‘Nolie time.’ These are the times I see this kid really did come from me.

It was an unbelievably beautiful day out, so as the party wound down we had a wonderful time just sitting outside and enjoying the last spring rays of the day, mixed in with a few bubbles here and there.

This is Blase mere moments before regurgitating the leaf he has just swallowed.

And this is the cup that got me through it all, and that ain’t no grape juice.

Happy birthday little stinker!

Today is Nolan’s fourth birthday, which also makes it our fourth anniversary as parents, and boy does it not feel like a whole four years have just passed! I seriously can not wrap my mind about the fact that 4 years have passed since Nolan came in this would as a the smallest full term baby me, and many others have ever seen.

This day is going to be filled with lots of birthday fun, involving MANY showings of ‘Cars’, bacon, a pinata, pizza and who knows what else!

His Aunt Tamara and uncle Damien are down from DC to help him celebrate his big day, his uncle Kit had every intention of coming down too, but unfortunately due to the threat of a mini y2k he had to stay on call for his job and stay home.

Our little celebrity was serenaded by every single staff member at El Rodeo yesterday when they surprised him (and us) with a birthday candle desert and all sang him a song. We go to this place so much we are on a first name basis with almost everyone there and we get the special ‘we know there’s a 30 minute wait, but come quick sit here at this table’ treatment there, and needless to say the LOVE their Nolan there. He had them at ‘gracias amigo!’

A day at Duke Gardens

Last weekend it was such a gorgeous sunny and warm day we snuck out of the ol’ dungeon and headed for Durham to spend some quality time in Duke Gardens. It’s such a beautiful place, even this early in the year, that we took the chance to take some purdy photo opps. One with daddy…

And one with mommy…

And a kiss for mommy…

Then Greg and Nolan pretended they just climbed a mountain (no I didn’t point out to them that it was only a rock)

Every wall in site had to be walked on. It’s funny to see that because that’s something I loved doing too when I was little, well what little kid doesn’t really.

This was a cute little inspired moment by Greg, resulting in what I think to be one of the cutest pictures ever of him and the boy. Nolan was terribly intrigued with the concept of putting his chin on the rock.

Then Greg shows Nolan the ropes of lily pad jumping as an additional technique to learn for his career as professional jumper, the profession he’s been working on all his life.

And here’s a picture of me to please my mom who complains I don’t ever put enough pictures of me on our site. Happy?