Monthly Archives: June 2009

Tale of Two Houses

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It is now the end of the first week of me being in Florida while the family is back in Houston. I finally got to see the new house with my own eyes and I’m really excited about it. Can’t wait until we move in and start settling in. There’s three big things that we are going to have to buy right away: fans, fence, and blinds.

None of the rooms have ceiling fans, which is a big oversight for a house in the South. Not too big a deal, though. I’ve installed them before and they are not that hard. Unfortunately, I think there’s about seven we’re going to have to install.

We need a fence for Austin. He likes to roam around outside some times (especially when he has to do his business) and we are going to have to fence in the backyard for that. Jennifer already has a couple of fence companies giving us quotes. The Homeowners’ Association is requiring us to get a white vinyl fence. I didn’t even know they made fences like that. It’s quite a difference between here and Texas, where every house already has a big wood fence when you move in. I think Texans live under the adage, good fences make good neighbors.

Finally, the house has no window coverings at all. So, we are going to have to get mini-blinds for most of the house. Fortunately, Jennifer’s dad sells blinds, so we know where to go for that.

So, while we are busy making plans for the house in Florida, Jennifer and the girls are having to struggle through the hot summer in the rent house back in Houston. The house has such poor construction the upstairs half of the house stays at least 10 – 15 degrees hotter than the lower portion. Now that the summer is at it’s hottest, it has become intolerable. It’s gotten so bad, that the girls are now camping out in the downstairs bedroom with Jennifer. We’ve complained to the owners, but no response. Fortunately, Jennifer and the girls only have about another week in the house before the movers come and pick-up all of our stuff.

Continuation of an ErA

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Two months since I’ve updated Frenchville. A lot has gone on since then. The biggest news being that we are moving back to Orlando and I’m resuming my job with EA – Tiburon. I just spent the weekend driving from Houston to Orlando and in a couple of weeks I’m going to fly back and do it again, but this time with the family. I’ve learned over the past year that it isn’t really where you live, but your job that matters. You have to enjoy what you are doing for a living. I always enjoyed my job with EA Sports, playing their games and it was extremely hard playing NCAA 09 last year knowing that I started working on that game and didn’t finish it.

We have a contract out on a house in Oviedo, a suburb east of Orlando. It should be about the same drive as I had when we lived up in Lake Mary. We close on the house on June 30th. It’s in short sale, so we are getting a good deal on it, but the movement has been fairly slow because everything has to go through the bank. It recently appraised for lower than we offered. Our realtor went back to the bank and made sure our offer was lowered to the price it appraised for. That’s going to end up saving us quite a bit of money when we close on the house in a few weeks.

Last week was also Izzy’s 4th birthday. Nana, Poppy, and Aunt Marci came down to help us celebrate. Their cousin, Kinley, also came over. Of course, Izzy requested to have a Mickey Mouse cake and Jennifer made it once again. After lunch and cake, we headed over to the Sienna Plantation pool for some swimming.

Last Sunday was also Abby’s dance recital. Five months of dance lessons leading up to this final recital. It was a two hour show with about 15 groups of kids doing two numbers each. Abby’s first dance was to the Austin Power’s theme. If I would have known that, I would have shown her the opening number to the movie before she went on so that she could have seen some of the proper dance moves. Abby did very well. I thought she was one of the best dancers out there, but I might be a little biased.

So, currently, I’m in Orlando, the family is back in Houston and in a couple of weeks we will be reunited. Now that we are going to be in Florida once again, I guess I’m going to have start writing more often in Frenchville. That was the original reason I set up this blog so long ago.