Today we turned in our keys to the mouse poop house. We've still got boxes all over the place at our new house, but no more hauling stuff around until we get our stuff out of storage from Utah.
The kids are all excited to be in their own rooms. So far, the surprise of surprises is that Addie is keeping her room the cleanest.
I think it's funny that we have this huge yard to run around in now, and Cam still insists on making jet noises and running around in the living room.
We love our house, it's got some personality. We hope it will be a great place to live for years to come, and we thank everyone who had any hand at all in helping us get here.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Home Sweet Home
We did our final walkthrough on our house tonight, we're closing tomorrow morning. All the kids got to see the house from the inside and they all picked their rooms. One of the previous owners of the home was there taking care of a few things and she seemed pretty nice. She said she was happy to see their house going to another large family, they had 4 girls and a boy as well. We're hoping to start moving things in this weekend, and probably move in permanently on Monday.
Below are some links to an accident I responded to last night. In the video, I am the one who squatted down to lift the stretcher wheels up off the ground when we were loading it into the ambulance. Then I stand up. It's so exciting :)
http://www.ksat.com/video/27700450/index.html
http://www.ksat.com/news/27700495/detail.html
Below are some links to an accident I responded to last night. In the video, I am the one who squatted down to lift the stretcher wheels up off the ground when we were loading it into the ambulance. Then I stand up. It's so exciting :)
http://www.ksat.com/video/27700450/index.html
http://www.ksat.com/news/27700495/detail.html
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Update
We were invited after our last offer to send in a new offer that the sellers could accept. We offered 182,500 for the house on 2 acres. The next door neighbors are buying the rest of the land since they're working the land already anyways.
We have to have a surveyor come out and redraw the land, and we're hoping that goes fast. We'd like to be moving at the end of April. But more time here at the mouse poop house means more time to save money and less time of driving the kids 10 miles to school each day.
We have to have a surveyor come out and redraw the land, and we're hoping that goes fast. We'd like to be moving at the end of April. But more time here at the mouse poop house means more time to save money and less time of driving the kids 10 miles to school each day.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The news
One of the cool things about working in a big city is that a lot of the major fires and traffic accidents that we see make the news. I've already seen the back of my head on TV (I'm one of the taller guys on most calls, and I've got distinguishing orange probie stickers on my helmet) The other night we made a fire at an abandoned home that was fully involved when we got there and ended up being a total loss. My friend happened to be working on the ladder truck at the same station where I was on the engine, and he ended up getting on the news as they were cleaning up the mess and waiting for arson (we were put back in service, so I never saw the news crews). We were 2nd in to that fire, but since it was decided that we were going defensive from the start, I got to pull one of our preconnects and actually help put out the fire.
We're hoping to have found our home, a 6 bedroom home out in the country. It's an older home that is going to require some work, but it's nice and appears to be clean. The people selling it are asking a bit much for it, and they aren't budging much on the price, but we think we may have found a compromise. The property that is for sale is a 1.5 acre lot with the home on it, and 4.7 acres of excess land that's currently being rented out for farming. They wanted 215,000 and we offered 180. They said they would sell us the land that the home is on only for that price, but we'd like to get some land to grow some fruit trees and a big garden. We're trying to get them to redraw the property lines and give us 2 acres, and sell the other 4.25 acres to someone else. Here's hoping it works out, there aren't a whole lot of 6 bedroom houses for sale in that area, but we want to make sure we're getting a fair deal. When we hear anything we'll post it.
We're hoping to have found our home, a 6 bedroom home out in the country. It's an older home that is going to require some work, but it's nice and appears to be clean. The people selling it are asking a bit much for it, and they aren't budging much on the price, but we think we may have found a compromise. The property that is for sale is a 1.5 acre lot with the home on it, and 4.7 acres of excess land that's currently being rented out for farming. They wanted 215,000 and we offered 180. They said they would sell us the land that the home is on only for that price, but we'd like to get some land to grow some fruit trees and a big garden. We're trying to get them to redraw the property lines and give us 2 acres, and sell the other 4.25 acres to someone else. Here's hoping it works out, there aren't a whole lot of 6 bedroom houses for sale in that area, but we want to make sure we're getting a fair deal. When we hear anything we'll post it.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Oh My Gosh I Almost Stepped On It!!!
Saturday we were leaving the house and getting the kids in the car. It was raining outside and we were taking the kids to the library to reward some good behavior. Jenn started carrying Joelle over to her side of the car, and then she screamed the title of this post. I was puzzled for a moment, but quickly figured out what must have happened.
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This is the first snake I'd seen since we've been at this house. I think it looks pretty cool, and all the kids concurred, even Emery. It just sat there, staring at us. We left it alone and went to the library. Jenn is just going to have to get over being afraid of snakes, I'm sure it won't be the last time she sees one.
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This is the first snake I'd seen since we've been at this house. I think it looks pretty cool, and all the kids concurred, even Emery. It just sat there, staring at us. We left it alone and went to the library. Jenn is just going to have to get over being afraid of snakes, I'm sure it won't be the last time she sees one.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Back on the information superhighway... in a Pinto
Blogspot only lets me post 5 pictures with them, so I made a gif out of some pictures that our class historian took. It's pretty cool, and it ends up being a lot better than 5 stupid pictures on top of each other.
You should see me doing an emergency bailout. Lucky for me, there weren't pictures of when one of my SCBA straps got caught in one of the grooves of the ladder beams, and I got stuck up there for a while. This bailout went pretty smooth.
Jenn and the kids moved down with me on Christmas day. Our rental home still doesn't have cable internet hooked up as of today. We've had 5 visits from Time Warner trying to get our home hooked up, and each time they send someone who is incapable of hooking up our home, even though every time I schedule an appointment, I let them know of all the issues we've had and that they need to send someone who is qualified and able to do the specific work that we need. Our home is right near the edge of Time Warner's service area. I believe the line runs out about 500 yards past our house. It's been verified that service is available, it's just inconvenient for them to install it. I finally gave up and am now on Virgin Mobile 3G broadband. I don't know if you can call something that connects you at 100kbps broadband, but it's a connection, and I guess it's all we're going to be able to get.
I graduate from the fire academy in 3 weeks. I'm nervous and excited to get started. It's going to be weird starting a new routine, and losing contact with most of the friends I've made in the past 5 months. We're doing live fire at the academy next week, and after that, it's just studying for the city and state tests, and administrative work. After 5 months of training, I can't believe they're just going to throw us all out there after a 20 minute date with the burn building. I'm praying for good officers when I get out into the field, because I'm pretty sure I'll be lost for a while.
I'm hoping to finally get to post a bit more, now that I do have some form of internet access.
You should see me doing an emergency bailout. Lucky for me, there weren't pictures of when one of my SCBA straps got caught in one of the grooves of the ladder beams, and I got stuck up there for a while. This bailout went pretty smooth.
Jenn and the kids moved down with me on Christmas day. Our rental home still doesn't have cable internet hooked up as of today. We've had 5 visits from Time Warner trying to get our home hooked up, and each time they send someone who is incapable of hooking up our home, even though every time I schedule an appointment, I let them know of all the issues we've had and that they need to send someone who is qualified and able to do the specific work that we need. Our home is right near the edge of Time Warner's service area. I believe the line runs out about 500 yards past our house. It's been verified that service is available, it's just inconvenient for them to install it. I finally gave up and am now on Virgin Mobile 3G broadband. I don't know if you can call something that connects you at 100kbps broadband, but it's a connection, and I guess it's all we're going to be able to get.
I graduate from the fire academy in 3 weeks. I'm nervous and excited to get started. It's going to be weird starting a new routine, and losing contact with most of the friends I've made in the past 5 months. We're doing live fire at the academy next week, and after that, it's just studying for the city and state tests, and administrative work. After 5 months of training, I can't believe they're just going to throw us all out there after a 20 minute date with the burn building. I'm praying for good officers when I get out into the field, because I'm pretty sure I'll be lost for a while.
I'm hoping to finally get to post a bit more, now that I do have some form of internet access.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Little Tiny Field Mice and Texas Sized Cockroaches
So, I was finally able to move out of my one bedroom apartment in San Antonio out to a 3 bedroom home on 3 acres out in Seguin. When I viewed the house for the first time, I saw a mouse run from one of the bedrooms into the kitchen. I don't know how long the house has been vacant, but I figured that a house in the country is probably going to have some pest control issues, and that I could handle it.
The first night I was out here, I was awoken at 3 am by what sounded like scratching on the floor in the kitchen. I didn't feel like getting up to investigate, and when I finally got up, I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. I set some mousetraps since I knew I had at least one mouse.
When I got home, I noticed that the peanut butter I had put on the traps had all been licked off without springing the traps. I also noticed a trail of pretzel crumbs coming out of a previously unopened bag of buffalo chicken flavored pretzel bits which I was looking forward to eating. I had a few bags of chips, 2 store brand knock off chips, and the pretzels I really wanted to try, and the I guess the mouse had the same tastes. I wasn't happy.
That night I had a friend of mine over watching Burn Notice dvds, and he saw a mouse running along the floorboards in my living room. We cornered it eventually, and I smooshed it with a roll of paper towels.
Anyways, I started looking for other signs, and I moved the microwave and toaster off my counter to look around. There, behind the toaster oven was a gigantic cockroach, he was looking at me, his face was big enough to have an expression that said "Yo, where did you sweep all those crumbs that were here earlier?" I informed him that he was not a welcome guest in my home, crushed him, and staked him out in my yard as a warning for other pests who want to encroach on my space.
This morning, I went to Home Depot to buy mousetraps and a few other items I need to get ready for Jenn and the kids getting here. I bought some of those ultrasonic pest thingamajigs, a few more mousetraps, and one where mice walk into the box, but can't get out, as well as some roach traps.
I set my traps and went out on a run, went to check out of my old apartment by cleaning and turning in keys, and out with a few friends, and came back. More peanut butter had been licked off the other style of traps I had bought, maybe field mice don't weigh enough to trip them. I looked at the little box trap, and didn't see anything, so I picked it up, and lo and behold, there was a mouse in it, hiding under the trap door.
I brought it close to the ultrasonic thingy to see if it would react to whatever sound that thing claims to put out. I think it's a crock, the mouse didn't do a thing when I plugged it in right next to it.
Well, there's one adventure for this week.
In other news, at the academy we got to put out a car fire, and a liquid fuel fire. When they lit the fuel pit, it started up really quick, and a giant plume of black smoke started blowing out towards the highway. It was amazing how fast the heat radiated out to where I was standing, and equally amazing how fast it dissipated when the fog streams went up. It made for a really cool day of class.
The first night I was out here, I was awoken at 3 am by what sounded like scratching on the floor in the kitchen. I didn't feel like getting up to investigate, and when I finally got up, I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. I set some mousetraps since I knew I had at least one mouse.
When I got home, I noticed that the peanut butter I had put on the traps had all been licked off without springing the traps. I also noticed a trail of pretzel crumbs coming out of a previously unopened bag of buffalo chicken flavored pretzel bits which I was looking forward to eating. I had a few bags of chips, 2 store brand knock off chips, and the pretzels I really wanted to try, and the I guess the mouse had the same tastes. I wasn't happy.
That night I had a friend of mine over watching Burn Notice dvds, and he saw a mouse running along the floorboards in my living room. We cornered it eventually, and I smooshed it with a roll of paper towels.
Anyways, I started looking for other signs, and I moved the microwave and toaster off my counter to look around. There, behind the toaster oven was a gigantic cockroach, he was looking at me, his face was big enough to have an expression that said "Yo, where did you sweep all those crumbs that were here earlier?" I informed him that he was not a welcome guest in my home, crushed him, and staked him out in my yard as a warning for other pests who want to encroach on my space.
This morning, I went to Home Depot to buy mousetraps and a few other items I need to get ready for Jenn and the kids getting here. I bought some of those ultrasonic pest thingamajigs, a few more mousetraps, and one where mice walk into the box, but can't get out, as well as some roach traps.
I set my traps and went out on a run, went to check out of my old apartment by cleaning and turning in keys, and out with a few friends, and came back. More peanut butter had been licked off the other style of traps I had bought, maybe field mice don't weigh enough to trip them. I looked at the little box trap, and didn't see anything, so I picked it up, and lo and behold, there was a mouse in it, hiding under the trap door.
I brought it close to the ultrasonic thingy to see if it would react to whatever sound that thing claims to put out. I think it's a crock, the mouse didn't do a thing when I plugged it in right next to it.
Well, there's one adventure for this week.
In other news, at the academy we got to put out a car fire, and a liquid fuel fire. When they lit the fuel pit, it started up really quick, and a giant plume of black smoke started blowing out towards the highway. It was amazing how fast the heat radiated out to where I was standing, and equally amazing how fast it dissipated when the fog streams went up. It made for a really cool day of class.
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