Bumps in the road

We posted before about the house on which we made an offer, waiting for the approval of the short sale by the bank. It appears now that we have crossed the final hurdle of approval and now are merely waiting for the bank to open escrow. When we last posted about the house, we were going to see it with Christi's dad and some of the older kids. The house we saw that day, was not the same as the one we had seen and placed our offer. Since that time, the owners had moved and left their mother in charge of the house. She apparently had 3 little shaky dogs that had been having some accidents on the carpet. Sadly, at least 2 of the rooms in the house now had distinct dog urine odors. We left that day after having our agent contact the seller's agent and extracting a commitment to double clean the carpets upon completion of their move. Fast forward to last week and the owners had gone, and the carpet had been double cleaned. Sadly, the urine smell remains. It appears as though it has completely soaked through the carpet and padding and into the wood of the upstairs floor. The downstairs floor is concrete, but the carpet and padding will have to go. It is my hope that only the two main rooms of concern will need the carpet ripped out, but that remains to be seen. Christi was extremely disappointed because she had wanted to have a home that she could be proud to invite folks into and now it appears as though we may have bare floors for awhile because we won't be able to immediately afford to replace that much carpet. And when we do, it will be the good stuff with extra thick padding. This is going to be our home for a long time (God willing) and we want it to be right. We feel certain that we lost that previous house because it wasn't the right one for us. This one has all we wanted and more. We won't be letting our hard work go for nothing over the removal of some carpet, that's for sure. Christi, in particular has worked her little tushy off calling, calculating, and negotiating to make this work. I did my part, working every scrap of overtime I could get, but it was really her that made it all possible. I thank God for my wonderful wife and kids and now for this opportunity to put my family in a home they deserve. I'll be praying for a quick opening of escrow so we can get started on this new path before us.

The Plague is over!!

Can I just tell you how much we hate viral gastroenteritis? You know, the one that's commonly known as the stomach flu? We just went through a long bout of it here at the Cason Hacienda and damned if it didn't just about wear us out. Trevor first showed up with the symptoms in October, the usual fever and diarrhea that lasted 5 days no matter what you took, 5 days for everyone of us, and that part of it worked it's way through the whole family over the next FIVE weeks with several of the kids having pretty high fevers for more than a day. Rebekah even had fever-induced seizure Christi knew what was going on as she had experienced this with Jessica when she was almost 2 years old but is still scared the heck out of both of us.Also during this same time period, as if having the sickies for 5 days for each person with only one bathroom was not enough we were also now one by one experiencing super high fevers with sore throats and aches and pains and once that was over,( keep in mind it is now the 1st week of December) we felt lucky that we'd gotten away without the vomiting, but of course a new 3rd bug had more in store for us.Christi had said on Thursday, wow, I think we are finally sick free, never ever tempt fate, as the next day Chad started throwing up, we had our first puker. Once that started, we all got another taste of the sickies as we each, in turn, got to experience that same thrill. Yeah, that was a real party for Christi. She and I both spent a bit of time with our friends Clorox and Lysol, cleaning up behind one sick kid after another.In a an 18 hour period 13 of us were throwing up. Christi, of course, got the worst of it, because I was at work during the night and isn't that always when kids do their best barfing? She was the one, up in the middle of the night changing their clothes and flipping laundry back and forth trying to stay ahead of the vomit tsunami and while doing this she was throwing up herself.Christi told me when I got home that at one 10 minute interval there were 5 of them throwing up at the same time, 2 in the kitchen and 3 in the bathroom, Bailey had to bypass the bathroom as it was busy only to meet up with Austin at the kitchen sink. She laughs about it now as she said it was like something that might happen in a movie. My one visit from the bug happened at work and I just lost the bananas I had eaten earlier and spent the rest of my shift with some relatively mild nausea. And naturally, just when we thought we had it beat, it passed around a second time and some of the kids got another wave of sickness.
We have now been clear for about 5 days( this is the longest we have been sick free since late October) and things are looking good as far as illnesses are concerned. The laundry is now clean and everyone is eating normally, just in time for the Christmas. All the kids got flu shots too and we have never experienced 3 different illnesses back to back and hope not to ever again either, lol.
We hope that all of you have a flu-free Christmas and a healthy new year.

Christi wants to send hugs and loves to her beautiful cousin Linda and she is waving hi, give Uncle Ray and Aunt Betsy a hug from Christi.