Halfway There

We are halfway through the escrow process and exactly 22 days from closing on our first house! As of today, things are moving along as planned. All of our paperwork will be delivered to the loan processing department by Monday. So far we have managed to overcome all of the little hurdles that come along with buying a home. As exciting (and nerve wracking) as this has all been, the reality of moving 1600 miles away from family and friends has truly started to set in. I have had a few moments here and there filled with tears at the thought of having to say good-bye. I think I have been so focused on the many other things that have been going on that I haven’t had time to think about the one negative aspect of our move.

Over the past week I have been quite busy sorting through all of our belongings. This move is a rather unique one for us which makes it a little challenging to pack our things. We will be moving out of our house on Point Mugu on Friday April 3oth however, we will still be living on base until the children finish school in June. Our family of six (yes I am counting our dog too) will be moving into my parents 5th wheel for 6 weeks. I guess this might sound a little bizarre if you aren’t familiar with everything that has gone on with our house over the past few months. Let me explain without going into all of the ugly details of our situation.

As most of you know, the state of California is not one that gets a whole lot of rain at least not in our neck of the woods. However, this year we have been hit with quite a few storms. In January, we got hit with back to back rain storms. During one of the storms, we found out that our windows were not properly sealed. The reason we found this out was because the water came into our home. It was literally raining inside our living room. The housing company had to tarp off the entire backside of our house. Long story short, after the rain disappeared, the housing company came in and found black mold inside our walls. The wood framing around the windows was so soft that the maintenance guy was literally able to slide his pencil right through the wood. Although we were given the option to move into another house, Jason and I decided not to accept the offer because we didn’t want to be held responsible for another house on base especially when we had already received our orders to Louisiana. To make matters even worse, Travin’s immune system was compromised. He is doing fine now but things got a little worrisome for us. I guess it is safe to say that the “Mall Family Expedition” is one that is never dull and always full of interesting surprises =) I think we might have some kind of special talent (ha ha).

So, Monday brings on a whole new week. The movers will be here at 8:30 am to pack-up all of our things. The truck will follow on Tuesday to pick everything up and haul it away to storage for the next 6 weeks. On a positive note, (because it’s always best to find the silver lining in every situation :) for the first time ever as a Military family, we will actually have an address before we move! YAY!!!