Homeless? Not us!

So Turnberry Village Apartments in Macomb, IL is the complex we went to see at Christmas and decided to move into when we move back to the Midwest this summer. Now Turnberry is refusing to take us as tenants. We go from just earning too much for the subsidized housing to earning not enough and they are worried we will not be able to make the rent.

Prayers are answered though. We have called around to many different places and we have had no luck. Out of all that we called there was only one possibility that had a few negative reviews. On Wednesday, June 4th Jon found four more places for me to call. One was an old, 2 bedroom home that is roomy. There is a small laundry area off the kitchen. It has a large enough kitchen that we could eat-in there plus a dinning room we could use as a playroom. There is a living room, Master bedroom, a second bedroom and a bathroom. The tenant who is in it now is using the Living Room for a bedroom and the Dinning room for the Living room. So it is a potentially 3 bedroom home. There is a deck just off the kitchen through the laundry room and an unfinished basement for minimal storage.

We asked Dad & Sally Robbins to make a trip to Macomb to check it out for us. They said it is a good deal. It is the only house on the block, thus has a big yard. There is no fence, but the road is not a busy one and it would take a little while for the girls to make it to the road. It is in a quiet part of town and should be nice. So we decided to take it. It works out well because she is looking for someone to move-in the first part of July, and that is when we will arrive in Macomb. Now we’ll have room for people to come visit and a place for the girls to play that is out of the way. Our future landlord is mailing us the contract and a floor plan.

We are excited to know that we will have a place to call home when we arrive and an address to give to the movers so we don’t have to move it ourselves.

Happenings in May

Last month started off kind of slow, but it didn’t take long for it to pick up. Close to the middle of May, Eliza got steady enough at sitting (or gracefully enough at falling) that I can leave her sitting up on carpet and walk away. Not long after that she became quite good at army crawling to get where she wants to go. She uses her right leg/foot while dragging her body and left leg.

Jon had enough vacation days to take an extra three days off for Memorial Day weekend. So, we left the Friday before and headed up to Utah to see the Aagard grandparents. While we were packing to leave, Eliza got hungry and so I made her some rice cereal with carrots. I sat the cereal down on Eliza’s tray to answer the phone without thinking. When I came back, she had tried to feed herself then grabbed the bowl and threw it on the floor. She then played in the mess and tried to eat any she could get in her mouth.

We had made a few plans for our long weekend, but most fell though. We decided to spend the whole time at the Aagard ranch and probably stayed too long. We were going to go camping up Chicken Creek but it was cold and rainy. We did get in a nice drive up the Nebo loop to 8000 feet where they had the road closed. We also went on a short hike with Maren up Chicken Creek, leaving Eliza with grandma.

Maren has a lot of fun with the animals on grandpa’s farm. She felt confident enough and enjoyed it enough to wander off to feed the animals herself without looking back to see if anyone would go with her. She would go from the dog to the chickens, chickens to the goat, goat to the horse, and then stop and try to catch the cat on the way. Grandpa Aagard had an alfalfa field that has been invaded with dandelions. Helping to spread the dandelion seeds was another favorite part of Maren’s visit. We had a great time at the farm.

Maren is getting so big and uses her words so well that most people can understand her most of the time. One of the phrases she hung on to this month was “can I come?” We would pull into a parking space and she would ask if she could come; as if we were going to leave her in the car. She must think it is a special treat to come inside when running errands. A more recent phrase is “Please! Please now! Please!” This came out of no where that we can find, but each pleading lasts and lasts. We aren’t parents who give in after a firm “no,” so it’s not like she thinks that if she pleads, she’ll get what she wants. Eliza has recently added the “DA” consonant – vowel sounds to her vocal gibberish. It is so much fun to watch them grow.

Since Christmas we have planned on moving into Turnberry Village apartments in Macomb, IL when Jon gets out of the AirForce. We have done everything we can do to get in, but they recently have put us off again on letting us sign a lease. For two full months now they have requested more and more information, hinted at getting everything finalized, but always put us off. Now down to less than a month before arriving in Macomb we are a little nervous. Especially since we have called every apartment rental business listed on the internet all but two are full, don’t rent to families, or are way out of our price range. We know it will work out, but it is a little nerve wracking.