Freebies

Being around my mother for about 32 years really rubbed off. She taught me that nothing makes you feel better then getting a good deal on something, it is even better if it is free. Two of my favorite bargain websites are Cheap Stingy Bargains (especially their freebie section) and Totally Free Crap. At least twice a week I get free stuff in the mail, it might be a sample of soap, cereal, or a flashlight.

Last week I got a sample of a new product. It is a single use container of caulk. Whenever I see this tiny white caulk sample on my counter I always think of my brother-in-law Rudi.

1 Year Pictures

On Saturday we took Reagan to Portrait Innovations to get her 1 year pictures taken. The appointment was scheduled for 11 am which should have been the perfect time, right after nap and before she can mess herself at lunch. Reagan was full of grins and giggles on the car ride there. As soon as the camera came out she clammed up and would barely crack a smile.

Usually we sort through 80 to 100 pictures and have a difficult time choosing which ones we should get as most of them are pretty good. This time we had about 50 to choose from and of those 4 or 5 were worth buying. Neither of the ones above were ones we purchased. At times I think she was channeling her cousin Julia. If you want to see the rest of the pictures feel free to look here.

Help Please

As the old saying goes "Many hands make light work". Next Sunday, June 22nd, we will be unloading the truck and trailer at the new house. So all of you in the greater Grand Rapids area who would like to help, please feel free to come by around 1 pm. Pizza, beer and sodas (or pop as you Michigananders call it) will be served. Email me if you need directions.

Dirty Baby

As you can tell from this picture, Reagan loves beans. We had to change her outfit and wash the bib before heading up to visit Beth at work for her 2nd to last call.

Libby on the other hand is quite fond of "orange chips", more commonly known as Cheeto's. While she is eating them she will chose one or two random chips and say that she doesn't like the looks of it and won't eat it. What an odd child, she must take after her mother.

1 Year Well Check Visit

Reagan went for her 1 year well check visit today. She weighed in at a feather like 2o lbs 2 oz (30th percentile), she is a vertically challenged 28 inches (25th percentile), but her head is a Mayes like 46 cm (75th percentile). She is now old enough and weighs enough to have her car seat facing the front now. This will make for a much easier trip to Michigan next week as she will be able to see the TV. During Reagan's examination the doctor found she had an ear infection, this would explain her screaming mimi fits the past couple of days before bed times.

Happy Birthday Reagan

Today Reagan turns one year old! It is hard to believe that she is no longer a baby, but is now officially a toddler. Here are ten things you might not know about her.
1. She didn't' fall on her face, that is a little patch of exzema that we have had a hard time getting rid of. Hopefully the third visit to the doctors this week will take care of it.
2. Reagan now has 6 teeth, as the top 4 came in all at the same time about 2 weeks ago.
3. Reagan hated baby food so we never fed it to her. We discovered that she would rather just have normal people food (thanks to her Grandma who figured this out for us). Now we can't get Reagan to stop eating. We have to set a limit or else she would continue to eat until she popped.
4. Reagan is hot or cold when it comes to sleeping through the night. She will either sleep from 8 pm until 7 am with out waking, or she will get up 3-4 times a night when her pacifier falls out of her mouth.
5. Beth has trained Reagan to only poop when she is at work. I have to change 2-3 poppy diapers a day, all between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm.
6. Reagan hardly ever plays with typical baby toys. She would much rather play with Libby's toys. Reagan can usually be found standing at Libby's doll house, kitchen, or nursery set.
7. Reagan's nicknames include Reggie, Reggie-Reggie-Roo-Roo (Libby's name for her), Raisin, Reginald, and Little Stink (see item #5).
8. Reagan has never spent a night in her crib. She has only slept in her bassinet, our bed, and her pack-n-play, where she sleeps now. She is looking forward to having her own room at our new house where she will be able to sleep in her crib finally.
9. Nothing does Reagan hate more then having her diaper changed. She is so wiggly that Beth can't change her by herself. It is like trying to hold down a greased pig.
10. In her first year of life, Reagan has flown to Michigan 8 times and has been well behaved each time.

Next American Idol?

This year at the annual Kurt Family Fourth of July Bash, my Dad and Judy have decided that there will be a karaoke contest. In preparation for this Libby has been practicing her singing talents. As you can tell, Libby gets her vocal abilities from me.

Inspections

We had two separate inspections today. The first was an FHA inspection and that took about 20 minutes and mainly consisted of measuring the square footage of the house and making sure each bedroom had two exits (a door and an operable window). We passed with flying colors. The second inspection was to make sure the home was structurally sound from repairs that had occurred 5-15 years ago from some termite damage. The structural engineer spent 15 minutes crawling around under the house and said everything looked great. He then charged us $250 for his time, not a bad gig if you can get it.

Purging

Beth and I are in the process of packing everything up and are amazed at how many boxes we never unpacked when we moved down here. So we are getting rid of a lot of things that we never thought we would throw out. We pitched an entire box of stuff animals from our childhoods. Beth saved her bear "Bruce", but allowed "Koala" to be thrown out if a picture was taken of him.
One of the great things about living in the city of Memphis is that if you don't want something all you have to do is put it out on the curb. People drive by daily looking for stuff. I have thrown out tires, tables, chairs, pieces of wood, plastic pipes and other assorted things and 99% of them are gone within 4 hours. So I actually get hurt feelings when people don't take something I've thrown out.

Housing Update

New House: Grass is growing as the Parade of Homes ends today.

Old House: The home inspection went really well. There were very few things that needed to be fixed and even fewer that the buyer asked to be fixed. She wanted a few of the windows unstuck, an electrical breaker upgraded, a few popped nails on the roof pounded in, and a HVAC professional to come look at the furnace to make sure none of the heat exchangers were cracked. Luckily they weren't. The termite inspection was fine, which is required down here, but since the guy doing the inspection worded his letter poorly, we think we need a structural engineer to come out on Tuesday to say that all the repairs done many years ago are fine. Not a big deal, but more of a $250 pain in the butt. The FHA inspection happens tomorrow and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will just be a formality. So other then that we are getting ready for the big move coming up on the weekend of June 21st.

Swimming Party

Yesterday we were invited over to Damon and Jen's house for a refreshing swim in their pool. It was the perfect way to spend a 91 degree day.


All four girls spent most of the time out of the water playing with their Dollar Tree fishing poles, while the adults were in the pool making sure none of the girls fell in.

Dirty

Yesterday while cleaning out and packing up the garage, Libby came up to me to ask for a drink. She couldn't hide the fact that she had been into something.

She's Walking

Last Saturday Reagan took her first steps. And since then she has been walking around like a crazy woman. She can now make it across most rooms and can stand up without hanging on to anything. Go Reagan Go!

Eating a Pickle

Reagan is pretty good about trying most things, but when she doesn't like something, there is no way to get her to eat the rest of it. At most meals she eats what we are eating and then finishes up with part of a jar of "fruity" baby food. The other day we gave her a pickle and she just loved sucking on it. She ate the end of it off and didn't know what to think of it.

She's Beautiful...

My new TV was installed today and I got the installer to take a few pictures of it when he was done. I actually got tears in my eyes when I received the email, Beth got tears in her eyes when she received the bill.

Bad Idea

If the name of your church is Christ United Methodist Chuch, it is a bad idea to use the initials for the web address.

Home Inspection

On Saturday the buyer is having the home inspected in the morning. The girls and I are going over to Isabelle's house to hang out there while it is going down. I have been getting all sorts of little projects down around the house in preparation for it. I have trimmed all the bushes from around the house (boy does it make the house look bigger), cleaned out the gutters and last but not least, I finished installing the faucet in the back bathroom.



Almost two years ago to the day, my father-in-law installed this faucet on a visit down here. Some how a plastic washer got mangled and a new one had to be ordered. He explained exactly how to install it when it did arrive. I figured it was going to be a pain in the butt, so I never installed it. The sink never leaked because it was hardly ever used and the only way it could leak is if the sink stopper was down and the sink filled with water, then drained. This never happened. But I figured that the inspector might try this, so I went to work on installing the plastic washer on the pop-up ball rod (yes Rudi, I know I just said "ball rod"). Literally 18 seconds later it was installed and is working perfectly.

Now I just have to figure out how to make a 12 year water heater and a 20 year old furnace look brand new.

Paul Harvey

Last week my brother-in-law Rudi got his panties in a bundle about an experience he had at his local branch of Wells Fargo. He blogged this:

I immediately deposited the cashier's check the buyer paid me with to buy my car. At the (very crowded) bank, the teller announces, "Wow, that's a NICE check!" after I hand it to her. She proceeds to ask how I came about this much money. I told her that I sold my car, to which she responded, "Well it must have been a real nice car!".

I'm slightly annoyed by this but decide to shrug it off. The teller then tells me that the bank will have to 'put a hold' on the check due to the amount. I found this to be odd considering the check was a cashier's check -- the funds are already secured. Fine, whatever... I ask how long it will be held and she tells me that it depends on what the computer thinks. WHAT?

After a few minutes of fiddling around with her computer, she asks a colleague to come over for assistance and hands her my check. The second teller looks at me and asks, "WHAT DID YOU DO?". The first teller explains that I just sold my car. Then she asked, "What kind of car was it?"

Wondering why I am suddenly being interrogated for depositing a relatively large sum of money, I told her what kind of car it was. "And you got this much for that?", she continued.

Are you kidding me? What the French Toast difference does it make how much I got for the car? And why are you insulting me to my face (save that for when I leave)? Sure, maybe the guy paid too much, but that is in my favor and since I am putting my money in YOUR bank, it is in YOUR favor too. I could maybe understand the questions and holding the check if it were a personal check, and/or if I were a new customer - but I've banked there for 5 yrs and it was a CASHIER'S check!

This can't be the norm - anyone have a perfectly reasonable explanation?

Rudi got much sympathy from others in the blog world, but he didn't tell the whole story.

As Paul Harvey would say "Here is the rest of the story":

Rudi looked liked this when he walked into the bank.

Would you cash this man's check without asking lots of questions? Thank you Wells Fargo for protecting all of us.

Happy 30th Birthday Rudi!

Interesting

This article says that Grand Rapids, MI is the 8th fastest growing real-estate market in the country.

Housing Update

Old House: The lady who had put in the rudiculous offer on our house came back with a much more reasonable offer on Monday. After going back and forth on a few minor details, we came to an agreement on Tuesday. She dropped all the "special stipulations" as her real estate agent had called them. So in the next 7 days she will have a home inspection done and we should know more about what is going on. The only slight catch is that she is doing an FHA loan. This isn't as big of a deal as it has once been since last year the HUD totally revamped the program to make it much more user friendly for the seller of a house. The big thing is they eliminated the requirements to make unnecessary minor repairs. So we are quite optimistic about it, but know that the sale isn't complete until the close.


New House: All the landscaping and sprinklers have been put in and look great. On Friday they hydro-seeded the lawn. Later this week my new TV should be installed in the family room above the fireplace just in time for the Parade of Home. She is a 52 inch, 1080p, LCD television with a hint of red around her black casing, she is beautiful. I was able to get the TV at cost since I allowed it to be installed for the Parade.