Inspection Update

On Monday we had our house inspection and it went great. Everything was fairly minor and included needing to service one A/C & change filters, change 2 broken sprinkler heads, & one leaky kitchen faucet. The other things on the list were just dead batteries in smoke detectors and light bulbs that were burned out. Overall, we were very pleased with the outcome of the inspection and the inspector told us he thought we had purchased a "very nice home".

We have scheduled closing to be June 15th and movers to come move us out of our San Antonio home on June 18th. In between we will have carpet cleaners come out and hopefully a professional cleaning service to give the house a "once over" since it has been vacant since January. Today I have been working hard to get everything in order for the move. I believe the last thing on the list is in another week or so we will call to get utilities switched to our name and ready to be activated on June 15th.

I believe that my Mother and Nanny (grand-mother) will be coming to San Antonio towards the end of the week before closing to help me pack things up into boxes. [In advance- I AM VERY APPRECIATIVE] If anyone around the DFW area is free June 19-21st or so and would like to help us unpack and get out of boxes I'm sure we could treat you to some pizza and beer or something in return for your help. :)

The Lord is so good to us and we are continually thankful for His blessings! Enjoy the new play list that I have added to our blog with a few good country songs.

Great News!!!

Well, we got some long-awaited news today. WE GOT THE HOUSE! We could not be more happy right now. Thank you so much for all your diligent prayers for us! God is so good! It is so exciting that in just a few weeks we will be closing on our first home that is "ours" and moving in. We haven't finalized the closing date yet, but it will probably be either June 11th or 12th. I am sure I will have a lot more information at a later date, but for those of you who are curious about what it looks like, here are a few pictures I took the day we put the offer in on the house. (April 29th) Hopefully this will satisfy your curiosity temporarily. Now our plans for this weekend in Plano are just to enjoy family, friends, and hopefully some sunny weather! :) We will do the inspection Monday morning @ 9am and are hoping nothing major pops up. Hope you all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Love, Emily

The front door

Formal dining room

Main living room

Kitchen- I LOVE IT!!

Kitchen- I LOVE IT!!


Master bedroom


Master Bathroom

Media Room

Slow Week

Unfortunately, I still do not have any good news to share about the house so keep praying! :) This week has been pretty laid back for me. I have only left the house once each day. My days have consisted of laundry, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, massage, hair appointment, & dentist appointment. Mike jokingly says I have been being a good little "housewife" :) but sometimes I feel lazy when I haven't done very much. Oh well, I am trying to enjoy this little "vacation" time while I have it. I have gotten a lot of information this week on switching our insurance from renters to homeowners and appreciate the time that Cathy with Allstate spends helping me to understand all the "ins and outs" of the plans. I'm continuing to do a lot of reading and would love if any of you would like to suggest the next book for me to read. I recently read The Shack and I'm currently completing When Christ Comes. Both are really good books and I feel they have a lot of insight.

This weekend we are staying in San Antonio and hope to spend some time with friends. If the weather is nice we will probably enjoy some outdoor time too. I haven't been running for the past few weeks, but hoping that I include that in my daily routine again soon. Mike is keeping very busy at work and has had very full days this week since they had some new numbers come through that he had to work on. He found out that AT&T submitted their final negotiation for the union contract yesterday and so the next few weeks they will either accept the offer or go on strike. I think by Memorial Day we should know one way or the other. Speaking of which, Memorial Day weekend we will be up in Plano staying with the Campbell family and looking at another handful of homes as back-up in case this deal falls through with the Grand Prairie home. I suppose that is all for this week, not too exciting. Hopefully we will have some better news soon! :)

Love, Emily

Patience

"But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Romans 8:25

"I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry." Psalms 40:1

This week is all about patience. I believe that the Lord is trying to teach Mike and me to be patient in certain situations and to trust fully in Him to provide. We are at a bit of a stand-still with the house. It is funny when you hear "short sale" one might imagine that the process would happen quickly to get a property off of the bank's books. Instead, it seems to take much longer than a regular purchase because the bank has to run a bunch of numbers and gets to make all the decisions. So, being pre-qualified and ready to close at any time doesn't seem to get you very far. Thus, we must be satisfied that everything will work out and if we are supposed to have the property then it will happen, and if not then the Lord will provide something else. So often we feel like we have to think ahead and plan and prepare, but the Lord has always provided blessings for us before, so why would he not do the same now?? It is much easier to say than to do. A small set-back with my job interview this week as well. The company had some things come up and have post-poned it to a later date. They will likely let me know in the next week or two.

Until then, I am back in San Antonio and happy to be back with Mike. :) For the remainder of the week, I have planned a lot of hedging around our landscaping in the front of the house, and perhaps pulling some weeds from the flowerbed. Friday, we are meeting with two of our closest friends in San Antonio, John & Kristy Wood for dinner as well as to catch up on their 2 week European vacation. Saturday, our friends Matt & Kalli Turner are having a "couples" baby shower. I haven't seen Kalli in months, and she is due in June so I am anxious to see how great she looks and how much the baby has grown.

Today is the National Day of Prayer, so please take a few moments out of your day to say a prayer for the leaders of our country as well as those in the military fighting for us. Have a great week!

~Emily

Sneak Peek!

I thought I would entice you with a sneak peek of the possible future "Casa de Campbell." It is 3400 Sq. ft and 4 bed/3.5 bath. Today, we are now on contract for this lovely home and pending on the seller's lender approval, it will be ours! We have negotiated the price, been pre-approved for our loan and have that paperwork started, and are currently checking pricing of various inspectors in the area. The property is currently in a "short sale" situation, which makes matters even more confusing than normal. This is Mike and my first time to purchase a house, which comes with many questions as it is, but even more so when you are dealing with a bank on the other side. One of these issues is time frame. We were hoping to close by the end of May, but because the banks typically take a while to run all of their numbers and prioritize our sale, (due to all the foreclosures and short sales out there now) we may not close on the house until sometime in June. In the meantime, Mike will be working from San Antonio until we find out and I will continue the job hunt. I have an interview next week with Study Island in Dallas, so I will remain in Fort Worth through the weekend and the first part of next week. After that, we will be home in San Antonio until either job or house "stuff" brings us back to the metroplex.

This week has been pretty busy so far. I have helped my mother remove all the old wallpaper and popcorn ceiling from my old bathroom. We thoroughly made a mess and are exhausted, but it was entertaining and a workout to say the least. Next comes texturing and painting... we may get some help with the texturing. I enjoyed joining my parents for their Bible study on Monday night, Carino's wine dinner with Mimi, Mom and Dad last night, lunch @ Mi Cocina today with Vivian, and a TCU baseball game scheduled for tomorrow! Mike has been in San Antonio this week because of work and I've been missing him and looking forward to his return on Friday! During your prayers the next few weeks please think of Mike and me during this house buying phase. We certainly appreciate all your love and support! :) Until next time...

~Emily

HE IS RISEN.... HE IS RISEN INDEED!

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Easter! I realize I am a bit behind on my Easter post, but I have been waiting on getting some of our cute Easter pictures from my mother. I now have the pictures so here is the post!

The Saturday before Easter we spent house hunting in Grand Prairie with the Campbells and Roberts and actually made an offer on a house. Unfortunately, the seller did not want to meet us in the middle as far as pricing is concerned, so we decided to continue looking. Easter Sunday we went to Wedgwood Baptist for a wonderful service, followed by lunch @ Uncle Walt & Aunt Karen's with the extended Smith side of the family (Dad's Mom's side). Sunday evening Mike headed back to San Antonio while I stayed behind for a job interview during the week. The interview was for a position in the mid-cities with Merck doing the job I have been doing the past 3 years, but with the New Commercial Model. While I was not selected for the position, I was appreciative to have the opportunity to interview and thankful to past managers and colleagues for their wonderful words of recommendation to the hiring manager. I believe I made a positive impression which can only be good for the future.

Thursday of last week Mimi, Mom and I drove to San Antonio after stopping to shop at the outlet malls in San Marcos. It was Mimi's first trip down to see our house, which we found rather funny since we are about to leave. We met Michael and his Dad, who was in town for business, at Pericos for dinner. On Friday, the ladies headed to Fredericksburg for some more shopping via the Willow City Loop aka "bluebonnet loop." We were disappointed to find that due to a fire and late-blooming there were hardly any bluebonnets on this previously "famous" loop. The view was wonderful of the cliffs and we saw lots of wildlife; deer, sheep, cattle. We actually saw more bluebonnets on the trip home on the main freeway. Saturday Mom and Mimi headed back to Fort Worth and I stayed here with Mike.

On the strike front- no news yet. Seems the union may not be choosing to strike, but simply work while they are negotiating the contract. In my opinion this is probably a good idea since AT&T could probably find enough people without jobs in this economy that would happily take over their jobs. It has also come to my attention that the workers lose their medical/life insurance while striking and it would be rather pricey for them to get on their own or pay for COBRA. Hopefully they will reach a compromise soon and we won't have to continue wondering when we might be hitting the road back to Fort Worth.

Monday of this week Bob (Dad-in-law) came back to San Antonio for business and stayed with us. We enjoyed a tasty dinner at The Olive Garden and an action-packed episode of 24.

Wednesday we enjoyed our first and possibly last FIESTA event. For those of you who are not familiar with FIESTA, it is a huge celebration that happens each year in San Antonio and lasts about a week and a half. We have always wanted to go to a few of the events, but never seem to make it. So, this year we attended "A Taste of the Northside" which is the only official event that is held up in our area of town. Basically, all of the area restaurants come in and provide food tastings such as small entrees, appetizers, or desserts from their restaurants. You also have wine or beer tastings. We received a book with our ticket for 10 food tastings each and 12 1oz wine or 3oz beer tastings. There were 3 live bands and it all took place at the Club at Sonterra which is a nice golf course in Stone Oak. We ran into some of my old Merck colleagues and ran around with a TCU alumni group. We had such a great time! We actually got so full that we didn't even use all of our food tickets. Some of our favorites were Pericos- tacos, Kona's- sushi, La Hacienda- quesadillas, Kirby's-steak and espresso dessert, Melting Pot- chocolate fondue, Chuy's-nachos, Sea Island-coconut shrimp, Maggiano's-custard dessert, and BJ's-pizza. There were many others there as well, but these were just some I remember. The location was packed and after awhile you spent quite a bit of time in the beer and wine lines. This is definitely an event I would love to come back to San Antonio for. We got several coupons from the restaurants and hope to visit a few of them that we hadn't been to before we leave for the Dallas area.

Lastly, this morning I had a phone interview for an Inside Sales position with a company called Study Island in Dallas, TX. They are a quickly growing educational publisher and are responsible for many of the programs that teachers use to help prepare their students for the TAKS exams. (State standardized testing) While this job would be quite different from what I've been doing the past 3 years, I feel pretty confident about the opportunities that I could have there and believe that the work environment would be very fun and uplifting to have supportive people working around you everyday. Also, a great friend Mara works there and we would work on the same floor! :) I have been invited to an "in person" interview the week of May 4th and hope to learn more about the work environment then. I will keep you updated!

That's it for now, sorry it was so long- I had 2 weeks to catch up on. Here are the pictures! :)

Love, Emily

Michael and me in our Easter outfits

3 of the 4 Roberts ladies after church- Maggie, Mom, & Me

My wonderful parents after the kiddos' Easter egg hunt

Waiting for the word... GO!

We have officially entered the time of waiting for a simple text from AT&T telling Mike when he has to report for his strike duty. On Saturday at midnight, a large AT&T Union contract expired and they are currently in negotiations. Until the time that a compromise is reached the union workers over 100K could go on strike at any time. If this happens, then Mike will be working from Fort Worth in a call center responsible for making payments towards accounts/closing accounts/etc. Luckily, we plan to be in Fort Worth next weekend for Easter anyways, but are hopeful to have at least 24 hours notice to get packed up and head that way. Today I am doing some cleaning and laundry in order to hopefully be ready. It is always possible that it could be another week or two before they strike, but rumors have it that they may leave in the middle of a shift which would be more disruptive for AT&T's business.

Brother & Sis-in Law visit- We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend with Matt & Vivian. Some things we enjoyed: Texas Pride BBQ (made famous by Triple D- Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives), La Paloma Blanca- good Mexican food and tasty margaritas, church Sunday @ Crossbridge, relaxing poolside at San Antonio Country Club, & enjoying some beautiful sun and fun conversation over drinks in our backyard. In all, I think it was a great visit. We were so happy they were able to come down before we leave San Antonio. On the trip back to DFW, we stopped at the outlets in Round Rock for about an hour and a half and did our part to try to boost the economy. ;) I picked a cute Easter outfit- skirt and blouse, and a dress for Fall/Winter from Ann Taylor.

On the house front- Last week I spent several days going through houses in the Grand Prairie area with my Mom and our realtor, Melinda. I found two that I really like and could be happy living in. However, one of them is currently receiving an offer so that one may be out of the picture. If the second home doesn't work out then we will be very hopeful for something else to come on the market soon. Our lease is up on our home here in San Antonio May 31st, so we hope to be moving that week before, but only the Lord knows if that will happen. Mike is set to start in Dallas June 1st, but it could be postponed depending on the house situation. Mike plans to see the houses this upcoming weekend when we travel for Easter and after we know how he feels about them, we will either make an offer or continue looking. I will wait to post any pictures until we are more solid in our decision. The anticipation of our fellow blog-readers will be unbearable I am sure. ;)

Job hunt- Well, no news regarding the job search at this time. I have applied for an opening with Merck in Bedford, Texas which would be an easy transition. I have also applied for a Sales Rep position with Study Island in Dallas, Texas, which is where one of my best friends, Mara, works. I am still praying something comes out of one of these positions, but once again if it's not meant to be I'm sure something else will present itself when the time is right. I suppose that's all for now. Hope everyone has a blessed week!

Love, Emily