Smells Like...

Evans, CO
"Where it smells just like Greeley!"

...which reminds me... a few months ago I'd popped into the tax office and told MJ about our upcoming move. She knew of Loveland, and said, "I hope you like the smell of cows!" Hmmm... I chuckled but filed that comment away for cautious review later. When we were here in March, we did smell cows once or twice, in the evening. We've done some research, and it seems that out here in the Greeley / Evans area, there's a lot of cow business. Greeley and Evans are east of Loveland, and we will be living on the west side of town, so we hope to not smell that lovely aroma too often! Actually, I haven't smelled it all that I can recall when we've been in town; but you definitely can smell it out here.

It's not constant, but it's frequent. Every so often you just get this nice, strong feeling like you're at the 4H exhibit at the fair. And if there's any doubt, we have our resident announcer J to make it plain: "Smells like cow dung again!" Lovely, huh?

Last night we took the kids to Cracker Barrel for dinner. They loved the gift shop. Gotta admit they have some pretty cool things in there. I sure would like one of those white rockers for my new small front porch, too. :) G loved the mini rockers! J and C got to have their first Pop Rocks experience. That was fun. :)

We walked through the house today with a repair guy named Josh. He put us at ease about a lot of things, especially the basement walls that were improperly constructed. He thinks that if they were going to cause a problem, they already would have by now. We are now thinking that for paint and repairs that need to be done before we move in, we should be able to get them done for about $2000-$3000, not including the appliances and furniture we'll have to buy as well. A lot of what needs to be done is cosmetic anyway and can be done here and there as we go. It's not a serious fixer-upper, but the previous owners did remove a few things they shouldn't have - I think I mentioned the a/c unit, and they took some bathroom cabinetry and a bathroom sink unit, toilet tank lid, thermostat, etc. Hey, when we moved into Linden, it didn't even have a garage door!

But I think it's going to work. We still have to work out the financing end, but it shouldn't be a problem. We actually have some paperwork that we were going to drop off today, but shortly after the walk-through with J, we were in Sam's Club getting J more glasses when C got sick. She has been headachy and throwing up off and on since about 11. She just got in the shower a bit ago though and I can hear her singing, so hopefully she's on the road to recovery.

Boy there's sure a lot to do, though. On the short list we need to transfer our auto insurance to a local office, go find a bank and open a checking account (I still can't believe they don't have BofA here!), finish up the paperwork on the loan, and we enroll the kids in school on Monday. We also need to pick up a used car somewhere for Ro before he starts work (they did call today and his official start date is on the 27th, same day the kids start school). And we'll have lots of shopping to do - couch/loveseat, kitchen table, oven, fridge, washer/dryer, mattresses, kids' school stuff... :: sigh :: I get pretty overwhelmed when I think about it. I'm actually glad Ro doesn't have to work for awhile and that escrow should close early. We have a lot to get done! I'm looking forward to tomorrow - not much to do! We may go check out that sculpture expo and some other stuff, but I'm really looking forward to a day without a lot to do. I'm tired, so tired!

I can't believe a week ago we were packing up and headed for Vegas. It just blows my mind. I'm so looking forward to getting into the house. This hotel living is kind of for the birds! The hotel itself has been fairly nice, inexpensive (comparitively), and the staff has been great, but it's not a home!

On a technical note, I got the comments thing automated and was able to add a couple of pictures to the other blogs from this week. We tried to find a cow today to add his picture to this entry, but, despite smelling like we were getting close, we couldn't find one easily and decided instead to go back to the hotel and swim. hahaha Happy Weekend, everyone. :)