Chaos!

Since my last posting, any semblance of routine has gone out the window, with exception that school children still come and go on a schedule, which means I am in a bus driving them on a regular basis. That's about it.

It did not take very long since my mom-in-law Maryann arrived on March 4th (the Sunday before last) to realize that it was a good thing we had not purchased her round-trip airfare. She wants to stay! This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The good of course, is that I love my second mommy and want her close by, along with her boyfriend, and we might even be hauling Jamie's brother out here for a new start and good times. But the bad part is, Jamie and I hadn't gotten a rental of our own a month ago because we had decided that Klamath Falls isn't the one place we think we'd like to settle into and stay forever. Our friends and roommates kindly agreed to let us stay with them the rest of the year until summer when school and work ends and we'll move to Colorado. Now, the search for a rental resumes, but with more people and pets to consider, for a short duration and unknown long-term plans and goals after that.

The other good news is that I get to go to Florida! Originally, Jamie's dad had been planning to buy us tickets to come and visit during Spring Break. Life happened, and instead our visit had to be canceled. Instead, Jamie and I had enough money to bring his mom to us for a visit, and we didn't have to wait until Spring Break to do it this way. With us going to retrieve the rest of the family, I still get my visit! It turns out after several days of research and poking Google repeatedly that renting a fuel-efficient car to drive to Florida and back is the cheapest option. Our black car, while awesome, is not a sipper of gasoline but a chugger, and of the expensive stuff too. So travel seems to be arranged and ready to set in motion.

As for where to put everyone, we have a really nice place hopefully secured. This house wasn't even listed anywhere. We spent all morning yesterday driving around looking at my list of 22 potential candidates scoured from craigslist, the nickel (Oregon's Pennysaver) and newspaper classified ads. Of those, I don't think we found a single one worth anything. Several homes were not something we liked, lots of them were overpriced for what they were (this coming from a beachfront-dweller used to stupidly-high rent even!), and some were ruled out due to having no yards for the puppies, or being way too close to neighbors who would be nosy. I had to go to work before we had finished looking through the list, but it wasn't looking like a good situation.

When I was done with my route, however, I hopped into the car with good news waiting for me. Jamie and his mom had looked at the other places and were sitting dejectedly at a light waiting for it to turn green, when Jamie saw a real estate place and decided to walk in. I'm not sure on all the details, but they took me to see a really cute place which is absolutely trashed from the last renters. In the next week it should be cleaned and ready for us to move in (we hope, nothing is final). I hope we get it, and this house was affordable, with 3 small bedrooms and a decent patch of grassy yard as well as a sort of garage-shed. It had a lot of cute touches of "personality" such as built-in shoe racks in the closets, neat cupboards and such, and a simple compact layout. The house looks tiny, but seemed roomy inside. I admit, I'm not doing a very good job of not getting my hopes up.

If everything does work out, we'll have keys in-hand just before we leave on our retrieval mission.

We had a lovely time at the Lava Beds last weekend also, but that will be a tale all on its own. For now, here are some pictures from the 4th:

Welcome to Medford.

Her airplane is the tiny silver one. 

Her first airplane took off late from Florida, she missed her connecting flight in Denver, and spent the night reading (and rereading) a small book. She then got a flight to San Francisco instead, waited a couple hours more, then took the silver plane to Medford, Oregon.

First thing we did was go to Olive Garden for lunch. This drink on an empty stomach makes for a funny mom!

Yay, she's on the ground!

We were very happy to not have her stuck in Denver still.

Also very happy to have Chinchillas! (Enchiladas. Which, even if I follow the recipe, will never be a proper substitute for the real thing, even if the bottoms burn from altitude differences)

Look! I remembered to get the camera out before I ate it all up!

Today is Thursday, but there is no school tomorrow due to the end of the grading period, yay!

Have a great weekend!