A new Burkhead Addition!

I guess this is a few days late, as we got him on Sunday, but we got a dog! Sorry I don't have pictures yet, but I will post some soon. :) He is a one year old Australian Shepherd, red and white with green eyes, and his name is Buddy. (<----- that was the shelter's name, not ours, but we figured he was too old to change his name). He is super sweet, he loves Caylen and she loves him! She was already calling him Buddy by the 2nd day! Pictures to come!

We Are Moving to Blairsville!

Part 1
So, the other day when Brandon came home from work, Monday it was, he came up to me and gave me a great big kiss and said , "You are a genius." Uh, ok. It happened, coincidentally, to be the day that marked him being home for a year. I had made him a homemade angel food cake, with lots of cream cheese icing, and it said "<3 Welcome Home <3" I thought he might have been really glad that I made him a cake? Yeah I had no idea why he would be calling me a genius.... He followed this with telling me that on his way home, he had received a phone call from a military couple PCSing from Ft. Drum. They wanted to rent our house!

We had just put it up for rent about 10 days prior!! The guy came by and took pictures and put it up on his site, which would cost us a little $ if we went through him. However, I had an idea, since I was a former military wife myself, that I could put it on the site I always used to find a house: ahrn.com (automated housing referral network). It is a site that has rental houses specifically around military bases, and there is no fee! I put up the pics and gave a good description of it and BAM we get this call. SO awesome. Now. It is not like me to just get excited at the prospect of tenants; I don't get excited about something unless I know it's gonna happen. However, they did sign a 1 year lease yesterday! They were really sweet too-- they have one child, a 9 month old boy, and they were about our age. I talked to the wife for a while yesterday and I think this is going to be a great blessing! We have been praying for a way to get 'over the mountain' so we wouldn't have to live so far away from family, friends, church, etc. God truly answered our prayers!

Part 2
So if Part 1 is about getting our house rented, Part 2 I guess is us trying to find a place to rent ourselves. Why rent and not buy? Well, for one, we need it immediately and we don't have time for closing, even if we could get a loan. However, the fact that we already have a mortgage and even though we are renting it out, most lenders are not going to count rent as income... blah blah blah, boring loan stuff.  So, of course we are going to rent for a while until we can find a place to buy that we will live in until we rot. yuck. So we looked at a couple of places... the first place was an old house with a great yard, but a very outdated oven (stone age), no overhead lighting in bedrooms, and a little dirty with a funky smell. Hmm. Also a little pricey for the included dirt bonus. Place #2 was a great townhouse, small, but great. All wood floors, with some tile, basement, all new-- including appliances and granite countertops. Breathtaking! But, small. 2 Bedrooms, 1 whole bath, 1 half bath. I guess I need to get used to showering with Caylen's Boon Frog Pod.  The price is super duper too! Yes, it is a little small, but it is temporary.  I arranged to sign the lease on Friday. Woo hoo, right? Well, I looked over the lease and saw that it said the ever dreaded "no pets" clause. We have a cat. So, that is a problem. I emailed the lady I had been talking to and asked her about it, but she hasn't got back to me yet. I really hope they can work with us on this one, because there really isn't anywhere else to rent in Blairsville. and oh yeah, we move on Saturday.
THIS Saturday, the 20th. Whew!
We have already packed up a lot, but some stuff we are just gonna leave out and pack into our car. We are luckily very used to moving so this is not as painful as it would have been if we hadn't moved four six times already. This will be seven. I am so happy that we will be on the other side though so I am just trying to see the silver lining in packing all these boxes. We are one step closer! Just please keep us in your prayers as we go through this transition, and that we find a place to live soon! I know God brought us these renters and He will find a place for us to live!

Edit:

The landlord emailed me back and told me that pets are accepted on a case by case basis, and then told me she would meet to sign the lease, so I am assuming we are in the clear :)  YAY!

We Made it to GA!

So we are finally here, back in GA. We were very happy to leave Killeen and to finally be getting back home. The only word I knew to describe how we felt was exhaustion. Pure exhaustion. Our stuff was packed up on Monday, then it was moved out on Tuesday. Wednesday we used to clean the entire house from top to bottom, get the pest control people to come, and have the carpet professionally cleaned. I accidentally threw away my keys to the duplex, yeah stupid I know, and Brandon had to dig through the trash to find them and threw up whilst looking for them! Poor thing.... We did survive the week though which is all that counts, and I will tell you the truth, there were times that I was not so sure we would survive!
So on Thursday, the day we had planned to start our journey, we waited for 2 hours for Longhorn Properties to come and do a walk through and the finally came and so we didn't get to leave until 1 PM. We had planned to leave before 11 so this threw the proverbial 'wrench' into our plans. We ended up staying Thursday night in Shreveport, which is not very far just maybe 6 hours, but we got to hang out with Allison and Daniel so it was really nice to see them. We didn't know if we would be able to make it home by Friday or not, but Brandon did really well driving and we made pretty good time. We ended up making it back to Blairsville by 8:30 Central time last night. Caylen was very good on the trip for the most part; she was fussy Friday because she was off her nap schedule but she still did pretty well. The cats did pretty well, too except for the first couple hours of driving. They had to sit and wait for us to finish the walk through so they were really tired of being in the crates by the time we left. Sox especially was freaking out-- she was foaming at the mouth and drooling and vomiting! She is okay though, of course, she just gets stressed easily. Well, we will be in Blairsville until Monday morning when we do the walk through with our renters and then transportation is bringing our household goods between 8 and 10. So, we have a couple of days to relax before we have to start getting everything unpacked! Whew!

Creeping, Almost Crawling! And a Creepy Crawly.....

Well, since the last post, Caylen can not only clap, wave, and say dada, but she is finally creeping and can crawl a few steps too! She is finally getting mobile, thankfully, but she just had to do it in her own time I guess! Still no teeth, however, she has been acting like she has been having teething pain. A lot. She is pretty much sleeping throughout the night now though, except for a couple of early wakings due to what seems like teething. She will go to bed at 7:30 and get up at 5 am for a feeding, then go to sleep 'til a little after 6. She is definitely an early riser! She has been taking much better naps though! She naps for at least an hour, generally, and her morning nap is great for me to shower and relax! So, I am finding out that it actually does get at least somewhat easier as they get older!
As for the adults in the household, we are getting ready to move! Not quite as fun as it sounds, but we are excited about being in Georgia once again. So, I have been a cleaning and organizing maniac! We also have to get rid of a lot of stuff so we can fit into a 2 bedroom house once again, but this time with a baby as well.
We had an interesting incident happen the other day too. I figured it was worth mentioning on here since it was so peculiar. I was walking by the kitchen the other day and I saw what looked like a banana peel string underneath the chair. I went to pick it up and thought it was actually a stick, but upon inspection concluded it was a lizard tail! Yuck. Well, Brandon somehow convinced me that the lizard must have ran back outside so I didn't worry too much. Well, the next morning I saw the cat hovering over something by the door and it was the LIZARD! It was big, too! The thing was about the size of a small mouse and when I called Brandon to tell him, he convinced me to throw a towel over it and toss it outside. GROSS! But, I did and it ended up dying not long after that in our yard. I guess the cat is good for something after all! ;)