The Willimers in America

We bought a house !

Three days ago we were wondering if we would ever find a suitable house in Hopewell in time to move on. Today our attorney told us that contracts were signed, we are out of 'attorney review' and the des. res. round the corner with 3 bedrooms, kitchen, lounge, dining room, family room, sun room, workshop, two car garage, swimming pool is ours. The house went on the market on Tuesday, Linda saw it at 10.00 am, she dragged me over at 4.30pm, we made the offer at 6pm, our realtor got the offer accepted next day, and our attorney exchanged contracts with their attorney this afternoon (Thurs).

We are learning that things work very different here - learning too slowly, constantly asking the realtor, the attorney and anyone else who will listen "what do we do now ?" Here in the U.S. you get the contracts done first, which means that you can get all your inspections done next, knowing that the house is yours, but with the chance to re-negotiate or pull out if your inspections show problems. It's all very structured, with dates to keep to. We even know now, two days after we first saw it, that we'll be moving in on June 20th.

Bad News, Good News, Bad News

It's surprising I haven't written more about Tom and his development here. As well as the normal obsessive interest in every aspect of our offspring's development - just like every other parent - we've been struggling over the last 12 months with addressing his ADHD through a combination of medication, behaviour management and counselling.

Happily he seems to be developing as the bright, capable and interesting boy we always thought he would be, despite us having to deal with more than the odd phone call from school...

So Linda is becoming increasingly torn when she finds him reading in bed after lights out (against the rules) only to find he is sitting there with a 'proper' story book, not some comic or picture thing (very comforting) until she finds out exactly what it is he is reading...

...Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 2 - The Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers...and...

...The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby !

Here we go again...

Did I say before about getting a snowblower ? Last night it snowed again. Starting Monday lunchtime, the widely forecast storm gathered pace throughout the afternoon, encouraging people (including me) to leave work early, and dumping around 7 inches of snow on our lot.

Seeing as I had got up early on Friday morning to clear the drive, I was not looking forward to doing it one more time. OK, so I've got the routine down now, but it's still hard work - both physical, and motivating yourself to keep going, knowing in the back of your mind that there's even more snow on the way, and you're going to do it all over again...