Thanksgiving Weekend

Kolby and I spent Thanksgiving with my family down at my parents' ranch. I took an extra day off of work so I had my first 4-day weekend since I started my new job back in July... it was SO NICE! Our extended family on my mom's side joined us for most of the weekend, but not everyone was able to make it so we maxed out at 16. [This is a different side of the family than who we spent Labor Day down at the ranch with, in case anyone is keeping track :)] As always, we had the best time together... I just love, love, love getting together with our family and the ranch has definitely turned out to be the perfect gathering spot that my parents hoped it would be-- maybe even better than they had hoped!

Here are some highlights from the weekend, but I'll warn you that this post is going to be LONG! There is just a lot to do with that much land and that many people!

My mom is in the process of putting together a photo tour of the ranch, so I'll wait and let her get that finished and then link to the website-- but I did snap a few of our room and of the new pond.

All of the kids' rooms have a queen bed and then a bunk bed with a double bed on the bottom and a twin bed on the top. They are set up a little differently, but they all have a bathroom and a small front porch. We each got to decorate our own rooms, which was fun.

The property had a small pond on it that my parents decided to expand so it would be big enough to make for some good bass fishing. In the picture below, the gray dirt with all of the texture just above the water is where the old pond used to be, and the recent rains have started to fill the new pond.
I took this picture from the top of the dam, looking back towards the house, and the picture below it is a closer shot of the back side of the house.

My dad used to be a farmer. He moved on from farming when Brad and I were toddlers, but his passion and sentiment for land and all things farm-related hasn't wavered. It's a big part of why my parents built the ranch in the first place... to get away from the city life and back to their country roots and be able to pass the joys of a rural lifestyle on to their children and grandchildren. A couple of weeks ago, my dad finally pulled the trigger and bought a used tractor for the ranch. Before any extended family arrived this weekend, he called all the boys up to the barn and taught each one how to drive and operate a tractor. Once they learned, he put them to work hauling some leftover stone from the house up to the barn.

It took a few trips, and Kolby snapped this picture on their way back to the house. That's Russell driving and Brad in the bucket. So that's my dad, riding his tractor with his two sons... probably hog heaven for him.

Here is a picture of Kolby and I on the 4-wheeler and dirt bike.

My parents lease some of the land to a neighbor rancher who runs his cattle on it. It's a great deal because they keep the grass from growing too tall and we still get to ride around on it. Unfortunately, Kolby found a fresh cow patty with the dirt bike and the back wheel flipped it up all over the back of his pants. Funny, but gross.

Once the rest of the family arrived, it was non-stop eating and game playing. We play A LOT of games in our family. Mostly cards and dominoes... for hours and hours. It wasn't until college that I learned that not all families do this. We have such a great time, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Since the weather was so nice, we put together a whilffle ball game, too. Brad and Russell were team captains and chose the teams, and for some reason decided to wear helmets to designate themselves as such. And yes, that is Russell's team giving each other high fives as each person joined... we have no problem with pushing the cheesiness limits in this family. Side note: I was chosen dead last. My brothers even chose my mom and my two aunts ahead of me. Needless to say, they think really highly of my athletic ability.

This picture cracks me up. The whiffle ball got stuck in the gutter so the natural solution was to hoist Remy onto Brad's shoulders to retrieve it, even though there was a ladder 10 ft. away.

Kolby and I made blueberry and strawberry pancakes for everyone one morning.

Since the ranch was completed and my dad brought his nice telescope down there, Kolby has become obsessed with star gazing. And I mean obsessed. I don't find it that interesting, but I do enjoy taking a look when he focuses on something cool, like the moon up close or Jupiter with its moons. Last week he and my dad got an attachment that allows you to hook up a camera to the telescope, and although they're still working out the kinks and aren't able to use the high magnification lens when taking pictures, here's a shot Kolby took of the moon.

Then yesterday Kolby developed a new found obsession: wood cutting.
It was a great Thanksgiving weekend and we are so thankful to have such a great place to spend it at and a great family to spend it with!

Thanksgiving

We are always thankful for so many things, and this year is no exception.

We are thankful for God's grace and forgiveness.

This year, we are especially thankful for His guidance and provision.

We are thankful for our family.

This year, we are expecially thankful for their help in our move from Waco to here.

We are thankful for my new job.

We are especially thankful that it brought us home.

We are thankful for Maya.

We are especially thankful that she makes us a family

We are thankful that Kolby finally has the opportunity to pursue further education in poetry.

We are especially thankful that he enjoys it so much.

We are thankful for our friends.

We are especially thankful that we now live close to many of them.

We are thankful for our house.

We are especially thankful for how perfect it is for us!

We are thankful for our time together.

This year, just like last year, we get to spend several hours every single day just hanging out together. We know our life won't always be as simple as it is right now, so we're enjoying it while we can!

***

We're headed down to my parents' ranch tomorrow to spend Thankgiving with our extended family. I'm taking Friday off of work so we're pretty excited about the long weekend. Plus all the food. Its going to be a good time.

And just because I get a kick out of this picture every year:

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Fall

We have yet to dig ourselves out of the blanket of leaves that grace our lawn every.single.day. I honestly hadn’t given much thought to the naming of this season before now. So fitting.

Maya doesn’t have one single complaint about the piles of leaves that we allow to reside in our yard for longer than we should.The leaf piles add one more texture to her backyard line-up. She has a very specific route that she passionately and joyfully runs when she is struck with sudden bursts of energy: grass, wood deck, concrete driveway, grass, leaf piles, ivy ground cover; repeat. Suffice to say that she is definitely making the most out of finally having a yard.

We have officially finished our fence. Yes, the project that was slated to be started and finished in August has finally been completed… just in time for Thanksgiving! It still needs to be stained, but we’re strongly considering hiring someone to do that because it would cost about the same as staining it ourselves and it’ll save us from delving into yet another nightmare DIY (do-it-yourself) project. We’re about maxed out with those.

Our backyard is really coming together. We bought some patio furniture off Craig’s List last week that I’m working on sanding and painting. I think it’ll look really good once it’s finished. I’ll take some pictures of our backyard soon. Right now we’re saving for a car, but once we make that purchase here in a few weeks we’re going to start putting some money aside to do some landscaping in the spring. Not a lot, just something to add some color. We have a lot of trees and plenty of bushes/plants/ivy, but everything is green and brown. Kolby really wants to plant some climbing roses along our back fence and I want to plant some flowers around the perimeter of the house. Money seems to be flying out the window these days so that endeavor will have to wait awhile!

There are a lot of small things about having a house that I am really enjoying. This week, it has been decorating for Thanksgiving. We didn’t decorate for holidays at all when we lived in our apartment because we knew that place was temporary and we didn’t want to buy stuff just to move it less than a year later. I’ve been waiting for fall decorations to go on sale and Hobby Lobby finally came through for me with an 80% off all fall merchandise sale this week. We keep to a very tight budget so I only allowed myself to spend $20, but I feel like a little went a long way in making our house Thanksgiving-ready.

As a total aside, we have a lot of great news so share from Kolby’s family. In order of occurrence: Kolby’s brother, Kason, passed the bar exam and started working at a law firm in Houston; Kolby’s sister, Kassidy, got engaged to her longtime sweetheart, Derek; Kolby’s parents adopted a PRECIOUS little puppy (their dog, Ginger, passed away in August)… she is a tiny shih tzu-dachshund mix and they named her Muppet; and Kason and his wife, Sarah, purchased their first house! What a month! Also, the cabin that the Kerrs are building on their land in Wimberley is coming together really quickly and is looking awesome. We are very much looking forward to celebrating all of these things together at Christmas!

Mr. Fat Hand

Kolby got stung by a bee over the weekend while we were working on our new fence. When I came home from work on Monday, he showed me this:His bony hand had been replaced with this beast, and I laughed harder than I had in awhile. Poor thing.

The concrete around the poles didn't dry in time for us to put the wood fence panels up on Sunday like we had planned, so we're having to do it a little at a time this week so we can still stain it all this weekend. I get home from work about 20 minutes before it is pitch dark outside ("daylight savings"-- yeah right!), so we have just enough time to put up one 8ft. panel each day. I'm sure our neighbors think we are so ambitious.

Fall is in full force in our backyard and Kolby finally bought a rake and tackled the blanket of leaves today. He took this picture with his phone and sent it to me at work: Leaf piles are apparently making their way to the top of Maya's top 10 list. I mentioned before that Maya typically crosses her front paws when she lays down. Ten thousand pictures of her later, I hope everyone has come to terms with the fact that I wasn't making that up.

We've had a lazy week here at the Kerr household, and I talked Kolby into letting us have blueberry pancakes for dinner two nights in a row. PLUS chocolate milk. Life just doesn't get much better than that!

Weekend Update

We've had a string of packed weekends lately. We've gotten to put off replacing the fence in our backyard as a result, though, so that's been an added bonus. I don't have a ton of pictures, but here are a few.

Here's a picture from a few weeks ago when Laura came home from Colorado for the weekend. We didn't do much, just ate a lot of BBQ and hung out. The guys joined us, too. Starting at the left there's Katie with her boyfriend, Daniel; Laura with her fiancee, Benton; Kolby and me; and Alayne and her husband, Tommy. We (girls) have been best friends since middle school.

Then three weekends ago, we went down to Austin for a UT game and hung out with Kolby's family at their ranch in Wimberley. Somehow the only pictures I ended up with were of the pups. These guys were having the time of their lives down there. Maya loves her cousin, Molly. So much so that I almost took her to the vet the following week because she was being really sluggish, but then I realized that she was just being a mope over missing Molly after a long weekend together.

A favorite: Maya trying to chew on something while Molly tries to chew on her.
We attended a hometown wedding the weekend before last and a lot of our friends came in town for it so we had fun catching up with everyone. The wedding was in the bride's parents' backyard and it was absolutely beautiful.
The picture above doesn't show it well, but I cut my hair off that week. It was time. My hair was much longer than it had ever been in my whole life, so I had Kolby take a picture of it for good measure. It was even a couple inches longer than this when I straightened it. There were a LOT of curls on the floor after that haircut!

Finally, we went to Waco this past weekend for Baylor homecoming. It was our first time back since we moved at the end of May. Here's a picture of my parents with Russell, who is a sophomore there this year.
We tried to get a family shot after the [horrible] football game, and halfway through taking the picture we realized my dad was on the phone. My aunt was counting 1..2.. and then all the sudden we heard Dad saying "Hey Remy, just checking to see how Brad was feeling..." Seriously?!? He was smiling the whole time as if the fact that he was ON THE PHONE would go unnoticed in the picture.
Notice that both of my parents have their jacket/sweatshirt tied around their waist... classic Webb style. Strap on a couple of fanny packs with an attached water bottle holder and you've got a replica of a family Disneyworld picture from 1993.

We met some of our Waco friends at a park after the game. Our up-and-coming photographer friend, Walker, took this picture of Maya watching the rest of us throw a frisbee. So poised.

***

On a different note, today is October 26th. That means that Kolby and I have been together for eight years! Our wedding anniversary is really important to us, but this date will always have a special place in our hearts as well.

As we drove I-35 to Waco this weekend, we had a nostalgic conversation about how we've driven that stretch of road together during so many completely different phases in our relationship.

We drove it in early high school when we headed to a stadium in Waco to watch our school's football team compete in the state semi-finals. We talked about who would win the game and did NOT talk about how we had kissed two weeks earlier.

We drove it when we were 17 and on our way to Wimberley for the first weekend I ever spent there with Kolby's family. We talked about whether or not it'd be weird to sleep under the same roof.

I drove it by myself for 2 1/2 years while I attended Baylor and Kolby went to Wheaton. I either talked to Kolby on the phone or cried about how much I missed him.

We drove it when we spent a day over Christmas break in Waco looking for an apartment for Kolby. We talked and talked and talked about how wonderful it would be to live in the same town (or state!) again.

We drove it when we came up here to "look" at some stray dogs at a local animal control center that were scheduled to be euthanized. On the way back, we talked about what on earth we were going to do with the sick, shaking husky that was curled up in the back floorboard.

We drove it every summer weekend the year we got married. We talked about the litany of wedding planning matters we needed to take care of that trip.

After we got back from our honeymoon and celebrated our first Christmas together with each of our families, we drove it to our first home together. We talked about how cold moving-in was going to be since we forgot to sign up for electricity.

Then in May we drove it from Waco into the great unknown. We talked about the wonderful life we were leaving behind and took bets as to how long we'd be without a home of our own. (Neither of us guessed 3 months!!!)

Who knows what that road will have in store for us in the future, but it sure has been good to us so far!

Single-Ply

Not much is new around here, but I figured I’d fill everyone in on the latest since that’s the purpose of this blog.

Kolby has been working non-stop lately. He had heard that substitute teaching gigs in this area are hard to come by, but once again, being a male English teacher has proven to be a hot commodity. He no longer has to go through the “sub-finder” website or call logs; he now gets personal phone calls from the school principals requesting him by name. For the past two weeks, he’s been teaching language arts at a nearby junior high. There was an SAT test this past weekend, so he’s been double-timing it at the college prep center as well. Some days he goes straight from one job to the other and works more than 12 hours straight, and he has also been teaching several SAT classes each weekend. So he’s been my little worker bee lately, but things will slow down for him soon. SAT season is pretty much over, so he’s switching to just substitute teaching a few days a week and will concentrate much more on grad school since the fall quarter began at the beginning of this month. He’s really enjoyed all of the work, and we’re certainly thankful for all of the hours he’s getting, but he’s ready to switch his focus back to his writing.

Staying this busy causes Kolby to lose weight because he just doesn’t have time to eat enough calories. His high metabolism drives me nuts. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to lose a few of the many pounds I have gained since we’ve been married and him stepping off the scale and griping about how his weight just keeps going down. I was giving him a hard time about it the other night and he said, “It’s OK honey, we can meet in the middle!” Very funny.

Kolby claims it’s hard work trying to maintain a sufficient caloric intake, but it’s difficult to feel sorry for someone who spent the last two weeks chipping away at a HUGE chocolate cake some friends brought over.

You’re right, dear; having to eat large quantities of delicious chocolate cake straight from the pan must be tough.

In other news, we have tree roots infringing upon our plumbing which caused our sewer lines to back-up twice in less than 2 months. Fun! The plumber that we called out this last time also detected a semi-broken connection near our house that he thought was probably a main compounding problem because toilet paper can get caught up there and cause a clog. Replacing the broken connection would cost around $700 and addressing the tree root problem is incomprehensibly expensive, so we’ve opted for a hillbilly fix--- a switch to single-ply toilet paper. A plumber may totally disagree with this logic, but I have to figure that septic-safe, single-ply toilet paper will dissolve much better and decrease the likelihood of clogging the pipes. Right?!? That’s our plan for now, and we’ll make a decision on what to do next based on how long we go before it backs up again. I apologize in advance for those of you who come visit us and are relegated to using toilet paper comparable to that which is found in gas station restrooms. Oh the joys of home ownership!

We’ve had a lot of visitors to our house lately, which has been really fun but also reminds us of all of the stuff we still need to do to the house. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t really notice that we don’t have any curtains, that all of the bedroom walls are completely bare, that our office is a total wreck, that we have a kitchen cabinet with two huge holes in the back of it, and that we have a massive pile of fence-building materials in the middle of our backyard… but giving people a tour always serves to remind me of what is still on our to-do list. When I go over with Kolby what needs to be done, he says we should just sell the house. We're just tired of house projects!

But you know who never gets tired of a single thing about this house? Maya. Boy does she love this place. She loves her fun yard, she loves that the front window has a sill that's the perfect height for her to sit up and rest her chin on as she keeps watch over the house, and she especially loves the glass back door.All in all, things are going great here. We've had a string of very eventful weekends that I'll post about once I get some pictures together. One thing worth mentioning now, though, is that we went and saw Where the Wild Things Are at the IMAX theatre and it was fantastic. I would highly recommend it!

Welcome, Welcome!

I kept waiting to show you guys our new house until it was completely put together and complete, but I don't know if that will actually happen anytime soon so I figured I'd just go ahead with a tour.

So, without further adieu.... welcome to our first home! We fall in love with it more and more each day!

Here's the view from our front yard. I may be biased, but I think we have the cutest little house in the neighborhood!

When you first walk in, we have a small entryway. The living room is to the right, the dining room/kitchen is straight ahead, and the hallway to the bathroom and the bedrooms is forward and to the left. *Maya loves to have her picture taken so as soon as I got the camera out she was trying to pose in front of every shot. I got her out of the way for most, but she insisted on being in this one.

Here's the view of our living room from the entryway. The doorway on the left leads to the kitchen. Here are two shots from the other side of the living room, facing towards the entryway. *We are planning to lower the mirror above the entry table a bit... we just haven't got around to it yet :) Here's the kitchen. This picture was taken from the doorway between it and the living room.
Another shot of the kitchen. The oven is original, from 1957.
This is my favorite part of the kitchen. Check out how spacious this cupboard is. No more digging around in a tiny bottom cabinet for what pot or pan I want to use!
The kitchen has granite counter tops and a marble tile back splash, which was a great update. We replaced the old vent-a-hood with this new black one and are in the midst of a renovating the cabinet above it, as you can tell.

This is the pantry that Kolby's grandfather built for us. He built it to match our other cabinets, so it looks great and gives us a lot of extra storage space. The pantry is directly across from the end of the counter with the stove, and you walk between them to get from the kitchen to the dining area.
This is our dining area. The doorway in this picture leads to the entryway and the hallway to the rest of the house.
Here's a shot of the entire dining and kitchen area. We replaced both light fixtures and painted the walls taupe. On the left is the glass door that leads to our backyard.
The back door is Maya's FAVORITE spot. She loves laying there and keeping watch over what's going on outside.
Our house has one hallway and the first stop is the guest bathroom.
I LOVE this vanity. We love all of the updates that the previous owners did to the house, namely the kitchen counter tops and the complete renovation of the bathrooms, but this is my favorite thing that they did. Just for fun, here's a shot of the beautiful shower.
One great thing about this house is the unbelievable amount of storage space it has given its size. This is a cabinet in the guest bathroom and it is as deep as that shower wall. So nice. This is the aforementioned hallway. This photo was taken from the guest bathroom. Just to put the floor plan into perspective: the front of the house is behind me, the living room is to my right and is at the front of the house, the kitchen/dining area is to my right and is at the back of the house, the guest rooms are the first and third doors to the left, and the master bedroom is straight ahead. The other doors in this picture are closets, including a laundry closet. The entry, living room and hallway are all painted the most beautiful green paint color I've ever seen. I would never have had the guts to paint my house this color, but we both absolutely love it and it works perfect in this house. Please note the fresh WHITE trim in this photo... it was such hard work but it turned out so great. The same goes for the new hardware on the doors.
We use the first spare bedroom as an office. This is the room I'm most embarrassed to post a picture of because it is certainly our biggest work-in-progress, but I'll just put up some better pictures once we get it more in order. Eventually, I'll have a nice clear desk to use, Kolby will have his own large corner desk to use, I'll have a folding table to use for taking care of bills, filing, etc., and Kolby will have recliner to sit and read in. We use our second spare room as a guest bedroom. We inherited this furniture from my college roommate who didn't want to take it back to Florida with her when she graduated. We stored it last year but decided to pair it with an air mattress and use it here because having a twin bed makes the space more roomy and we aren't expecting too many overnight guests since the majority of our friends and family live nearby.
We decided to keep the armoire that goes with our master bedroom set in this room for now. You'll notice all of the bedroom walls are bare because we haven't gotten around to decorating them yet. One day, maybe. Also, we aren't in love with any of the bedroom wall colors but we like them enough to keep them as is until we feel inspired to repaint. It'll probably be a couple years, though; they just aren't that bad and I have no idea what I'd want instead.
I keep all of my work clothes in the guest room closet. There's so much room in there and it keeps our master closet from getting too crowded.
We have a built-in telephone stand, which I think is really neat. We're hoping to find a vintage black telephone to keep there at some point.
Finally, here is our master bedroom. Again, there's nothing on the walls yet so I'm sorry for how bland it looks.
We have three large windows in our bedroom and they all face our own backyard, which is nice.
Here's our bathroom.

I had to stand in the shower to take this picture, but I wanted to show off the wall of cabinets we have :). It's a ton of storage and is much more convenient than having just one cabinet under the sink like a lot of bathrooms this size have.
Here's a shot from our bedroom back into the hallway, and our closet is there on the left.
I had never even heard of these before, but we have an attic fan. Apparently this is what they put in houses before central A/C came along. Our house does have central A/C now, but this thing is so nice to use during the spring and fall because we can open the windows and turn it on and the whole place stays cool without using hardly any electricity at all.
Well, that pretty much concludes the tour. I'm throwing in this last picture so I can spend a moment talking about how much I love our wood floors. They are original to the house and are the pride and joy of this place. They creak with every step and the sound brings joy to my heart. At first I was nervous about the color because it is lighter than what is in style these days, but I've completely come around on it because it provides a great contrast to all of our dark wood furniture and the floors show NOTHING. We have a husky, so we're no stranger to dog hair around here. But the floors don't show it at all, and when we want the floors clean--- we can sweep and mop and know that they are spotless. Our apartment had nasty burber carpet and Maya's hair clung to it like velcro so the floors were always covered in dog hair, despite endless vacuuming attempts. It was sick. But not anymore! And speaking of cleaning, we can plug the vacuum into the outlet in the guest bathroom and vacuum the entire house without having to unplug it. That's how we know this place is just our size!

So there you have it! Once we get our new fence finished and stained, I'll post some pictures of our backyard.

We are head over heels in love with our house and feel so blessed to have found such a perfect place for our family. If you're ever in the neighborhood, stop by and see us!

Santa Fe: A Retrospective by Kolby

Friends and Family,

Here's a quick synopsis of my time in Santa Fe and my thoughts surrounding this graduate program. Better late than never, right?

I am currently enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts program at Seattle Pacific University. The program utilizes a low-residency model, which is becoming a pretty trendy thing in the field of creative writing. By pooling resources toward the twice-a-year residencies, the school is able to afford terrific visiting faculty. And, due to the nature of the curriculum, there are even advantages to this distance relationship with faculty.

Some have asked what the point of such a program is. A valid question. An MFA isn't exactly the most employable degree. Technically, it is a terminal degree for the arts, but because it isn't a true Ph.D., most colleges will probably hesitate to give me a gig. While it could also lead to publishing, I am in the poetry concentration of the program and I'll let you figure out whether or not even the most celebrated poets actually make a living from publication.

Truthfully, I am in the program because I am still trying to follow a train of thought that left the station when I was quite young. It's what led me to poetry in the first place, what excites me about teaching, and what keeps me frustrated at this ever obscured view of my future vocation. What I mean to say is that for no small length of time I have felt deeply that I have something to say. I mean I think that I have something that is truly worth the speaking. Believe me, I have wrestled like Jacob with the angel over whether this is a part of my semi-enormous ego or some real call. Heck, I wrestle with what it means to have a call. But I digress.

It seems poetry is the best way to say anything. I won't go into the details on that, you'll just have to trust me. So I took up poetry some time ago. This may come as a near surprise to some of you, and that's understandable. It's never been something I've felt too comfortable speaking about at length. I find it usually isn't conversation for social gatherings.

Seattle Pacific is allowing me to pursue this interest that I have within the context of a community of faith. The program is specifically interested in writers who are engaged with matters of the Judeo-Christian tradition. My particular interest is in looking at the Christian scriptures outside of a typical evangelical modernist perspective.

My inaugural residency was a few months ago in Santa Fe--a pretty glorious place in which to begin an artistic endeavor. The program holds two residencies a year, with quarterly classes in between. This first residency is held in conjunction with Image Journal's Glen Workshop. If you are a Christian interested in the arts, you should absolutely sign up to attend. Guests included Lauren Winner, Marilyn Nelson, B.H. Fairchild, and Luci Shaw. Of course there were more, but you wouldn't believe the feeling to get to spend over a week rubbing shoulders with people who are doing precisely what it is you want to do with your life. Fantasy Camp for the literary nerds.

I will try to wrap up this convoluted post by saying that so far I have found the program to be a pretty affirming experience. The people I met were really great and everything I have experienced so far tells me that this is a great spot for me to be at this time in my life.

House Guest

We had our first house guest last week--- Kolby's college friend, Jarrett, came all the way from Illinois to visit us. Kolby has been working like a dog on the house for over a month now, and having one of his best friends in town for several days was a great way celebrate the fact that we finally finished the house! Jarrett was due in on Wednesday so Kolby and I stayed up late on Tuesday night finishing up some painting in the kitchen and tying up some loose ends (like installing a new ceiling fan in the pitch dark with only a faint flashlight to help us, etc.). There are a handful of small things that still need to be done, but for all practical purposes- we're saying the place is complete. And just in time!

Kolby and Jarrett lived the dream... playing catch in the backyard,

going to a Rangers' game, hitting golf balls, talking about life, eating out, staying up late (past 9:30, at least!), and playing lots of Super Nintendo.

Over the weekend, we headed down to my parents' ranch and then on to Austin. The guys rode around on the 4-wheeler and dirt bike, shot guns,
and hooked up an electronic scanner to my dad's nice telescope (star-gazing/astronomy is Kolby's new favorite hobby since the sky is so clear down there).

On Saturday we met Kolby's family at their ranch down in Wimberley and had an eventful evening-- eating BBQ and attending the UT vs Texas Tech game.

Since we were +1 in the car, I got to ride in the backseat with Maya, who come to find out also sleeps with her front paws crossed. She does this all the time while she's awake and laying down looking out the back door etc., but seriously... is it totally necessary while she's asleep? Always a lady, that one.

We had such a great time with Jarrett in town and we are certainly rooting for him to relocate down here once he finishes grad school!

In other news, on our walk to the park tonight Kolby asked me to please hold Maya's leash while he tests out the new slides at the park playground. I may not have mentioned this before, but we moved into the same neighborhood that Kolby grew up in. We live just a few blocks away from the playground that he spent hours upon hours playing at until his family moved to Allen when he was 3rd grade. Apparently the City recently renovated the playground and got rid of a towering rocket ship (read mondo safety hazard) and replaced it with two huge slides. So yes, Kolby did in fact slide down both of them tonight.

We made it back just in time to take cover before a thunderstorm hit. It's our first thunderstorm in this house. As always during thunderstorms, Maya went bonkers. She is SO terribly afraid of thunder and lightening- it's really sad. She just doesn't know what to do with herself and being mute really limits her options of how to express her angst. So, a few minutes ago I resorted to (once again) building her a fort to hide in. Pathetic, I know, but its the only thing that sooths her. Oh, the things we do for our pets...
Kolby started substitute teaching today. And he's getting tons of hours at the SAT prep place he teaches at. And the next term for his graduate program starts on October 1st. Busy kid! I'm still working on getting him to write a post about his time in Santa Fe and his grad program in general. I noticed he started it the other day but I'll remind him to get it finished sometime soon.

Now that the house is put together, I'll take some pictures and post a tour. I haven't decorated anything yet because I can't bring myself to go shopping for decorative stuff and we don't have much from our apartment. But I don't know when I'll get motivated to decorate, so I may just take pictures as is. We'll see.

Speaking Of

Here is the family picture from Labor Day that I finally got off of my mom’s camera.

Speaking of getting pictures off of cameras… here is one from my birthday dinner that I just stumbled upon. Kolby has his hair in a mohawk because it was my birthday and I asked him to. What a sport, that guy. Speaking of sports, you will never guess what I did on Tuesday evening. On our daily after-dinner walk to the park, I broke into a jog. Yep, for the first time in my entire life--- I went running.* I know this comes as an earth-shattering shock to anyone who knows me well, but I swear it is true. And no one was even chasing me with a knife and I wasn’t participating in an organized sport. I didn’t last long and the whole time my body was saying “what is this?”, “what are we doing?”, “who do you think you are?”, “what’s the plan here?” etc. I survived, though, and I even ran again on Wednesday while Kolby was playing golf with his dad. It’s all part of my new healthy lifestyle… a concept that has been foreign to me for the past 21 months (aka since I got married and no longer had to worry about fitting into my wedding dress). It all came about when returning from a Labor Day weekend of Olympic-level overeating coincided with the unpacking of our scale. And the fact that we’re in a new place and a new house and can start our new life here however we want. Why not get back in shape and pay more attention to what I eat? We’ll see how it goes….

Speaking of our new house, it is SO CLOSE to so many people and so many places. Here are some drive times, for example:
My parents’ house: 22 minutes
Kolby’s parents’ house: 12 minutes
Brad & Remy’s house: 24 minutes
Tommy & Alayne’s house: 28 minutes
Katie’s house: 22 minutes
Brittany and Andrew’s house: 14 minutes
My office: 17 minutes (28 minutes during rush-hour)
Schools where Kolby will substitute teach: 3 minutes, 6 minutes
Grocery Store: 3 minutes

*OK, maybe the term “running” is a bit strong. Kolby and Maya were basically able to continue walking beside me. And the path to the park and around it is probably less than 2 miles total, and I walked a lot of it. But as I’ve said before, Webbs don’t run… so I’m calling whatever it is that I did this week astounding progress. You have to start somewhere, right?

House Progress/Labor Day

Here’s what’s new in the Kerr household these days.

We’ve been in our house for 12 days now and have spent the vast majority of our waking hours doing work on or around the house. For the first 10 days or so, the tag line for our progress seemed to be ‘one step forward and two steps back’. Every project either didn’t work out like we thought it was going to, or cost way more than should be allowed by law.

Botched project number one was repainting the doors. We removed all of our interior doors to sand them, paint them, and replace the old brass hardware on them with nice new oil-rubbed bronze ones. During the sanding of three of the doors, one of the MANY previous layers of paint started peeling off like crazy and the damage was irreversible. So, Kolby had to manufacture three new doors out of large pieces of wood. Then, when we went to re-install all of the doors we discovered that although the doors measured to be the same size as one another, 50+ years of shifting and warping had caused each door frame to only fit one specific door. Of course we didn’t think to label any of them, and the screw holes for the hinges were way too stripped to risk playing merry-go-round with each door. Other compounding problems were that the new hinges are the slightest bit thicker than the old ones, and Kolby mismeasured the doorknob holes on the new doors. Long story short, we now have all of the doors hung but only two of them can actually close all the way. Plans to fix this problem have been postponed indefinitely. Live and learn, I guess!

Next on the list was getting the dryer fixed and the outlet in the living room grounded so that we could get our cable hooked up. After three visits from various Sears repairmen, we dropped $400 on fixing an old stackable washer/dryer that the previous owners had left for us. It started out at $160 but then other things kept happening and once you spend any money to fix something you feel obligated to finish fixing it so you don’t just lose the initial money you spent. Oh well. Then, can you believe that electricians charge $300 to ground an outlet? Sheesh. We found someone who could do it for cheaper but it turns out he didn’t actually do what we paid him to do and ended up becoming this battle between us and the electrician company that I don’t think anyone ended up winning.

There was also a huge issue with the water line to the refrigerator and also the news that we have tree roots infringing upon all of our plumbing, but those aren’t worth delving into. I ultimately reached my breaking point when we went to install a gate for our driveway and it just flat out failed. It is a massive, heavy wooden gate with a metal frame that we found laying behind our garage and it was way too much for the fence post that we were attaching it to to hold. We should have foreseen that the post wouldn't be strong enough, but we didn't.

BUT, we made it through the series of unfortunate events and things are looking up. We now have cable and Internet and we even sprung for DVR and are loving it! We installed our pantry and although the doors aren't on it yet, it looks great and is providing some great kitchen storage space for us. On Thursday, Kolby's dad came over and we constructed a shorter, picket fence-type gate for the driveway that the pole was strong enough to hold. So Maya finally got an enclosed yard and was able to roam around off-leash. She enjoyed tasting all of the various leaves and plants---enough so that she threw up afterwards. She said it was totally worth it.

We have a friend coming in town to visit us on September 16th, so that's the date we've set to have the house finished. It may be a lofty goal, but I think we can do it. It'll be so nice have everything done and to just enjoy it all!

***

In non-house news, we had a delightful Labor Day weekend at my parents' ranch. My dad's side of the family all got together for the whole weekend and it was so nice to finally have a place that can fit all of us! My dad only has 2 sisters and they each have three kids, but since a lot of us cousins have gotten married, we are now 22 in number. It's quite a brood, but we're all really close and we have so much fun when we're together. We played a ton of games (in typical Webb fashion), ate a TON of food, tooled around on the dirt bike and 4-wheeler (with three mild injuries... also typical Webb fashion), and chatted the nights away out on the back patio. It was a great getaway for us and I just love, love, love spending time with family. My brothers and I each have our own bedroom at the ranch but we all slept in Brad & Remy's room this weekend to make room for everyone else. It was fun to feel like kids again-- sleeping on bunk beds and laughing until we fell asleep.

As usual, I wasn't great at taking pictures. Here are a few, and I'll post a big group shot once I get that photo off my parents' camera.

Part of the gang playing dominoes.

A family game of whiffleball.

My cousin Kyle is by far the biggest, strongest person I've ever known. Russell should have taken this fact into better consideration before following through on Kolby's/Brad's/Tim's thought that "wouldn't it be funny if someone snuck up behind Kyle and hit him in the back of the knees with the whiffleball bat?"

A similar event happened a few years ago when Russell was dared to give Kyle a wet willy. Some kids never learn.

Under Construction

It was a crazy week trying to get our house ready to be moved in to, but we survived and the place is looking really good already.

Here's Kolby helping his grandfather cut some wood for the pantry cabinet that he made for us. We haven't put it in yet, but I know it'll look really great and we're so thankful for Grandfather's hard work!

Our dads/handymen making room for the pantry cabinet.

Kolby using the drill to take the hinges off the doors. Unscrewing hinges that had been painted over for 50+ years was not an easy task!

Me just sanding away at one of the door frames. You never realize how much trim there is in a house until you have to sand all of it!

Here's a picture of Kolby's grandparents, who came in town for a few days to paint our kitchen for us. Thank you, again--- it looks amazing!

When we moved our stuff in on Saturday, Maya recognized all of our furniture instantly and just plopped down in our bedroom like nothing had changed since May! She definitely knew that we were finally HOME.
It was a long series of full days and late nights, but we got all of the sanding and the majority of the painting done before we moved our furniture in (our main goal). There is still a lot of stuff to be done and everything seems to be taking much longer that we anticipated, but we make a little bit of progress every day. We don't have any of the interior doors re-hung yet and all of the new light fixtures that we bought are still in boxes in the garage. At the top of our priority list for the weekend is putting a gate across the driveway so that our backyard is enclosed for Maya and then installing an automatic gate opener for it. We also hope to put in our new pantry cabinet so we can get our kitchen organized.

I'm really excited to put together a photo tour of the house to show everyone, but I want to wait until we get more settled in. Right now there are boxes everywhere and nothing is decorated. It could be a few weeks, but know that I will make it happen at some point!

89 Days

Kolby and I slept in our own bed last night for the first time in 89 days!!!

Yep, we were nomads for a solid 89 days... a bit longer than we had planned to say the least.

BUT, we have the most wonderful little house now and I fall more and more in love with it every time I walk in. It is so perfect for us and is so much better than I could have ever imagined. It feels so good to have a place of our own again! And our bed is even more comfortable than I remembered.

I promise I'll post some pictures from this past week soon. We have to get the outlet in our living room grounded in order for AT&T to come hook up our cable and Internet. By Thursday we should be up and running, so I'll upload some pictures and write more about our moving week.

MOVING DAY!

It has been a long and hectic week but we just finished moving all of our stuff from our storage unit to our new house! It's so good to see all of our furniture again and I think it'll look really great once we get everything put back together and in the right place.

We got the keys to our house on Tuesday morning and have been working non-stop since. We had the bright idea to repaint all of the doors and trim because they were dingy and yellowed, and they turned out great but it was a nightmare of a project. We just took the panting tape off this morning and the fresh white trim definitely makes a huge difference in sprucing the place up. We also repainted the kitchen because it was a coral/salmon color that would have clashed with our red kitchen stuff. It is now taupe and looks really good.

And by "we"--- as in "we just finished moving all of our stuff" or "we repainted the trim/kitchen"--- I mean Kolby and I with the indispensable help of several key workers. The list of lifesavers that we are ever indebted to includes Kevin (Kolby's dad), Kassidy (Kolby's sister), Brad & Remy (my brother and SIL), Brittany, Alayne & Tommy (friends), Gran & Daddy Monk (Kolby's grandparents), Kolby's Grandfather, and our friends Zac, Kathy, and Mark. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There's no way on earth we could have pulled this off without your help!

Right now we're at the Kerrs' house to take a break and pick up Maya. Maya has been such a trooper in dealing with all the transition this whole summer, but this week I finally started to see signs that she has had enough. We haven't seen her hardly at all this week because we've been spending all of our time either at work or at our new house and she's used to at least one of us being around most of the time. When we got home really late on Thursday night she came up to me and put her paw in my hand and wanted me to hold it. I did, and we just sat on the floor holding hands and watching TV for half an hour. Anytime I would let go she would put her paw back up in the air and ask me to hold it again. That's how a mute dog tries to tell you that she doesn't want you to leave anymore. Little does she know that we're about to load up and head to our new, PERMANENT home... and that she even has a yard!

Now it's back to work, but I'll post some pictures soon.

Birthdays

We just got back from the most wonderful weekend at my parent's new ranch!

My mom and I both had our birthdays on Saturday (yes, we have the same birthday... old news to most of you!) so our family headed down to the ranch to celebrate. We were also celebrating the completion of the ranch, which isn't totally finished but is finished enough for us to spend the weekend there. We spent Friday evening unpacking dishes, putting sheets and comforters on all the beds, hanging curtains, and just getting things settled. The boys installed the backboard to the basketball goal and called mom out to take the inaugural shot (she played college basketball).

Nothing but net!

Dad cooked a big pancake breakfast on Saturday morning... so delicious!

He even grilled the bacon outside so we didn't have to smell it all day. He's a keeper. Then, we kids pretended to head home after breakfast but really went into town to run errands for the HUGE SURPRISE PARTY we were throwing for my mom that afternoon since it was her 50th birthday. My dad took her to lunch and when they got back we had the ranch set up for a smashin' party and a lot of our extended family had already arrived. I still have no idea how we were able to pull it off, but she had NO IDEA about the party... not even the slightest suspicion. More and more people kept arriving and mom's voice kept getting more loud and shrill every time someone new walked in... especially when her best friend from high school and her college roommate arrived. I'm told I do a great impression of her, if you're ever interested :)

The party was incredible and Mom was so happy you can't even imagine. She was thrilled to see everyone and get to show them around the ranch. Planning that party was insanely complicated (and I mean C-O-M-P-L-I-C-A-T-E-D!) but it was probably even the best birthday I've ever had because it was so awesome to see her BEAMING with joy and hopefully realizing how much we (my dad, brothers, and I) appreciate her. And I know how to plan a great party--- if I do say so myself. I got that from my mom :)

Fun in the Sun

Maya decided that this afternoon--- when it was 97 degrees outside--- was the perfect opportunity to head out to the backyard and catch some rays. I don't know how her fur didn't light on fire!

All is Right

Kolby is home from Santa Fe and all is right with my world again.

We found out yesterday that the tentative date for our BIG MOVE is August 22nd. This is much, much later than we expected, but it's totally out of our control so we're just going with the flow. If everything goes as planned, we'll spend a few days the week beforehand doing some projects around the house and getting it move-in ready and then we'll move our furniture in over the weekend. We're so excited! I'm tired of waving to our house as I pass our neighborhood on my way back from work--- I'm ready to GO HOME to it!

In other, trivial news, I have a new favorite thing about Maya. It probably holds true for most dogs now that I think about it. Maya is SO easy to surprise. When the day came to go pick Kolby up from the airport, I told Maya all morning long about how today was the day we get to go bring Kolby home. I said it straight to her face--- multiple times--- and yet she was still completely shocked with excitement when she saw him. She didn't even know what to do with herself she was so surprised and happy to see him. And then that evening we decided to take her to the dog park and even though we said the words "dog park" out loud in front of her... she almost peed her pants (fur?) when we pulled up to it. Dogs are smart, but they obviously aren't that smart.

August will break our marriage-long streak of living off of a single income. I have now started a real job and Kolby will still get a paycheck for the 2008-2009 school year. But don't worry, we'll be back to our old ways in September. We wouldn't want to spoil ourselves! I worked part-time while I was in school and Kolby is doing the same, but a handful of hourly wages just doesn't compare to a salary. We're fielding ideas for what we should do with the extra money this month, but I'm leaning towards getting a horse for our backyard. Or saving for a car. It's a toss-up.

Work is still going really great but it's definitely a rough adjustment to have such an inflexible schedule. How I miss the life of a student! My best friend, Laura, spent several days this week in Dallas shopping for a wedding dress and it nearly killed me to have to miss out. Then Kolby and I spent this evening going over a timeline for getting the work done to our new house the week before we move in and I hate that I won't be able to help out during the day. Basically I'm having to finally grow up and I don't think I was quite ready yet.

All in all, our life is wonderful as always!

Hopefully Kolby will put a post together about his time in Santa Fe soon.

SPU Summer Residency

Kolby is LOVING the summer residency for his grad program! He took this picture with his cell phone from the balcony of one of the buildings where they have classes.

I'll let him fill you in on the details once he gets back, but I just wanted to post this picture that he sent and let everyone know that he's having a great time and feels really optimistic about this program being exactly what he was looking for!

Public Service Announcement

If you ever see a "Found Dog" sign in your neighborhood or elsewhere, please do me a favor: call the number and ask if they have taken the dog to a vet or animal shelter to get it scanned for a micro-chip. If they haven't--- suggest that they do. Nowadays, all adopted dogs are micro-chipped (a tiny chip is inserted into the extra skin at the nape of the neck) and it's pretty common for people in general to micro-chip their dogs, especially if they are prone to wander away. Anyone who finds a stray dog (that doesn't have a collar with a phone number) can bring the dog to any vet or animal shelter and they can scan it for a micro-chip. If the dog has one, the owner's contact information will pop up on the computer.

I do this anytime I see one of those signs and yesterday I called about one and the guy said he hadn't heard of micro-chips before and that he would bring the dog to the vet because it was so affectionate that it must belong to someone. Today the sign was taken down. Mission accomplished.

So, spread the word about micro-chips! Our biggest fear with Maya is for her to get loose without her collar and for some well-meaning family to take her in, put up a few "Lost Dog" signs, and then just keep her when no one ever called--- when all they had to do was take her in to get her scanned and we'd get her back right away.

Santa Fe

Kolby leaves for Santa Fe, NM tomorrow for one of the residency portions of his graduate program. He'll be back in early August. We still haven't heard when we'll be able to move into our new house, but our "renters" close on their new house on August 5th so we're hoping the big moving day will follow soon after Kolby gets back in town. He's excited to start back to school--- he's patiently waited 2.5 years and it's finally his turn again.

We are now residing at Mom & Dad Kerr's house... our 4th residence in less than 2 months. Things are going great and we are continuing to really enjoy our time with family. Maya doesn't really know what to think about all this but she is always a trooper and knows how to go with the flow. We're very ready to get into our new house, but we all are cherishing this phase that we're in now.

I'm still adjusting to life in the real world. I have to say I don't care for the six o'clock alarm, the rush hour traffic, nor the pantyhose. But I really like my job and I'm so happy to have found something that fits me.

And that's about all that's going on here!

Alaska or Bust

Kolby's grandfather made a dog weight-pulling sled for Maya. As with any project undertaken by Grandfather, the sled is a piece of art. And the sled has a name.

We asked Grandfather to make Maya this sled for several reasons. Foremost, the ranch house that my parents are building is situated on over 100 acres of land and we wanted to find a way for Maya to have enough freedom to roam around off-leash but not enough freedom to run away since the barbed-wire fence around the perimeter of the property is not what we call "Maya-proof". We entertained several ideas like a shock collar (too risky), a GPS collar (too expensive), and a no-jump harness that keeps dogs from being able to extend their back legs far enough to jump up on people and thus would also keep a dog from being able run (too complicated... we couldn't even get it on her). One day when I was killing time at Barnes & Noble (this happens a lot being married to Kolby), I was reading a book about huskies and it went on and on about how they love to pull stuff. It showed these huskies training for mushing by pulling weighted sleds through grass. Apparently huskies LOVE it and to walk/run 1 mile pulling a lightly weighted sled is the equivalent of walking/running 5 miles. So we decided to give it a shot since she'd probably like it, it'd give her good exercise, and it would be cumbersome enough that she probably couldn't make it through the barbed-wire fence at the ranch and certainly couldn't go too far if she did.

Thus, the Alaska or Bust was born.

Maya isn't too sure about it yet. We can't even get her to pull the empty sled more than a few yards. I think it'll take her some time to get used to the sound and feel of something dragging behind her. She gets better at it each time we try, so we're still assuming that husky instinct will kick in any day now! Although, her penchant for laying outside in full sun during the heat of the day until the point where her fur gets so hot it could burn your hand suggests that her Siberian instinct is nowhere to be found these days. We'll see...

Also, I helped my mom create a blog to document the progress of their ranch since it was getting cumbersome to e-mail multiple pictures to all the curious family members. She just updated it this week: http://www.lostcreekranch.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings

As promised, here are a few pics from our whirlwind of wedding weekends:

Kolby and I with our friends Erin & Tyler at their rehearsal dinner. Tyler has been one of my best friends since we were in the 7th grade and later became a best friend to Kolby as well. Kolby was a groomsman in their wedding, which was on June 27.

The Baylor group (plus Kolby) at my college roommate's wedding in Memphis, TN on July 3. Her name is Emily but we know her as Griffin because 3 of the 5 girls in our apartment were named Emily so we resorted to last names.

Front Row: Katelyn, Emily [Stocks], Emily [Griffin], Laura, and me.

Back Row: Austin (Stocks' boyfriend), Lynn, Benton (Laura's fiancee), and Kolby.

Laura, Brittany, Katelyn, and I at Brittany's beautiful wedding in East Texas on July 11. Brittany is a dear friend of mine from Baylor and she and her husband will live 10 minutes away from us when they get back from their honeymoon! It was A LOT of wedding festivities but we survived it all and enjoyed spending good time with great friends!

Graduate Thesis Online

I just received an e-mail from Baylor telling me my thesis paper is now available online. I'm sure everyone has about a million things they'd rather do than read a 54 page paper about poverty, but just in case someone would like to browse through it, I thought I'd post the link.

http://hdl.handle.net/2104/5359

At the bottom of the page there is a grey box where you can click on "View/Open" for the file that is named "emily_webb_masters.pdf". You could get the jist of the paper by just reading Chapter 1 and Chapter 4. The other chapters wouldn't make too much sense to anyone who hasn't taken a few econometrics classes, although there's some stuff in there that is easy to understand.

Here's the Abstract (aka summary) for my paper, which is titled Micro-Credit and Household Productivity: Evidence from Bangladesh.

This paper tests the effect of micro-credit on household productivity to determine whether micro-credit programs facilitate productivity gains through skills transfer and human capital formation in addition to the provision of credit. The data come from two rounds of household surveys in rural Bangladesh conducted by the World Bank and the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies to analyze the impact of three micro-credit programs: the Rural Development-12 program of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, and Grameen Bank. Controlling for macro events and household and village characteristics, I find that participating in a micro-credit program increases output per unit labor for household non-farm enterprises in a large and statistically significant way. These increases in productivity can provide the means for sustained improvements in standard of living and contribute to the economic growth of low-income countries.

And here's an excerpt from my Conclusion:

I use cumulative borrowing to proxy for micro-credit participation and find that a 1 percent increase in borrowing increases household productivity by 0.3 percent. This means that on average, a 100 percent increase in borrowing increases household productivity enough to generate an additional $45 in monthly revenue for the household’s non-farm enterprise. As the median revenue for these non-farm enterprises is $136 per month, a $45 increase is quite significant. After controlling for inputs such as capital and operating expenses, I find that nearly half of the gains in productivity are attributable to increases in total factor productivity. This suggests that the non-financial services offered by micro-credit programs, such as skills training and organizational development, as well as knowledge spillover resulting from the group-based nature, indeed serve to increase the productive capacity of borrowers.

I promise my next post will have some pictures. I'm not sure what they'll be of... but I know it's lame to have posts without any pictures!

Update

It's been a little while since I've written a post of any value so I'll try to catch you guys up on what's going on, although I'll say that there still isn't much of value to write about.

We bought our first house yesterday... so that's pretty cool. It'll likely be mid-August before we're able to move in (we're "leasing" it back to the family we bought it from until they're able to move into their new house next month), but we'll start working on some things around the exterior of the house next week so I'm hoping that will make it feel like it is actually ours. The house has a detached garage that needs to be re-painted, a fence that needs to be repaired, an old A/C unit that needs to be removed, and some wiring that hangs too low across the backyard and needs to be lifted. Also, there is a wooden gate that used to go across the driveway that we'll need to re-attach so the backyard is fully enclosed and ready for Maya. Then we'll install a gate opener that will allow us to open the gate with a remote, just like a garage door opener.

We're going to the house on Thursday evening to take a closer look at a lot of stuff so we can soon make a trip to Lowe's/Home Depot and buy things we need since I have some coupons that expire at the end of the month. The house is in really great shape as is, but there are a few things we going to update to make it our own. We like all the current paint colors except in the kitchen, which is a salmon color. Most of our kitchen stuff is red, which would most certainly fight with the salmon--- so we're planning on repainting it a light taupe. We're going to sand and repaint all of the interior trim and doors so they'll be nice and white instead of 50-years-worth of layers of off-white paint. We'll also change out the doorknobs--- from ones that are shiny brass to ones that are oil-rubbed bronze. Last, there are two light fixtures and one fan that we'll want to replace with something we like better. All in all, it's not too much work or too much expense... which is great.

In non-house news, we are in the midst of a wedding frenzy. Our good friends Tyler & Erin got married two weekends ago, my college roommate Griff (Emily Griffin) got married last weekend in her hometown of Memphis, and a great college friend of mine, Brittany, is getting married this weekend. Kolby was a groomsmen in Tyler's wedding and I was/am a bridesmaid in Griff and Brittany's weddings. Busy, busy! I wasn't good about taking pictures at any of these events, but hopefully I can round up a few from others to post once everything settles down a bit.

July 4th was the 1-month mark for our stay here at my parents' house. We are SO, SO very grateful for their hospitality and have had the best time living here and getting to spend so much time with them and with Russell, who is also living here for the summer, and Brad & Remy, who live just a few minutes away. We are spoiled here--- a pool, a stocked pantry, unlimited Coca-Cola AND bottled water (both are luxury goods for us!), TiVo, central A/C, and free rent! Our lives will never be the same again! Since I start my new job next Wednesday (gasp), we're actually planning to move out of here and in with Kolby's parents early next week. They live in Richardson and moving there will cut my commute down by over 30 minutes each way. Their house is less than 15 minutes away from our new house so it'll also be really convenient as we go back and forth to work on stuff. It's looking like after all is said and done we will have lived with each set of parents for just over a month. We weren't planning on it being such an extended stay, but we know that we'll never regret getting to spend this time with them. I was frustrated when we found out that we won't get to move into our new house as soon as we were planning to, but it is certainly a blessing in disguise. We love our parents so much and it's so great to have the opportunity to see them every day and hang out with them so often.

The ranch house my parents are building is almost finished! My mom is supposed to upload new pictures to a website that I made for her so she could document the progress. I'll post a link once she puts the new pictures up. Also, the cabin that is on the land that Kolby's parents have in Wimberley is now fully renovated and vacation-ready! We're super excited to have both places to gather with family and spend time away from the city life.

That's all for now!

Today.

Today. We. Bought. A. House.

!!!

Kolby's First Webb Family Vacation

We were hanging out with my parents and Brad & Remy the other night and started reminiscing about our first vacation as a family of 7. It was August 2007 and Brad & Remy were weeks away from their wedding date and Kolby & I were just a few months away from ours. We took a trip to Wyoming to visit Yellowstone and spend some time horseback riding at a dude ranch. My family is pretty crazy and isn't really risk-averse so our vacations typically end up a little on the wild side. This took some 'getting used to' for Kolby.

Our first stop was in Jackson Hole, WY and our first activity was a whitewater rafting trip... on which Kolby managed to fall out of the raft. Poor kid. It was the very first day of his very first Webb family vacation--- you would have thought he could have lasted a little longer than that! We still all laugh every time we think about it and we laugh especially hard every time we look at the pictures.

When we got the pictures out to look (and laugh) at the other night, I decided to scan them and subsequently decided to post them here for everyone to enjoy. These pictures were taken by the rafting company, FYI.

Picture 1: The whole family happily paddling along with our guide. Starting at the back left there's me, Mom, Brad, Remy, Russell, Dad, and Kolby. We were about to hit a pretty big swell so we voted for Remy to move to the front and just ride the raft like a buckin' bronco. So far, Kolby looks like he's hanging in there.Picture 2: We approach the swell--- Remy gets thrown forwards while Kolby quietly slips out the back. This picture cracks me up because it looks like there's nothing too crazy going on with the raft yet Kolby somehow loses his hold and has no hope of recovering it. We hadn't even hit the swell yet.Picture 3: NO IDEA what's happening here.

Picture 4: ????? Seriously???
Picture 5: I was the ONLY person who knew Kolby had fallen out (I watched the whole thing happen... see pictures 3&4!). Everyone had their eyes locked on Remy (even the guide) to see if she'd be able to hang on, which she did. In this picture you can see I'm frantically looking for Kolby in the direction he had fallen out but he was resurfacing (rather creepily) on the opposite side of the raft. Mom and Brad had NO IDEA that he had fallen out nor that they were banging him with their paddles! Picture 6: The front of the boat is laughing at Remy's wild ride, Mom is trying to figure out what keeps getting in the way of her paddle, and I am SCREAMING "Kolby fell out!!!" at the top of my lungs. All this happened in a split second but it seemed like an eternity before I could get anyone to realize Kolby was gone. At this point, our guide was the only one to notice Kolby clinging to the side of the raft for dear life.

Once I realized where Kolby was, I grabbed him by the life jacket and pulled him out of the water and into the raft in no time. The guide had hollered for me to let go of him and he said that he'd pull him in once we got through the rapids but I was not about to let him spend one more second outside that raft. Talk about the power of adrenaline... I pulled him up and out of that water completely by myself. [And he's not small... just take a look at picture 4 again.] If not adrenaline, it could have also been the power of a bride-to-be who already had her wedding dress and was NOT about to lose her fiancee that gave me the strength to get Kolby back in the raft. Either way, he made it back safely and lived to tell "his side" of the story. Basically, he just never thought he (or anyone) would actually fall out so he wasn't hanging on that tight. He fell (flipped?) out and wound up resurfacing underneath our raft but had the presence of mind to guide himself to the edge while even remembering to keep his legs up so they didn't get caught on any rocks. He said it all happened too fast for him to be scared and all he could think about was how cold the water was.

Such a trooper!

Lost and Found

We celebrated Kolby's 24th birthday on Thursday by heading out to the Rangers game with his family.
Check out these great seats!

The game was great, the weather wasn't too hot, and the Rangers won.

Unfortunately, when we called my parents on our way home to check on Maya we found out that she had escaped from their backyard. We rushed home to look for her and searched the neighborhood until 1 am with no avail. We had to go to bed that night knowing she was out on the streets somewhere which was NOT fun. We woke up at dawn yesterday morning to start our search again. I made signs to put up everywhere hoping someone might have spotted her at some point and could give us a clue as to what part of the neighborhood she was running around in.

It wasn't long before my phone started ringing with calls from people who had seen her at some point in the night. Then we finally got a call from a lady who was on a walk and had just seen her on the street that my parents' house backs up to. So we headed that direction and got another call minutes later from a man who had her by the collar at his yard sale. I guess she was just in dire need of a garden gnome to give Kolby for his birthday.

As much as we brag about Maya for being the best dog ever, she does have ONE awful flaw. When she escapes (which isn't very often- it had been almost a year this time), she is in no hurry whatsoever to come home. Although she has a great sense of direction and we never find her more than a few blocks from home, she gets on her own time frame and likes to soak up the freedom for as long as she possibly can. It's annoying to say the least.

So Happy Birthday, Kolby! And Maya says she's sorry for ruining it there at the end.

New House!

I thought I'd share some more details about our new house in case anyone is interested.

It is a pier & beam house (I'm still not totally sure what exactly that means, but I know it is an alternative to a slab foundation), was built in 1957, and has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. There is a nice-sized living room and a there is a large breakfast area off the kitchen where we'll put our dining table. The entry, living room, hallway, and bedrooms have the original hardwood floors. The house is in really great condition and the sellers have made a lot of updates during the 9 years that they've been there.

The kitchen cabinets are original, but there are new granite countertops (AWESOME!), a new tumbled marble backsplash, and new ceramic tile floors. The sink, electric cooktop, and dishwasher are new as well. Here is a picture of the kitchen (all these pictures are from the listing website):
The sellers completely remodeled both bathrooms (down to the studs). These first pictures are of the guest bathroom, but I wish I could post pictures from a typical bathroom in a 1950s house to make you appreciate how amazing these bathrooms are. The bathrooms in the other houses we had looked at were AWFUL. We love the beadboard (which is also in the breakfast area) and the tiled tub and the vanity area. And the new ceramic tile floors. We pretty much love everything the current owners have done to update the house, which is so great.

Below are a couple of pictures from the master bathroom. The first thing you'll probably notice is that it is tiny. There is just enough room for the sink, toilet, and shower. This is true for ALL houses of this size that were built in that era. It is a negative attribute for sure, but we decided that the "positives" that go along with such a unique and quaint house are well worth the sacrifice. The wall to the right of the sink is nothing but built-in cabinets, which will be great for storage. The sellers replaced the old tub with a large tiled shower and it looks really great.

I didn't want to post pictures of the other rooms since they'll look totally different once we put our furniture in them, but our plan is to use one of the extra bedrooms as an office and the other as a guest room. The house has a great yard full of great trees: magnolia, crate myrtle, cherry laurel, bradford pear, red oak, pecan and hackberry. I love that they are all different. There is also a cedar deck off the back of the house and it and the backyard are shaded enough to actually be usable even during the summer. I'll post plenty more pictures once we get settled in.

It is such a great house!

The Road to Get Here

It has been one crazy week!

We moved all of our stuff out of our apartment and into a storage unit in Plano last weekend, stayed with some friends in Waco for a few days while Kolby finished school, and moved into my parents' house on Thursday night. Kolby landed a part-time job on Friday morning and then we looked at 10 houses on Friday afternoon, made an offer on one on Friday night, negotiated the price on Saturday, and signed a contract for a new house on Sunday!

Kolby has loved teaching English these past two years, even more than he thought he would, but he is certainly excited about having a break from full-time employment. The graduate program he'll be starting in July will carry a time commitment of about 20 hours a week so he had been looking for a job to fill the rest of his time. On Friday, he interviewed at Karen Dillard College Prep for a position to teach prep classes for the verbal section of the SAT test. As a male English teacher, Kolby seems to be a hot commodity (this was true at both the schools he's taught at and rang true for this place as well) so he was able to lock in that job with ease and will teach some classes this summer as well as during the school year. It sounds like a great gig for him. Once again, the Lord provides.

And now for the house hunt story. We started casually looking at neighborhoods in the Dallas area pretty soon after I applied for a job there back in April. I knew the job was a long shot, but we didn't want to be way behind in the search for a place to live if things did end up working out. Anytime we would be in Dallas for one reason or another, we'd drive around and weigh the options for various cities and even neighborhoods within those cities. We landed on Richardson pretty quickly and fell in love with a particular section of it. It is actually the neighborhood that Kolby grew up in before they moved to Allen when he was in 4th grade. The Kerrs have several good friends that still live in that area and they all rave about how great the neighborhood is and how well it has held its value over the years. The more we drove around it--- the more we fell in love with it. It has a great variety of houses--- there are some big expensive houses that help support the home value of the smaller houses like the ones we were looking at. The vast majority if the neighborhood was built in the late 1950s so the houses are old and unique-- and all of the lots are covered in awesome mature trees. There is a great park that is right in the middle of the neighborhood and every street has sidewalks on both sides so its a great place to go on walks and spend plenty of time outside, especially since all of the trees provide shade from the blaring Texas sun. Basically, it's just an awesome neighborhood.

So, we'd been looking in that neighborhood in Richardson for awhile and we would look at houses online and once we found a handful that we liked, I would try to make appointments to see as many as I could and then just drive up for the day while Kolby was at school. There were also a couple of houses that we found online and asked either my parents or Kolby's parents to go take a look at them for us to see if any were worth a trip up to see them for ourselves. This was a pretty frustrating process because the houses that we liked would usually go under contract before we were able to see them in person. Where we were looking was such a popular neighborhood and the sections of it that had affordable houses for first-time home buyers like us were insanely popular because of the 2009 tax rebate. At various times we had gotten our hearts set on a house only to see it get snatched up before we could do anything. By the time we moved up here on Thursday, we were confident in our decision to buy a house in that neighborhood and were hoping things would have a much better chance of falling into place now that we were in the area and ready to make an offer as soon as we found the right house.

This past Friday we spent most of the day looking at house after house after house. A local realtor showed us several, and then we just drove around the neighborhood and ended up looking at a couple more by just calling the phone number on the For Sale sign in the yard. As we were about to head home we happened upon this super cute house that was listed at a price a bit out of our range. We decided to call about it anyways, and this sweet family let us come in and see it. It was love at first sight. The whole time we were walkling through it Kolby and I were exchanging this dropped jaw "oh-my-gosh-this-house-is-awesome" look behind the seller's back. It was so perfect it made our stomachs hurt. At the end of our tour of the house, the seller told us that they had just dropped the price THAT DAY by $6,000 and that because we hadn't signed on with a buyer's agent that they would take off an additional $6,000 (this is the amount they would have had to pay to our realtor if we had one). Seriously?!?! We made on offer pretty much as soon as we got home and we signed the contract on Sunday after church. The house is so much more than I could ever have hoped for! We are bounce-off-the-walls excited about it.

This post has already gotten insanely long, so I'll post more details about the house itself another day. Hopefully by then I can get some pictures of the inside. We're so excited!!

We Bought a House!!!!

Technically we haven't bought it yet, but we did sign a contract today and assuming all goes well with the inspection, appraisal, etc.--- we'll be homeowners as of July 6th!

It is the CUTEST little house in this AWESOME neighborhood in Richardson and it is absolutely PERFECT! It was built in 1957, is "just our size" at 1,500 square feet, and has the original hardwood floors throughout the entire house (except for the kitchen and bathrooms which are brand new tile). There are a lot of mature trees on the lot, including a magnolia tree in the front yard which I LOVE. I'll post some more details tomorrow, but I just wanted to share the news while I had a minute!