House update:

Our hurricane ravaged house FINALLY got fixed (3 adjusters and many hours of hounding the insurance company later). Having an insurance claim is definitely a FULL-TIME JOB!! As it turns out, we had the insurance company with one of the worst track records on paying out claims. So I'm going to save you all the trouble of having to go through this yourself and tell you NOT to go with All State!! You've seen their ads: "You're in good hands with All State"....WHATEVER!!! Our roofers told us that All State is the absolute worst when it comes to claims. They also said that State Farm and Farmers are some of the best insurance companies to work with as far as claims, and they close the claims the fastest. And I'll tell ya...saving a little on your insurance premium each month by going with another company IS NOT worth it! After this ordeal, I'd much rather pay a little higher premium to know that if something does happen, I've got a good insurance company behind me! At any rate, the house is fixed and we sold it to our house-sitters. We closed the day before Thanksgiving....what a GREAT Thanksgiving present!!! After buying 4 houses and selling 3 of them in under 6 years....I hope I can safely say that we are staying put for a good LONG time!!!

I know I've been MIA, but there's a really good explanation...

We've moved back to the States!!! It was a VERY unexpected move (since we had unofficially extended our contract in Manila to a 3rd year and didn't expect to come back until Fall of '09). It has also been a very L..O..N..G move! We flew to the States in August for Parker's baptism, and while we were there Brett got the unanticipated job offer. So we left the kids with grandma and grandpa (except for the baby of course), and Brett and I headed back to Manila to sell practically all our belongings there and pack up what little we could bring home. It was an exhausting process, and I'm afraid it hasn't slowed down much at all since then!

While we were flying home for our last time from Manila, we watched helplessly from the Tokyo airport as hurricane Ike headed straight for our house in Texas. We got word a few days later from the couple living in our home that the roof was completely damaged and had leaked water in nearly every room of the house. So not only did we have 3 moves to deal with (from Manila, from Texas, and our stuff from our families houses), but we also had to deal with trying to get our Houston house fixed to sell. It has been a nightmare to say the least!! We have been through 3 adjusters so far, and 2 months later it still isn't fixed and there is a blue tarp still on the roof. Ugghhh!!

And I thought moving to a third-world country was hard.....