SOLD!!!

Incredible! After being on the market for 1 year in poor Battle Creek, Mother's house sold today. I have aged a lot since the call from my brother on my birthday afternoon (Nov. 6) saying that they were moving from their apartment to Mother's vacant house. Long sad story but did it ever make my stomach ache! After lowering the price many many dollars, in a weeks time, we had a bid from a young couple. The realtor, Talia, called yesterday to tell me. I was thrilled. Then the call from my brother came last night telling us that they were going to make a bid due to full financing from his in-laws. I drove to BC this morning to be with Mother as she talked to Talia. Mother ended up selling the house to Brother Keith as is. No inspections!!!! This part is very, very good for us!!! The check will go into the bank on January 7, 2010. Once again, God was with us this weekend! I pray that this is a second (???) chance for my brother and that they can have yet another beginning in life.

Medicare Minus One!!!

What a weekend! Turning a year older never seems bad to me, especially when family members are so wonderful! The celebration began Thursday night when Brent and the girls and Tom took me to Between the Buns for supper. It's always fun with those silly little girls. Marley spent the night because Grandma Peg was going to be out of town on Friday. Tom and I kept her Friday.

Friday after Brent finished work, Tom, Brent and I headed for Noblesville because Brent and Ron were to run a half marathon on Saturday. Brent was very pleased with his 2:04.4 time. Ron had a very sore hip so only ran a short while. Tom and Heather cheered them on during the race.

Everyone had dinner together last evening at Logan's. For the first time in 2 years, I grazed my way through the entire day eating anything I wanted. I really did eat sugar all day and loved every bite: Dunkin Donuts were first on the agenda (with Kendra and Paula cheering me on!!!) and cake and margarita and more cake and chocolate ice cream....oh and the regular food!!!! It was wonderful! Today...back to reality!

The bad part of the weekend was the phone call on my birthday from my sister-in-law telling me that they had been forced to move into my Mother's empty (for sale) house. It is a terrible situation and very upsetting to my mother. Paula, Ron, Tom, Kendra and I spent hours analyzing the situation and calling Mother to talk to her about it. I will plan to go see her on Thursday. Very, very stressful!

Lexi turned 7 months yesterday which is such a delight! She is just precious. Nicholas and Blake just love her and she thinks that they are quite entertaining. Great little ones!

I've been thinking a lot of Rand and Gail Nilsson. Gail's dad, Ed Ogel, died on November 5th as Gail was driving to the Seattle airport to fly home to be with Mom at her dad's bedside. I picked her up on Friday morning to drive her to her Mother's. Very sad time for them. It has been a very difficult last few months with Gail being so far away and Ed getting worse by the day. Tomorrow is the visitation and Tuesday a.m. the funeral.

Boo!!!

This was a big weekend...Nicky's 6th birthday and Halloween! Wow! The Bowman house was buzzing once again! Brent and the girls, Jason's parents and sister and family, some friends of Kendra's and Tom and I were all at Ron and Paula's. Great fun. We did Nicky's bd party at noon and the kids went trick or treating at 5:00. There is a lot of room at Paula's for everyone to spread out so we all had a great time.

Here is a little description of each photo (as if you needed one):

1: Brent and Layla hanging out together

2: How long now has Blake been a "Pirate" fan??? It's been going on for a long, long time!

3: This is Lexi's 1st Halloween so she is our little "flower girl"

4: Marley got caught up in Blake's pirate obsession which was really cute!

5: This was a big 6th birthay for Nicky. He has gone from the "Monster Truck" phase to the "Transformer" phase. It's really fun watching them grow and change.

It's wonderful being a JoJo!