A great day in history

Been watching the inauguration today?? I have. How exciting! Such a time full of hope, promise and new beginnings. I love that Obama is so young for a President. I love that he is the first black President of the USA. I love that he is so accessible to everyone, and everyone can identify with him. I love that he does stuff like thank the wait staff at the beginning of his speech at his Presidential lunch. I think it truly is the dawning of a new day.

Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas. We spent it at Sheffield this year and it was so nice to just stay in one place the whole day and not have to pack up and go anywhere. It was beautiful weather and we ate on the deck outside. Kids got spoilt :) Santa bought Ben and Chloe a camera each and seeing as I didn't get any pictures myself I'm going to use theirs. Their cameras are kiddy ones so the resolution isn't fantastic and neither is their steadiness :)

Pa and Jake, Christmas morning.

Aunty Naomi and Chloe.

Ben doing woodwork under the table on the deck.

Jake sitting with Aunty Naomi amidst all the commotion :)

Ben peeking out of Jake's house given to him by Santa.

To be honest I think the kids do a pretty good job to taking photos. Some of them are a little blurry and over exposed from being too close to the flash but not too bad for their age!

While we were there we nicked over to Uncle Stephen and Aunty Ange's to have a look at their Nursery which will be in use in about 4 weeks!!! :D It's so gorgeous, all repainted and decorated with Winnie The Pooh stuff. I think the kids were blown away by the toy stash that was in the wardrobe though, lol. Lucky little buggers got to test out a few of bubby Lucas' toys before he even arrives! The toy testers agree that they are in good working order for him though ;)

Look! No training wheels!!

A few weeks ago Dad took the training wheels off Ben's bike. He crashed. LOTS. After we were home from all our visiting at Christmas and he had turned the magical number 5 he wanted another turn. So Dad took the wheels off again and this is the result!! One very proud boy :D

And it all goes belly up.......

Grrrrrr I am SO angry and upset at the moment.

In short the house fell through. Well our finance did. I have no idea how we got from "You've been conditionally approved, just gotta get the paperwork and sign" to nothing. Basically the bank cocked-up and didn't keep us informed, kept putting in applications that were wrong (unbeknownst to us) and ended up with a loan that could be approved but we couldn't provide the paperwork for.

If they'd kept us in the loop all the time it wouldn't have gotten so far. ARGH!!!!

So my advice to anyone looking to buy, harrass your bank/lender until you have something in writing from them. Our biggest mistake was taking the Mobile Lender's word for things when in reality the facts and figures were different. We went from a fairly informal meeting at home with a Mobile Lender to them putting in our application for a Home Loan. BIG MISTAKE. We should have met with them again before they submitted our application.

Live and learn I guess.

Really peeved and angry and annoyed that all our plans have gone down the drain, I'd love to blame somebody......anybody......but I guess there is no one person to blame. Reality is we need to get our butts into gear and get organised financially otherwise we will never own our own home.

I keep hearing that it's all for a reason and that something better will come along, and I know that it will. But it doesn't help much right now either. For now the dream has been crushed and only time will repair it I guess. Time to wallow in some self pity before picking up and moving on.

Oh.....Happy New Year too :) will post Christmas and Ben's B'day piccies next week.

xxx