Welcome to the world, little ones!

Today, two of my friends (Kristen & Mandy) that I grew up with are both giving birth to their baby boys.  Kristen & Jason are expecting Easton Palmer & Mandy & Joe are expecting Jonathan Cooper.  I can't wait to see their pictures!  I'm keeping an eye on Facebook to see who the first person to post pics will be!  So exciting.  It stinks that I'm so far away but hopefully I'll get to hold the little bundles of joy when I'm home for the holidays.  I also have about four or five other friends who are pregnant!  Maybe we'll be in the same boat soon!  Still hoping & praying for that miracle!  :)

So anyway, as I mentioned in yesterday's post, we had someone come out this morning to look at our washing machine and the verdict is: $400 for a new motor.  Ugh.  So, I went ahead and ordered the part and it should be fixed in a couple days.

Something that I haven't mentioned to y'all is how I ran into a scam on Craig's List!  I've already started looking at homes to rent in New Jersey where we want to move so I can get a good idea of prices.  Well, I looked on Craig's List and found a great house for $1500 a month.  This is much less that we are currently paying for our townhouse.  So, yes, I immediately though "hmm... this is mighty cheap for around here" but I went ahead and pursued the ad.  I got a reply from a man by the name of Donald Mennig who claimed he and his wife work for USAID and will be moving to Africa to work for eight years.  The email was extremely religious and said they were looking for a "God fearing family" to rent their home.  When I got that email, I sent it to Christian and told him "I don't think we're God fearing enough for these people".  He laughed and said we should still check it out.  So, I continued the conversation with "Donald".  I told him that we have experience on both ends of the rental process (as the owner and renter) and we were military and all this other crap to make us sound really good.  Well, I get a reply from him within about 10 minutes saying that he has found his future renter (even though I had already mentioned twice that we weren't looking to move until March).  He also listed his phone number which looked like a international number so that threw a red flag for me.  So, I googled the home's address and ended up finding the REAL listing on Zillow.com for $2500 a month.  So, luckily, I was able to contact the homeowner and realtor and let them know this scam was going on.  This impostor's next step was probably to ask for the deposit ($1000) by mail since they weren't in the country.  Sneeky, sneeky Mr. Scam artist!  I hope he gets caught!!!  The realtor said this wasn't the first time it had happened but he had never seen the emails from any of the scam artists so I sent him the whole conversation I had with this person.  Hopefully something will happen.  The listing is already off of Craig's List.  It amazes me how crappy some people in this world are.

I also mentioned in yesterday's post that I was reading a new book.  Well, I've had the book since about two weeks before I went to Europe and I'm only about half way through.  I haven't been very motivated to read lately.  Anyway, the title is "For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage".  As you guys know, I am very fascinated with marriage and relationships and what makes them work and more interesting, what makes them fail.  So, this book is full of research studies about different aspects of marriage such as communication types, having children, monogamy, etc.  It's neat b/c it's all factual and it's not just some author telling you what they think you should be doing in your relationship.  I've also told y'all before that I'd love to go back to school to get my masters in Family & Marriage Counseling so this book was right up my alley.  For anyone looking for some interesting facts and outcomes, this is a great book!  It's also full of neat little tests to rate your relationship.  Christian and I are doing just fine.  :)  haha  I usually carry a highlighter with me when I'm reading these kinds of books because I always find neat little pieces of info but I have had to pass over so many things without my highlighter b/c either I forget it or I can't find one when I need it.  So, I may end up reading this book again so I can capture some of those things.

Now, I'm going to run some errands!  Hope everyone has a great Monday!

xoxo,

Chrissi