Elijah's part in his summative:

"Hello my name is Elijah. I'm showing you traditions for our Silvista civilization. This represents beliefs
in the culture wheel. We came up with this from studying all the cultures this quarter.

Our tradition is to celebrate silvismas which is a holiday recognizing the anniversary of our shipwreck. We get together and exchange gifts such as silver stars and drinking cups. We also have a traditional dinner of fish and fresh fish from our island."

Well, we officially (I think) did not get the house. It is an awesome system where you invest $1000 in appraisal and inspection fees and you walk away with nothing because of the crappy seller. Why is there a financial loss garnered against the buyers if there is a breach of contract and no compensation to the buyers if the sellers breach?

Today, out of nowhere, Xander pointed both of his thumbs at himself and said, "There is only one person in our family who can make me laugh without tickling."

I wonder if he's wondered why he's also the only one laughing...

Let's say your buyer has an FHA loan. And let's say that FHA rules prevent the buyer from getting a loan amount greater than the appraised value. Why not piss off the appraiser just before he appraises the home?

For example, put a four digit combination lock on the home, tell the appraiser that the code is OCN, and then ignore his phone calls for help. Locking the appraiser out of the house in the 110 degree heat should get him just steaming mad. He'll be sure to come back with an appraised value that is $10,000 less than the purchase price.

Things apparently not taught at real estate school:

• to open a combination lock, you must have the right combination
• if a lock expects a 4 character combination, then the code must be exactly 4 characters in length
• combination locks expect perfection -- getting only 75% of the combination correct just isn't good enough
• if a lock expects numbers and not letters, then the combination should be made up of numbers and not letters
• if you tell people that the combination has an "O" in it, you should ensure that "O" is an option
• if you tell people that the combination has a "C" in it, you should ensure that "C" is an option
• if you tell people that the combination has an "N" in it, you should ensure that "N" is an option

So, Einstein, when a lock box requires a four-digit, numerical combination, you shouldn't continuously tell the buyer's agent, the inspector, the appraiser, and the gas company that the combination is OCN

Maxwell and I were walking over to his game early Saturday when he asked, "Mom, have you seen the empire?" I responded, "Do you mean umpire or empire?" He replied, "Have you seen the emperor?"

He was referring to the umpire. I think he may watch a little too much Star Wars.

Happy Birthday Sara!!

On the home front -- as of right now, we're still on (we think).

The home was inspected last week and it checked out fine; however, my honey-do list won't be lacking any honey-do's. The only snag was that the inspector couldn't inspect water heater or the heater. The seller's agent, whom I'll forever refer to as Einstein, didn't get the gas turned on in time. Finally, today, after many calls and a week of no response, Einstein finally responded and said the gas should be turned on tomorrow. Hopefully, the inspector will return free of charge to finish the job.

Today is going to be a great day for Maxwell. He, in his own words, "gets to watch a movie and play in his first baseball game tonight. I got to see what my suit will look like last night." He is pretty excited about it. The joy of the waiting list is that his team has been practicing for several weeks and he will meet his team tonight for the first time. He probably won't have his uniform yet, but he is on the Pirates. 5 year olds are really so easy to please.

Apparently, much to ours and our Realtor's surprise, we did get the house. We aren't telling the kids until the 10 days are up which start tomorrow. Tomorrow we are doing the inspection. Our Realtor received the signed contract today in his email and it took him a bit to figure out what it was. At first, he thought maybe the Seller's Agent sent it to the wrong person. Jared and I don't even know how to be excited anymore. Our close date is set for October 16th. Don't be surprised if I say, "Actually, we didn't get the house," tomorrow.