OFF the GOAT FARM FOR GOOD!!!!

Here is the dead carcass of that crazy Venini Lamp that my mom bought in Italy in 1956. It hung in my family room in my house since birth... but it did not make it through the explosion. Sadly, it was in a box in the bonus room.

Here is the new driveway and all the exterior paint is done and the rocks are all on. Or whatever those are called...

Here is the final paint job, and all the rocks but the front door will probably end up being black. The fence around the porch is not there yet either, but that is all that is missing and that is not our real front door.. And I am pretty sure the pile of rocks is not staying... but you never know...

Hello it is us, the Sploded Family, and we are here in Exile in a hotel in Tigard. This is like the Motel 6 version of the Residence Inn. The Residence Inn is where we stayed when the house first exploded. The Residence Inn is owned by Marriot and honestly it is like the Ritz Carlton compared to this place. Here they clean the rooms ONCE EVERY SEVEN DAYS, unless you pay $3 a day for housekeeping to come once a day. The internet thing sucks and it costs like $5 to join it but there is no GOAT and that means FIVE STARS to me...

Its a Very very very small room, and it has a queen sized bed. Every morning I wake up in a bed with Bill, the dog and the kid, and that usually happens, but this is not a King sized bed...We brought Spencer's fire engine bed with us and it barely fits but he has his bed and his fish lamp and he gets to eat breakfast from McDonald's EVERY DAY so he is diggin it. The TV has like maybe 25 cable stations and no icemaker in the fridge but we KNOW it is not our permananet home, so we are okay here. I got it using my vast knowlegde of priceline.com, when I used to book hotel rooms for all of Bill's musicians friends for their gigs out of town and other stuff. We are paying only $42 dollars a night for a room that costs $70 normally, so I am not complaining. They allow dogs, there is a full sized fridge and two burners and a little kitchen thing. it is NOT the GOAT FARM, and it has NORMAL WATER and now cows, pigs, goats, sheep, horses, llamas or camels living anywhere nearby and that is about all I need to know.

The move from the Goat Farm was hellish... probably the worst week of this whole thing since we moved from the Faux Chateau. I mean we did it practically all alone except for some help from Steve this one day. However on two occasions people took Spencer for a couple of hours and that was a TREMENDOUS help. One day the Dylan T Moms kept him for like 5 hours and he even ate dinner there, and then another day he went to Siri's and played with Donut and ate dinner there too. Spencer had a riot both places and while he always has a great time with Siri (she is one of THE BEST moms I know) we are definitely going to have more playdates with the Dylan T Moms. Dylan goes to Spencer's preschool and they get along great, and they really really had fun over there.

Still in three days we emptied an entire house and two barns, PLUS we filled a 30 yard dumpster and then yet another dumpster. We filled up two storage units and a POD. The only real casualty was the Futon which I was sad about, but whatever. Landlord Dude was kind of an ass at the end but whatever, it is done and honestly, his punishment for bein that way is that he has to LIVE THERE. He is going to try to sell the goat farm now and I wish him a lot of luck with that. The giant dog that used to poop in our yard AKA The Turdmaster did come by to see us off and I tried to soooo hard to get a picture of him but he ran too fast.

I was NOT AT ALL SAD to leave the Goat Farm. I might have mentioned that before....

SO Here we are and I keep getting us more and more nights at this place. Priceline is really pretty formulaic if you kearn how to work it. We have been here since Tuesday and we will be here at least thru this coming Saturday. So at least Spencer can go to Cooking Camp which he really wants to, which starts Monday (today). He will have camp all week from 9 to 1. I have a medical appt MOnday at 11 but after that I have nothing all week so I mean its a crappy hotel and everything but we really have not much to do so it s KIND OF like a vacation At the end of the week we will see where they are on the house and if it is close we will just keep staying in town The truth is that thoughwe would LOVE to go visit Grandma in Ventura, we are not sure it is a good idea to be gone while they are finishing the house. Things get messed up sometimes and though they are little things maybe we will not be able to afford to fix them later so we have to get it all correct NOW. We would be SO FAR AWAY and it would be difficult to make these kinds of decisions.

We did move some breakable stuff right from the goat farm to the house and put it in different weird cupboards and stuff. We are exhausted but frankly quite happy to be out of there. Even Bill was glad to go. Farm Living turned out to be not the life for either of us, though Spencer and the dog liked it there.

The house is really coming along and though there have been a few hiccups it is going fast. One is that though the grey exterior does look nice, it seems we somehow painted the house the exact color of the porta potty. The drive way and front walkway are both in, the banister is being finished, the floors are all in now, they are starting ont he trim for the windows, a lot of interior doors are in, and a bunch of other stuff.

The internet thing here at this hotel is pretty bad and so I have to kind of bear with it, and also the Facebook Scrabulous kicked me out I have no idea why I could not get in to take my turns, so I have to fix that I am going to look for the near Starbucks and start bringing my laptop there rather than put up with this weird hotel internet. Other than that, we are alive and living in Exile in Tigard.