Happy New Year!
I can’t believe 2006 is over. Sometimes I wonder why you’re supposed to be “happy” about a new year when you’ve kind of missed the old one. The last 3 months of 2006 have been a whirlwind of activities for us, running around a lot but achieving what seemed like very little. I guess it’s nothing new – for me the “holidays” always seemed more stressful than normal “working” days. Ironic, isn’t it?
Enough griping. We wanted to do a 2006 Christmas letter to our family and friends, but somehow managed to miss the deadline. So here’s a web version of the belated 2006 Christmas letter – or, I guess I can call it a Happy New Year letter, whatever.
Summary of 2006 events:
Feb/Mar
After anxiously waiting for some action, the builder of our new house finally poured the concrete foundation on our lot in mid-Feb. We had signed the purchase contract late last year (2005) and had to wait for city permits to begin construction. The builder told us it would take approx. 5 months after foundation is poured to finish construction – which would mean a mid-July move-in date.
We went to the Real Estate Wealth Expo in Dallas on a cold Feb. day. It was salesy but we knew what to expect and got some ideas out of it. We saw Donald Trump in person on stage so it was quite an experience.
We were also in the process of selling some properties we owned – closed escrow early March. With this sale we only had new construction properties left in our portfolio, which we were quite happy with.
Framing of our house went up quickly and the exterior was mostly framed in early March, just 2 weeks after the foundation pour. We were amazed by the progress by mid-March: the roof was on and the house was dried in already.
Apr
By early April, our new house had interior walls framed, and most plumbing and electrical done.
A huge tree fell on our street during a windy night – it damaged a car and roof of one of the duplexes we used to own on the street. We were glad we sold the property the previous month. Fortunately nobody got injured.
We also heard that the buyer of our properties died in an auto accident in CA, leaving his wife and children behind. It was shocking news considering we had just met with him a few weeks earlier in TX – he was a nice older gentleman.
May
Our new house was getting brick-work done on the exterior, and interior dry-walls, as well as hardwood floors downstairs, were installed when we visited the site in late May.
June/July
In June we saw cabinets installed at our new house, as well as tile floor downstairs. In early July we saw tile back splash as well as granite counter tops in the kitchen, tiled shower surrounds, and wallpaper in the bathrooms. In late July concrete for exterior hard scape (driveway, back patio, walkways, etc.) was poured.
We had planned a trip to CA last year, but didn’t know the exact dates due to all the other activities we had going on. Of course the travel day fell on our 5th anniversary 6/23. We flew to Long Beach, where David’s parents took us to a nice dinner and we stayed at their house for the first few days.
We then drove up the coast from LA to the Bay Area, admiring the Palos Verdes coastal scenery, visiting Trump’s new golf course development by the ocean, and stopping by Hearst Castle (Amber’s first visit) for a tour along the way.
We had various lunches and dinners with both of our friends (from college, Intuit, etc.) in CA on this trip – it was fun to see everyone but a bit hectic. Every meal was basically booked.
On the drive down from Bay Area back to Long Beach, we stopped by Oxnard, where Amber went to high school after coming from Taiwan in 1989. What was once a sleepy town full of migrant strawberry pickers is now a booming coastal “resort community” with rising real estate prices (seems like the same old story in CA). It was an eye-opening experience for David to see Amber’s old ‘hood – her first residence in the U.S. was a tiny 2nd floor apartment unit in the poor part of town. There were subsequently 2 more mediocre rentals that she lived in while attending Oxnard High School. We also drove by the nicer condo and even nicer house that Amber’s family lived in after she went off to college – yup, Amber didn’t get to live in them regularly.
Back at David’s parents’ house in Long Beach, we took it easy and went for BBQ on David’s dad’s boat and a short ride in the harbor. It was fun and reminded us of how beautiful CA weather was and how much we missed the ocean breeze.
Our fun filled CA trip ended 7/2 when we got back to TX in time for 4th of July.
We didn’t make the mid-July move-in date on our new house.
Aug
We celebrated Amber’s birthday early in the month (well, it was rather uneventful). Unfortunately we didn’t make it into our new house before her birthday, so that was a bummer. Construction on our house was delayed a few weeks because the builder didn’t order enough bricks to finish the exterior facade.
We had made several visits to check on construction progress, and were mostly satisfied with what we saw – a few hiccups here and there, but it was relatively stress free. By early August the interior is mostly done, and fence work was done outside. Unfortunately no landscape (plants, grass, etc.) was installed because of watering restrictions imposed by the city due to severe draught this year. We didn’t mind so much because it would be hard for new landscape to survive the summer heat anyway.
Finally, we closed escrow on our new house in mid-August. It was such a relief after a long wait. We were ready to leave our “bunker” and the associated lifestyle behind. The move went pretty smoothly – David smartly found some movers to help, so there was no heavy lifting by us, just lots of packing. We were glad we trimmed our possessions way down before moving to TX from CA. Amazing how little you can live with and how much stuff you keep around that you don’t really need.
Funny thing is we are now neighbors with Amber’s parents – who lived across a biking trail from our backyard in a neighboring community. They had moved in their new house earlier in the year.
October/November
After a few months, we were still getting adjusted to living in our huge and nice new house (compared to our last residence). There was little to do except decorating the dozens of niches that came with the house – but really the house is so well designed that in its bare state it actually looked quite good already.
Early October we had David’s parents and brother visiting us from CA, as well as Amber’s sister Peifen from MD, for only a few days. David’s dad and brother helped David assemble some cabinets from IKEA for the garage/shop. Because it was hard to spend time with both parties, we had to split up for one day, with David hosting a dinner with his family and relatives, and Amber spending time with Peifen and her parents. We had a good time despite the hectic scheduling.
Late October (right before Halloween) we got a call from David’s parents that Grandma Hallquist had passed away during her hospital stay after her knee surgery. She was surrounded by family and friends before she passed, and several grand kids, including David, had talked to her shortly before her surgery. We knew she had been ready to join Grandpa Hallquist, but it was still hard to see her go. The Overfields (David’s dad, brother Eric, and us) booked our flights quickly and flew to Rockford, IL for Grandma’s funeral arrangements. David’s mom was already there with Aunt Nancy when we arrived. It was strange to see all the Reed/Hanton/Means cousins under the circumstances, and this was Amber’s first funeral ever.
Everyone helped with the funeral arrangements the best they could, and we were reminded of Grandma’s life and accomplishments – the great relationships she had with people and the Lord. Her life-long service at the Salvation Army was inspiring, and she was loved by many.
Amber’s parents invited us to Thanksgiving dinner at their house. Also present were their friends/neighbors, as well as Amber’s friend Fen-fen from Jr. High in Taiwan (she now lives/works in Dallas). We had a big feast and everyone enjoyed themselves.
Last day of November was the coldest day of the year, with snowfall for one day only. It was amazing to see snow from our house (last time was around Christmas 2004). We had a brief cold spell in an otherwise mild fall/winter season.
December
Amber had been sick for weeks since getting back from IL in early November (she caught it from David who got sick during the trip and quickly recovered afterwards). We were super busy trying to get the house ready for holiday guests. Lots of projects were in progress – we were building a media cabinet in our family room, furnishing the guest room, getting a tree decorated, shopping for gifts, and preparing for a big project for David’s family to help with: building a patio cover in the back yard.
Amber’s brother dropped in for a visit for a few days right around Christmas eve. We had a good dinner with him at Olive Garden to catch up. The next day we went to Christmas service at Prestonwood Church main campus in Plano – it was a huge campus, unlike anything we had ever seen in CA. It was Amber’s first candlelight service. We felt good to be reminded of what Christmas was really about.
On 12/28 David’s family arrived to stay with us for a few days until New Year’s Eve. It was stormy and rainy the next day, but we pressed on with the patio cover project anyway. The men (David, Eric, Dad O.) worked hard in and out of the cold rain, while the women (Amber and Mom O.) stained the wood and took photos. We had 3 Overfield cousins (Merry Katherine, Kane & Paulette) over for dinner as well after working all day. Amber did her best cooking up a Chinese dinner for 8 and it went pretty well.
The next day with the rain storm mostly cleared, we went back to work on the patio cover, miraculously finishing it right before the last ray of sun light disappeared! After a brief rest we had Amber’s parents over for dinner. We smartly planned a crock pot meal for the main course, which didn’t take much effort. After dinner we opened gifts and sat around in the family room with the fireplace going (log & screen installed just days prior). We feel blessed to spend the holidays with family & friends in our new house.
David’s family flew back to CA on New Year’s Eve. We were so exhausted from all the holiday activities that we barely noticed it was a new year (ha!) Seriously though we’re still wondering where the last few months of 2006 went…
