Our House Still Isn't Sold or Rented!

I wish our house would sell, or at least, get rented!  We did have someone look at our house on Friday, and the only thing they complained about was our oven.  So I went down today and cleaned our glass top stove and got all the residue off so now it looks like new!  I talked to our real estate agent today and the woman is going to look at it again.  I hope she likes it enough to buy it or at least make an offer.

Yesterday, Sunday, I took Alex to the Minneapolis Museum of Art because they had a free day for children with lots of activities.  Well, it was so packed there and parking was hectic.  Alex was a little scared of the big crowd.  She did like coloring and looking at the paintings, but she didn't like the "Musical Instrument Petting Zoo".  It was so crowded.  I tried to get her to try out some of the percussion instruments but all she could tell me was that she wanted to get out of this place.   So needless to say, we didn't stay very long.   She fell asleep as soon as we hit the road.

Keith is enjoying his time in Dominica.  The weather there is really nice this time of year.  So I am anxious to go back!  Alex misses Daddy too!  He has been studying a lot and has his next exam in the beginning of February.  I am sure he will do a good job!

Alex at the Minnesota Children's Museum

I have been keeping Alex busy with friends. The other day we went to the Children's Museum with her little friend, Hailey. They had such a fun time exploring the museum. Click below to see all the pictures:

Minnesota Children's Museum with Hailey and Alex

We have another showing on our house today and it is also up for rent on Craigslist. Although I have a feeling it will be hard to rent it for what we want. We have had calls on it, but only from college students. So I changed the ad to say that "per zoning requirements there can be a maximum of two adults and their children".

I have also been trying to find a job because of all the bills we have. It just doesn't seem feasible for me to go back to Dominica right now. Especially if it doesn't sell and we have to rent it for less than our mortgage. So I booked Keith a flight back home in April for a visit in between semesters. We are avoiding Liat this time, but he gets to experience a new airline, Winair. Win Air flies out of the Canefield Airport and they have much smaller planes then Liat and American Eagle. They are a small airline that only flies between the windward islands in the Caribbean.We can't wait to see him!

Alex the Kitty Cat

Zoe, Alex's cousin, came over the other night and decided to use a bunch of lipstick to make Alex look like a cat. You can't really tell from this picture but she does have whiskers.

A few days later I let them paint in my parents kitchen on a card table and they decided to start finger painting. Well, that led to them painting themselves. Pretty soon they were covered in paint. Alex started waving her hands around and paint splattered everywhere. It was a mess and took a long time to clean up. It also took a long time to clean them up.

Keith Is Back in Dominica

Keith left Saturday morning for St Maarten. He flew non stop on Sun Country Airlines from Minneapolis and had a nice flight. The hotel that I booked him when he got there, on the other hand, was not so nice! His room didn't even have a window and the room smelt musty. Conveniently located right next door was a strip club. Well, I guess it's a good thing his room didn't have a window. The next day he flew Liat to Dominica. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we feel Liat is a poorly run airline. I have no idea why, but they decided to stop off at a few other islands to pick up more people. Those stops weren't on the schedule which is weird. I have never heard of that happening before with any other airline. Hey, at least the plane showed up! You never can be too sure with Liat.

Keith is happy to be back there and feels it's a little weird being there without us. Alex is now ready to go back to Dominica since Daddy is there (There are also a few Care Bears there that Alex really misses). I hope we can return soon. But we have our house to deal with. We had someone look at it on Saturday for the second time but we don't know what they are thinking yet or if they are still interested. We also had our house inspected by a rental home inspector on Monday. So after replacing a battery in a fire alarm and shoveling snow out the egress windows we should be good to go. I just need to get someone in there right away.

Click below for some of the latest pictures. Most of them are from our trip to the Minnesota Zoo with some friends the day before Keith left. And the last three are of Alex and all her Care Bear friends at the dinner table:

Minnesota Zoo with Kaylee and Megan

Happy New Year

We haven't been posting a lot of blogs lately because we have been so busy with family.  We have also been staying at Keith's mom's house and she doesn't have internet.   So that kind of puts a damper on blogging.

We are still waiting on getting the renters license to rent out our house.  It takes a while with Mankato.  The city did send us a letter telling us that they want to make sure that we are renting to a family.  I suppose they don't want us to rent our house out to a bunch of college kids.  Well, we don't want to do that either.  It's a new house and we don't want it ruined!  I think we will take it off of the market for 90 days after it is rented out and then put it on again so it shows as a new listing.  I will feel so much better when it gets rented!  

Being here has made me realize how expensive it is to live in Dominica.  When we first got here we went to buy some baby wipes.  They were 1.97 for some Huggies wipes.  The same thing would cost about 30 EC in Dominica.  Later I went and bought a big box of Pampers diapers.  The same brand and box size in Dominica would cost 107 EC and it is 19.97 at Wal-Mart.  So needless to say we will be shipping the diapers and wipes when we leave.  I wish Alex would get potty trained but she has no interest in it right now.  We miss the weather in Dominica too.  Right now the only time we go outside is to run to our car or run into a building.  It's too cold to be outside.  

Here are some of the latest pictures from the last week.  It is a slideshow but if you click on the pics it will open up our picasaweb page: