Anyhow, in case anyone is interested, and speaks adoptionese, our Article 5 paperwork was dropped off at the US Consulate in Guangzhou yesterday and will be ready for pick-up November 7th. This is only two days later than I thought everything was happening, which was only about the eleventy-billionth delay in this process. End Complaint. So, starting November 8th, I will be full-on obsessing as we wait for the coveted Travel Approval (TA) notice from Beijing. Once we get TA (this takes 1 -3 weeks, usually) we can schedule our appointment at the consulate (to get James' US visa) and then we can book our flights!
Ok. Now, back to the spiders and bats. If you will recall, in July of 2011 our yard was looking a lot like
Notice the new roof?
So, we called Mr. Hugo (of Hugo's Tree Service) to come give us an estimate. $$YIKES$$. We settled on a slightly terrifying price to have 33? 35? (I can't remember) giant and semi-giant trees removed and their stumps ground. Here's a tip: buy a house with a yard that has ALREADY BEEN LANDSCAPED.
A few days later (August 2011) Mr. Hugo was back with his crew and Henry pulled up a chair to watch.
When they were done, the back yard looked about like:
(Those trees were housing bats. I know this because once the trees were gone the bats came to live in our attic. I'll spare you the details. Let's just say it is an expensive and disgusting eviction and clean-up process. The bat-man was kind enough to let me know that we'd clearly had other critters in the attic before since there were several old traps up there. Rats?! Squirrels?! I hope I never know. Thanks for NOT mentioning that, home-inspector, roof-replacers, pest-controllers, and husband.)
I don't have any pictures of the front yard during this time, but I really wish I did. It was hideous. Because, in a stroke of pure genius, I told Mr. Hugo not to remove the giant boxwoods and flatten the berms that covered about 40% of the yard. Here's another tip: don't try to save $s here by assuming your husband can knock this out for free. Poor Beau. Hours and hours of his life were spent in the front yard with a pick-ax and a wheelbarrow, trying to level those berms. We did end up meeting a lot of folks in the neighborhood during this time, though. Strangers would take pity on Beau and bring him a chainsaw or a pitchfork or some other tool they thought might help. This went on for months.
By the following February, we did something adults sometimes do; we hired a landscape architect (was that an appropriate use of ";" back there?) to landscape the front yard. Not the backyard. It was looking awesome.
No?
I remember the day the workers came to do the front yard. I had been watching the morning news, and the landscapers busted the water main out front. While I was panicking about that, Beau called to say he had cancelled our cable (?!???) and when I went back inside the tv screen was already blue. AT&T, you are, sometimes, very efficient (was that too many ",'s"?).
The landscapers did mighty works.
And, in March, this happened.
I mean, we laid the sod. (we = Beau and some guys who think twice about answering Beau's phone calls anymore). And the yard was looking like this.
In July we got some new windows. (and at some point we had the shutters painted black?)
And by fall we were looking like this.
Kelly Perry took this picture.
Is anyone still reading this?
