Marchie's World

2006 certainly had its ups and downs. I am eager to see what this new year will bring for the Gallup family - it is sure to be different with our upcoming move. We wish our friends and family continued health and happiness into the new year.

Much love from the Gallups

Archie is trying to teach Rachel the aspects of taking ONLY one of something in front of her (cheerios, apple bits, etc)... as she blatantly takes a handful of them :P Too funny!

Things are shaping up around the house. The kitchen is about done with the exception of a piece of trim and installing the new dishwasher. The stairway is done. The master bath still needs the doors and window trimmed out, the trim painted, and the hardware installed (towel bars, TP holder, etc). I think all that is left after that is to trim out one of the master bedroom doors. OH! And install a handrail/banister thingy at the top of the stairs! We have all the materials and all the tools now, we just need a friend with the know-how to come by tomorrow for a few hours. He only asked that we smoke some ribs for him to have for supper and he'd work a day for us. Pretty good deal if you ask me (especially considering the tools are his!).

Rachel is playing keep-away with Daddy with the container of Cheerios. She walks almost all the way up to him with the container and he reaches for her and she turns around and 'runs' - the best she can - away, laughing like mad. Really cute. Also she is now waving properly to say hi and bye, not just in response to someone telling her to do it.

Well, time to put the little rugrat away for the night :)

Ugh. We're getting tired of all of this tedious work around here. Thankfully, things are shaping up nicely. We should be ready for people to view the house for sale by the end of the weekend. Just in time for us to go househunting in Michigan!

Rachel is getting tired of Mommy not being able to pay her as much attention as she'd like her to. When I finally get a chance to sit and relax, check out what's happening on the laptop, she comes up and starts throwing toys and books on the keyboard. How guilty do I feel? Well, luckily we're almost done with the housework.

Rachel and I got our blood drawn for misc tests this morning. This was the first time she got stuck in her arm though :( Boy was that tough to watch, but she made it through just fine. It was quite funny when the tech had the needle in Rachel's arm and Rachel was screaming her head off (no, that's not the funny part) and all of a sudden she stops and points at the tech's bracelets. We all started laughing, then she resumed scream mode when she realized there was still a needle in her arm. Like I said, she made it through just fine. We went out to breakfast afterwards so it was quickly forgotten.

Tomorrow brings more housework, but this time it will be done a bit more expediently (hopefully). We will have some better tools on loan from a friend, and perhaps even the friend will be on loan for a couple hours (THANKS TJ!).

A friend of ours' started doing something similar to this to keep folks abreast of happenings in his family's life, and I thought it was a great idea so that folks can keep up with Rachel. IF I remember to continue to update this blog, that is :)

Our lives right now are very crazy. Archie and I are very busy getting the house ready for sale. Yes, you read that right (if you haven't already heard). We're moving again. Archie is finishing his work up here at Ft Drum and his company has a spot for him on a job in Pontiac, MI building a new testing facility for General Motors. So we are in the midst of the relocation process.

One annoying thing about all of this is that we are doing all this work on the house that has needed to be done since we first moved in, but never did it. Now we're doing it for someone else to enjoy. But, this is pretty much what happens with most people when they sell the house. So, Archie has taken all of this week off so we could work on everything.

Luckily, Archie's parents came up from Hobart to help us work on things and spend the Christmas holiday with us. We would not have gotten half as much done without them here with their skills, knowledge and labor. THANK YOU NAN AND ARCH!!

Well, that's all for now, I'll try to write in this about once a day if I can.