We're back!

Well, after 2 days of being snowed in and the third day of the expressway still closed, we finally were able to make it home on Sunday. There were tons of cars in the ditches along with several semi trucks and tankers rolled over, smashed, and on their sides. The roads were dry though and the sun shining so it was a good trip overall.

We spent a day in Watertown - the kids stayed with Grandpa and Grandma - and we toured the hanger where Bob will be taking classes and he liked it a lot. There were quite a few airplanes there that they actually get to work on and classes are from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Mon. through Fri. with no homework unless he has a test to study for. They do all of the FAA testing right there at the school so once you are done with the classes and testing you are ready to go straight to work. They have a great job placement program with more jobs available than graduates each year. So basically, if you are good, you get the pick of where you want to go or what you want to do. Even if you aren't that great you are almost guaranteed a job when you graduate. That is a wonderful thing!

We looked at apartments that we applied for and are waiting for results from our applications on them. I wasn't exactly thrilled about one, it was really small but pretty clean. Which is rare for income based housing. The second one that we applied for was a townhouse style apartment. It had a fairly large living/dining area, a small kitchen (sorta galley style), and a half bath down stairs and then three bedrooms and a full bath upstairs. Not a whole lot of storage. We ended up applying at income based housing because we don't expect to have jobs immediately when we move there. Bob will also not really be able to work full time while he goes to school full time...probably. We will have to see once he gets started. We also applied for a Section 8 grant but that takes about 4 months to get and we want to be out of here as soon as possible. We've been kicked out again and told we need to be gone by the first of April. Happy Spring...

It was nice to see Bob's family. The kids loved spending time there with their grandparents and cousins. We had Christmas Dinner with Bob's sister and her family and his mom. Excellent food and a great time with family. That was the day that it started snowing like crazy in SD. When we got to his sisters at about 10 that morning there was no snow and by the time we left around 4 in the afternoon there had to be almost a foot of snow on the ground. We ended up staying at Bob's dad's house an extra night because the roads were terrible and it snowed all the way through Iowa where we needed to drive. So we didn't get to Omaha until Mon. at about noon.

We had a wonderfully relaxing time in Omaha but unfortunately because of the weather we weren't able to see the school there that we wanted to. The kids had so much fun with their cousins they didn't want to leave. Poor Jozie had a stomach ache for the next 2 days because she just didn't want to be in the basement with only her brother again.

We are finally starting to repack our stuff to move again. Where too, we really aren't sure yet. The plan is Watertown or bust but sometimes our plans don't happen the way we want them to. In that event we may be forced to go and live with Bob's brother until we can find a place of our own but we REALLY hesitate to do that because as we look around us here that was what this was supposed to do and here we are "temporarily" two years later still looking for a place of our own. I don't want the same thing to happen with his brother too. Though the house across the street is for rent to own. $1050 / mo. $3000 down would include the first months rent. The only problem is we have never had that big of a commitment to anything and we aren't sure we could do it. It's more than we could imagine at this point, especially since we don't have jobs in the area. I guess it's one of those wishful thinking situations...

Our big problem is our credit. We have one major credit card that is our problem, but nothing major, it's under $10,000 (which is way too much for us but from what I understand it's not that great as far as debt is concerned). There are a few other small dental bills and a phone bill that has been in dispute since before we were married because Bob's roommate took advantage of the fact that the bill wasn't in his name...So, my question is, what would bankruptcy do to our already horrible credit? I don't know anything about it but I do know that some friends in Michigan were in way over their heads - to the point that their house was repoed by the bank and sold under their noses to the guy down the street before they had moved out. They declared bankruptcy and within months they were buying another house and a used car. How is this possible? The first question that these people ask you is if you have had a bankruptcy and I have always assumed that was a bad thing but how does that make my friends situation make sense? I don't understand. I am at the point that I know it's not right but if it would help us get out of the mess we are in - I am desperate. We need to get in a good place for our family and we believe that Bob going back to school would be the break we need. We lived here for 2 years in a basement, I can certainly live in a small apartment for 2 years if it meant something better for our future.