Well, we're in Oregon - getting settled slowly but surely!
The rest of the drive out, with MIL went smoothly, but all heck broke loose when we got here. We planned it out so the last day was only about a 4-hour drive, so we'd get to the house and be able to meet our landlord in the early afternoon, get the keys and start unloading.
When the landlord started to walk us through the house, DH said to MIL "would you keep an eye on River (our dog) in the yard while we do this." She said yes, but apparently she thought that was really rude and dismissive. I guess she wanted to do the inspection with us - I don't know. When we finished the walk-through, she was sulking in the yard. So, she made a hotel reservation & called a cab. We tried several times to apologize to her, but she basically ignored us and was texting/reading emails/whatever on her Blackberry the whole time (if we'd done that to her, she'd have been royally pissed).
The next morning, she texted DH to see if we wanted to have breakfast, and we went, but she still didn't say anything about accepting our apology. Her friend was driving down from Portland to pick her up to go skiing for the rest of the weekend, and they did come by once he got here (he's the one to connected DH with the job, so we really wanted to see him & get a chance to say thanks). I was showing him around the house and I said something about how MIL didn't see it all the previous day, to which she replied with a snide remark about babysitting the dog and basically said we were going to pay for that for a long time to come. She was pouty during the whole tour, since her friend was so enthusiastic about the house.
But anyway, our house is great and we love the neighborhood. We were really relieved since we did the whole thing on the Internet and we never physically saw the house until we pulled up! (Even though one of DH's new co-workers had been nice enough to come by and check it out, we were both still a little nervous about it.) The neighborhood is great and everyone is very friendly. On the day we got here, we could hardly get anything unloaded for all the neighbors stopping by to introduce themselves. Our next-door neighbors even invited us to join them for supper that night night! It's been a lot of fun to take River on walks and explore. Even though it's a planned community, every house is different. The people who had us over for dinner have the exact same floor plan we do, but you'd never know it from looking at the outside of the houses. There are several park areas, and all the yards are beautiful (including ours; luckily the landlord left us a lawnmower and great advice on keeping the plants alive - though I'm sure I'll be asking kastle & other gardeners for advice, too!).
DH is liking the job and the people he works with (as much as he can after only a week). I'm trying to get things unpacked and doing some job hunting - I'm using this post as a break from filling out an application for a job that closes today!
So that's the update, hope everyone's doing well!
Re: Hi from Oregon!
"What is a week-end?"
sounds like you will have a great life there! but you'll always be a DC nestie
Planning Bio
Congrats on making all the way across the country without having a MIL drama blow-out. Obviously, it would have been better to be completely drama-free, but at least you didn't have to ride with her while it was in progress.
Everything sounds great. Good luck finding a job and I hope you are able to get unpacked soon.
Your MIL is special...who over the age of 18 pouts and texts on their bb?
Anyways, happy to hear everything is working out so well! Good luck with the job search and enjoy exploring your new neighborhood!
Mine has apologized to me several times for very serious subject matters via text.
Mine has apologized to me several times for very serious subject matters via text.