David's first blog!

Well, day 2 in Texas productive.  We met our realtor, Tina, and saw about 10 different houses.  We'll see a few more tomorrow morning, but so far, we've seen two that we like.  Had a great lunch at Cotton Patch, and got a little tour of how to get to UTA from the Mansfield area (where most of the houses we looked at were).

Of course, all of this house shopping is dependent upon getting our house in Newburgh sold.  The progress on that will hopefully move forward tomorrow evening with our 3rd showing!  Hopefully these folks will like what they see.

This afternoon was an interesting experience.  While Amanda rested at the hotel, I went to campus to drop my belongings off in my temporary apartment.  The apartment seemed new and pretty nice, but for being "fully furnished," it was missing a few things...beds, nightstands, couches, end tables, and so on. But maybe I'm just asking too much...:)

Of course, those things were all supposed to be there, so the apartment manager will be working on getting those things finished before I move in on Saturday.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Tomorrow should be fun.  More house shopping, lunch with the new boss, meeting the new Orientation Leaders, and then off to Rangers Ballpark where my new favorite American League team, the Texas Rangers, will be facing off against the Seattle Mariners.  We'll be enjoying the game from the All-You-Can-Eat seats and probably get to see some offensive fireworks since you've never heard of either team's starting pitcher, both of whom have an ERA over 4.00.  Should be a fun night!  Here's hoping we get a good phone call from our Newburgh realtor during the game!

Sincerely,

The Duvalls

We're here!

Well we have officially made it to Texas!! The first part of our trip went very smoothly as we drove from Newburgh to Little Rock, Arkansas (About 7 hours).  For those that are familiar with this part of Arkansas, they have the craziest on and off ramps. You have to cross oncoming traffic when exiting or merging onto the interstate.  You feel like you're driving the wrong direction at first!  Arkansas has some of the biggest churches we have ever seen. No wonder the area is often referred to as the "Bible Belt."  People in the south love them some Jesus!  


Today's drive from Little Rock to Dallas (5 hours) was pretty boring. It's a straight shot (over 300 miles) on I-30. One thing we confirmed on our way down here is that it's true; everything is BIGGER in TEXAS!  From high school football fields (bigger than Evansville's Arena) and 100 foot buffet lines, bigger is apparently better!


We arrived at our hotel and so far have been very happy with what we've seen. Every restaurant and shopping center you could ever want. Not too mention the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, Texas Rangers Field, and Six Flags are all about 10 minutes from our hotel. So far, I (Amanda) was so excited to go to the Container store. It's an organizer's dream! They also have a movie theaters where you can eat and watch a movie at the same time. We're not talking popcorn and candy, they have full-service bar/menu that you order before the movie and your food arrives right before the movie starts! We hope to try this sometime later this week.


Well, as you can imagine, we're exhausted, but thankful to be here and we're missing our pups terribly. Tomorrow is a full day of house hunting. Hopefully, we find something we like (granted our house still needs to sell!). On a side note, we have had one unsuccessful showing of our house, where the buyers showed up at the wrong time (when we were home) with their relator's assistant (child in tow) and one successful viewing. We don't think the second family that looked at our house is really interested, but we're happy that the showing worked out and that we received some feedback.


Thank you to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers during our relocation process. We greatly appreciate it.


David & Amanda

Two weeks on the market...

Our house has officially been on the market for 2 weeks and 1 days (but who's counting, right?!). We have our first showing this evening and hopefully will get some feedback; maybe even an offer! Meanwhile, we are starting to get tired of eating out. I never thought I'd say this, but I really want a home cooked meal. We've been getting together with different friends for dinner and goodbyes this week as David's last day at USI is tomorrow! It's hard to believe he's been there for eight years!


On Saturday we will officially start packing and loading up the car.  We'll be making our way to Texas Sunday morning.  It's a 12 hour drive, but we are going to take our time and stay in Memphis or Little Rock for the night and will officially arrive in Texas on Monday. On Tuesday we will be house shopping til' we drop! I really hope one of the ten houses we're looking at is "the one!" 


We are looking forward to our first Texas Rangers game (David would want me to add that they're currently ranked #1)! We bought the "all you can eat seats." Who knew there was such a thing!?!  We get to eat and drink (soft drinks only) all we can from the start of the game until the 7th inning stretch! Needless to say we're super excited about the food...and the Rangers too.  I'm just happy that our seats are on an air conditioned patio!  The forecast for Arlington next week is mid-90's during the day and mid-70's at night!  Everyone keeps telling us that there isn't a lot of humidity in Texas, but 90 degrees with or without humidity still sounds hot!


We'll be posting some pictures during our trip so check back next week!
In the mean time feel free to check out our house at: http://4099hedgewood.fctuckeremge.com/ 


Love, D & A 

Meet the Duvall's

We are David and Amanda Duvall and I (Amanda) will be doing most if not all of the blogging. We recently found out we will be moving from Newburgh, IN to Arlington, TX and yes we are still adopting from Korea. In other words we have a lot going on and it's hard to keep everyone, especially our large family up-to-date.
 
So, to begin with yes, we are adopting from South Korea and mainly chose to go with this program because they have been completing adoptions with the US for a very long time (since the 1950's), which means they have stable program and a good track record. Also, since Amanda was adopted from Korea we can be part of a Heritage Program, which supposedly allows us to have an expedited process. Right now we are waiting to be matched with a baby boy. It will happen any day now, which we're really excited/terrified about. However, don't get your hopes up as we won't be able to bring home the little one until 18-24 months after we're matched. Bummer, huh!! The reason it takes so long is that Korea caps the number of children that are allowed to leave the country each year. The cap is usually met by June/July each year which is why final travel takes so long.

Also, we are moving to Arlington, TX. David accepted a position at UTA as the Director of Orientation and Commuter Student Programs.  David's last day at USI in Evansville will be May 25 and we will be driving over to Texas on Sunday, May 27th to move him in. The drive is about 12 hours so we are going to take our time and will arrive some time on Monday. Tuesday we will begin looking at houses and hope to find something while we're there. We also will be moving David into a UTA apartment that week and he officially will start his new job on June 4!  I will be staying in Evansville until the end of July and will move down after my summer classes are over.

Many have asked if this move will affect our adoption. I officially heard from our agency today that we can still be matched with our Indiana home study. However, we will have to update our home study once we move to Texas. So, in the mean time we are getting things together for David's departure and trying to sell our house (It's posted on Tucker's website if anyone is interested ;). 

I'll be keeping everyone updated of our move, adoption, etc. Until then.....Amanda (and David)