Chapter 26: Changes

With Grace and me being married the new family was too big for either of our two houses. We decided to look into a bigger house and signed up with a real estate agent. The three girls had applied and been accepted at Texas Tech and University of Houston so they had decisions to make. Do they go to school in Houston or in Lubbock? U of H will allow them to live at home while Texas Tech would be over 9 hours away. All three pursuing careers in electronics made it handy to have me available for help in their studies. A decision was made to go to the University of Houston since our family was looking into a bigger house that would undoubtedly be in the same general area as our present Spring, Texas home.

These were going to be busy times for everyone what with cheerleading three days a week after school for me and fall games for the squad.Having graduated the girls were no longer on the team but they did enjoy going to the games and sometimes would show up at practices. Grace and I drive to and from work together so that left her car for the girls to use keeping everyone quite mobil. Grace, having been a cheerleader in highschool and college, decided to join me to help out with the squad after school. Also the girls had been dating quite regularly. I slowly came to the realization that while I enjoyed being a part of their sex lives, that life goes on and they would be expanding their horizons outside the family. It is hard to love the girls so deeply and yet let them have the freedom to explore the dating scene. After all, one day they may want to get married themselves and start their own family. Grace and I insisted that would not happen until after they got out of college. Sleeping arrangements for the family remained quite flexible with two or sometimes three occupying our bed. I was very busy keeping four girls happy.

After viewing what seemed like dozens of houses Grace and I found one we liked on

Shore View Lane on the waterfront of Lake Houston in an area called Atascocita. We arranged a time for all five of us to visit the property. The girls immediately fell in love with the place so the decision was made. The house was a two story five bedroom colonial with three car garage, dock, boat house and a humongous home theater over the garage. Ok, you're way ahead of me. I just had to get a boat and jet skis. Big boys need to have their toys don't they?

Grace and I got both of the old houses on the market right away and closed on the new house after a month of paperwork that seemed to weigh almost as much as the house. We were all more than ready to move when the big day came. I had hired a moving company which would pack and move everything. All we had to deal with was personal items. Moving day brought back memories of when I and my two daughters met Grace, Janet and Robert as they moved into their house across the street from us in Spring Texas. A lot has happened since then including something none of us expected. It seems that Grace's birth control pills were doing their job until one day they didn't. Grace announced to us that our family was about to grow. Fortunately we had moved into the bigger house by then so space would not be a problem. I on the other hand had never been through a pregnancy so it was all new to me. It also was a little scary at times.

We got settled into the new house after a bit. The three girls each had their own bedrooms and Grace and I had the master suite. One thing worth mentioning is the master bath. It had a whirlpool tub and a shower big enough for three and in a squeeze four people. We even occasionally got to enjoy it with just her and me. With all our busy schedules we had to buy another car so we picked up a nice station wagon mostly for the girls to commute to and from college. Since they were all taking electrical engineering their class schedules worked out so they were all on the same schedule.