New Home!

It rained the whole morning of our inspection, of course.

Driveway-end of house.

The redwood deck is off of the breakfast area.

Front Door. Dining room is to the left. Hallway to right leads to bedrooms. Living room behind me.

Living Room, with Breakfast area to right. Gas fireplace.

Dining Room, this is the bay window you see on the front of the house.

Breakfast area, door leads out onto the deck. To the right is the kitchen.

Kitchen, looking into the breakfast room.

Kitchen from breakfast room. At the end is the laundry room. Thru the doorway is the dining room.

We are not really digging the green formica countertops, but it will be easy enough to change when we're ready.

Family room in the basement. Wet bar. Thru the door is the bathroom.
Catelin is playing a slot machine.

(Please Lord, make them come back and get the slot machine...)

Wet bar area.

This is the other end of the family room. The door out to the backyard is on my left. Thru that door is a bedroom. Around the corner to the right is the garage entrance, stairs up and another bed room on the front of the house.

Ummm, I can explain....

Alternate titles for this post:
Catelin Made Me Do It!
Alex said, "Mine, Mine beebee arf-arf."
She's Chocolate (and white), who doesn't love chocolate?
The cat was getting too cocky.

She is about 3 months old. The Pet Rescue Group said, their best guess, is Australian shepard and New Foundland mix.(?) She has golden eyes, like a chocolate lab. There were 3 puppies in the litter, they were rescued from the local landfill when they were only a few days old. Their names are Hershey, S'more and Reese. We have Reese, but were not sure if we are going to keep that name or change it...

30 Seconds Alone With A Bottle of Baby Powder

Wordless Wednesday

A Sunny Winter Day

I will take a break from talking about houses to post some pictures! I knew you'd be happy about that!

This is what a 2 year old can get up to when you are not looking.

It was a beautiful day today. Sunny and about 69 degrees. Not to rub it in or anything, but, the daffodils are blooming here.

We spent most of the afternoon playing in the backyard. Alexander was as happy as a clam!

If he's a good boy, for fun, we let him move the wood pile.

It's a special treat.

Load the wood, move the wood to another area of the yard. Unload the wood.

Reload the wood into your wagon. Move to another part of the yard. Unload the wood.

Repeat endlessly.

Remember how Alex used to like to 'line things up', trains, cars, etc.? I think I may have a whole post I could write about this little eccentricity of his...

I swear, I had him tested, he is NOT special!

He just likes things order-ly.

Of course, Alex playing in the yard would not be complete without his trusty sidekick. Whenever Alex goes out, he calls Lucy to come out with him. Very cute, especially since he calls her "My BeeBee". He stand at the back door and calls, "BeeBee, BeeBee gout" (yes, he says 'gout' not 'go out', it's not a typo). And that cat comes running for him.

We can't figure it out... but she had a lovely time rolling in the dirt.

She's finally grown and put on some weight. We were starting to think she was going to be a runt forever.

Eventually, he will take off his shoes and socks. If you're lucky you'll catch them before he pitches them over the fence.

Now, I did not deliberately leave out Catelin. She allowed me to take one picture so everyone could see her hair cut. Then she was off to do more important things than play with us in the backyard.

Although she did leave instructions for me to be sure and take some pictures of Lucy. See how good I follow instructions!

THE END!

A New House!

We have a hoouusse, we have a hoouusse, we have a hoouusse, hooray!
The seller signed off on the last counter offer yesterday evening!

For those of you who received spamish type e-mails from me with pictures of houses; it is the big beige two story house. Five bedrooms, big family room in the walk-out basement.

It is just the next neighborhood down from where we live now, so we don't have far to move.

This is one of the very first houses we looked at over last summer, before we were even seriously house-shopping. The size of the house and the way the floor plan is laid out is going to be perfect. The fact that the price kept dropping was appealing as well. Ha, Ha!

Our closing is in the middle of March. Now, we have to find a good home inspector and start pricing a fence for the backyard.

More pictures will come.

Bummer

Well, no golf course house for us. The seller choose another bid.
There actually were multiple bids, who'dathunkit.

The next house on our list is the one with the great, fenced back yard. But, big but, the seller is not able to come down off their listing price. At the listing price, you would still have to attempt a short-sale. A short-sale is asking the bank to take less money than what is owed. Sometimes the bank will do that to help get the house sold, especially if the homeowner is behind on their payments.

In this case the homeowner is not behind on payments, so the Bank has refused to take anything less than what is owed. There is also a SECOND MORTGAGE.... they would have to agree to take... oh, NOTHING!

All this leaves the house about $25,000 over-priced. A rotten situation for everyone involved.

Okay , moving on the the next house on the list. A nice, big house that is a great set up for us. Cons: smallish backyard, and neighborhood is not as 'fancy'. No home-owners association to make people 'keep things nice'. Not a bad area, just more 'rural' feeling. But if we can get it for a good price, the neighborhood would be worth it. We will make a bid on this house this weekend.