House Photos

Josh, Kate and M all hard at work preparing the downstairs family room for painting...

The finished product is what Josh likes to call his "Man Cave"...

...but there is still plenty of room for a very large Barbie house. We were taking this box out to the recycling pile but M claimed it. I guess we'll let her keep it there for a week or 2. The small holes in the wall are windows to an under-the-stairs cubby. M is a big fan of Harry Potter right now, so she loves having her own room under the stairs.

This before shot of the master bedroom was taken before we moved in.

It's a little sparsely furnished right now, but we're at least happy to have our bed - we only just got it on Friday!
This kitchen shot was also taken before we moved in.
We decided to put in a microwave above the stove and we have Jack to thank for doing that for us. It turned out to be a bigger job than anticipated. Thanks Jack!

This is M's bathroom (one of the perks of being an only child is you get your own bathroom!). We didn't decorate it, but M has added her own touch.
My favourite is the Barbie drying rack. They slot in there nicely!

Another shot from before we moved in...this is the dining area. The light shade definitely had to go!
Another thank you to Jack for turning that ugly lamp shade into these recessed lights. He also installed 4 other recessed lights in the family room that connects to this room, which didn't have any ceiling lights.The front of our house. The nicely trimmed hedges are compliments of Maureen. We are really grateful to all of our parents for all of the work they did to help get our house ready for us to move in. We love living here!

Back of house.

September and October

An autumn Sunday afternoon picnic with Josh's parents and my family. I love autumn colors!


I love this photo of Josh and Jack.
When Alex came to Australia on holiday we visited the Beach House. One day for lunch Maureen asked what he would like to eat and he told her a BLT. We all got a kick out of that. So when Maureen was here Alex made her a BLT.

M and Josh on his birthday.
The soccer season is split here with 6 games in autumn and 6 games in spring. We've just finished up the first set of games and M enjoyed playing on an all-girls team (her last team in Aus was mixed).
M and Kate were in different age groups so they weren't on the same team, but they were pretty excited when they got matching uniforms!

House Hunting

007 and I have been house hunting for several months (longer if you include online house hunting). I always took my camera when we went to see houses so that I could remember the details of each place. Here are a couple of the most entertaining things we came across...

Yep, that's a wasp nest about the size of a soccer ball!

We are happy to say that we have found the perfect house for us. We are moving in next weekend. We have 8 cans of paint purchased and ready to go the first day we move in. Fortunately we also have 007's parents here to help! We figure that with them, my parents, plus some friends who have offered to help paint we should be able to get it done pretty quickly...we hope! We have furniture scheduled for delivery about 24 hours after we get the house keys, so I'm sure we'll be up all night that first night getting as much painted as possible. Josh is most looking forward to his new 58" TV which was his first priority when we went furniture shopping. I am looking forward to our new king-size tempur pedic bed! M is looking forward to riding her bike to school since there are no hills between our new house and the school. We are very pleased that the house is in the same school zone.

Jack and Maureen bought us new bedding for our guest bed, so we will be set for visitors! We hope you all come and see us soon.

I'll post photos of the house when we move in.

The Tim Tam Boat

More Tim Tams are coming to America! To track the boat go here. Please, please, please come to the Target near me!

4th of July Parade

I've been in the US for 15 or so Independecne Days and this year was the first time I went to a parade. I've really never been fussed on that before. But we had some relatives over from Australia and decided it would be good for them, and Josh, and M to go to a parade. We had a good time. M loved the necklaces they threw out into the crowd and we all loved the salt water taffies they threw to the crowd! Maybe in 15 years I'll go to another parade.

Bikes

M mastered bike riding since we moved here. Too bad she didn't pick it up sooner since one of her favourite things to do is to go off the edge of the curb and I think she would have had fun doing that kind of thing with Bailey... But she and Kate have had fun at the parks and trails around here.

Messy Cooking

Friends

We were very happy to spend some time with our friends from Melbourne - Tony, Amanda, Callum and Logan - during their visit here. Some photos from the Bees baseball game...




Here is a little of what we've been up to this summer...

Updates

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, so I've just uploaded a bunch of photos of what we've been up to lately. Our most exciting news-of-the-moment is that 007 has a job. Yippee! He starts in a week.

Pioneer Village

We went to Pioneer Village this week with Sara, Corinne and kids.

Lots of cute babies. I like the blonde one the best.
It was a very rainy morning. We were all thankful that Sara brought ponchos to share.

M loved helping Sam.
School circa 1850

All the kids enjoyed doing the washing.

Yep, that's me on stilts. Don't be too impressed - I only mastered going backwards!

Brigham Young's farm house...and 4 cute cousins

Lemonade Stand

Summer vacation began a week ago but the weather has been cold and rainy (next week is forecast for more of the same). M had it in her mind to have a lemonade stand last week despite the cool weather and they even though traffic is minimal in our street they managed to make $3. They used left over organic lemon juice from the "cleanse" that Sara, Josh and I recently did, so for 25c a cup it was a pretty good deal!

Pinewood Derby

M and Kate made cars to race in a Pinewood Derby with their Girl Scout troop. M's is the pink and purple car and Kate's is the green and white. They had a lot of fun racing and cheering on the other girls in their troop.

Making Chocolate

Happy Birthday Aunty Ruth!

We hope you have a wonderful 70th birthday. We love you and wish we could be there to celebrate with all of you. You are such a lovely, caring person and we feel privileged to have you as our aunty. (Above: Ann, Gordon, Ruth, M and me in 2005 when they were visiting from England.)

Hat Sharing

During the 3 years that M and I lived in Australia I was vigilant about teaching M not to share brushes, hats etc with other kids because of lice (the climate there makes them more common, even if you're a clean person!). She took the anit-lice campaign to heart and we managed to survive our entire time living there without any lice coming home.

We started reading the first Harry Potter book together last week, and last night we read the chapter with the sorting hat assigning the new students to their houses. At the end of the chapter we were talking about the hat and M said that she wouldn't want to wear it because what if she got lice! I'm guessing the hat is enchanted so that it zaps any lice on the new kids' heads when they put it on - maybe that is why it's the first thing they do when they arrive at Hogwarts.