Friday, July 30, 2010

The Huge “Catch Up” Post to Cover July

The biggest news from the last few weeks is that we moved into our new house! Our first night was July 3rd and the following day we had a few friends over to celebrate the 4th. The kids loved the little fireworks.

Desmond loves all the new space to run and play. The formal living room is his play room since we don’t have any furniture for it. We go outside nearly every day, and his favorite activity is splashing in the kiddie pool.

We enjoyed a long overdue visit with the Hardys the following weekend. We went down to a festival that was going on at a nearby park. After the kids were in bed we played games and laughed the evening away.

Ah, the not so fun task of deep cleaning the condo. We scrubbed that thing from top to bottom, touched up the paint, and finally dug out the blocks Desmond had dumped behind the fireplace insert. Now to find a renter. We are posted on craigslist so if you know of anyone needing a place…http://portland.craigslist.org/clk/apa/1869725730.html

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July 17th marked our sixth wedding anniversary! We took three nights up in Seattle while my parents stayed with Desmond. We stayed at the new Maxwell Hotel right across from the Seattle Center. Highlights: the Auburn drive-in, the Pacific Science Center, cherries from Pike's Place Market, and dinner at Bahn Thai.

IMG_1835Desmond is quite the little helper and helped me make the truck cookies for his birthday party. Always so much more clean up afterwards, but so much fun when I remind myself the mess is cleanable and the laughter is priceless.

Desmond is 2! He loved his dump truck cake and we enjoyed hosting friends and family at our house. Desmond had fun opening all the gifts and is totally spoiled with so many new toys! (But it has been a little easier to get things done during the day as he is well occupied.) Davin’s parents all stayed with us for several nights and it was the first time Desmond had all his grandparents together.

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Life has been fun and full for the last month, but I’m looking forward to settling back into a routine. Our next focus is getting the condo rented and fixing up the new house. Coming soon… a new roof.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

My Artist

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“Yeah, I was keeping the paint on my paper, Mommy.”

My trade-off for five minutes of uninterrupted pantry organization was fifteen minutes of clean-up.  He makes me smile.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

The Proud New Owners' Learning Curve

For better or worse we are the new owners of this four bedroom house in NE Vancouver. We closed on June 18th but finally got the keys today after the past owners moved out. We stopped by this evening, and Davin got to see inside for the first time since our showing back in February. Desmond loved running around the open space and hiding in all the closets. We know the roof needs replaced and we have to treat some mold in the attic. The surprise was when I called to get our name on the water bill and found out that it's been $400 every two months! The lady told me to check for a leak since that's extremely high. We looked today and yes, with everything turned off inside the meter is still spinning. Great! I'm trying not to worry about the finances. We tried calculating out all the extra costs beforehand, but we've only purchased a brand new condo so we're not used to all the maintenance expenses that come with a fifteen year old house. We have many projects to fill the coming months, and the new water problem might involve ripping up our driveway and yard. I don't even know who to call about something like that. Guess we'll find out.