Sunday, June 27, 2010

No More Scissors for Ady


She "didn't mean" to cut off her hair. Really.

At least hair grows back....

Friday, June 25, 2010

The House Again - Lots of Pics

In case you missed it - We made an offer on a house.

Since we didn't get a chance to look at all the details the first time, we asked our realtor if we could go back to check it out again. We wanted to see the upstairs without people in the beds, and have the chance to take some pictures.
We went today at 4pm, and thankfully, everyone was awake. They did know that we were coming, but I guess they didn't feel like they needed to clean up for us... as you can see in the pictures.
Oh - and the owner was very proud to tell us that he did ALL the painting himself. *we did our best not to snicker*
(As far as we can tell, they are not vampires, but they have 8 children with #9 on the way.)

The boy's room - very colorful, of course. My son likes blue, but I don't think I could look at THIS much blue for long.



Upstairs bathroom - I didn't get a picture of the second part of it with the shower and toilet. It's a "lovely" aquamarine color.


Girl Room #1 - I might be able to stomach this purpleish-pink color. Compared to the rest of the house, it's lovely.


Girl Room #2 - Ady of course declared this one her room. I really don't like the border. And notice how it almost (but not quite) matches the paint on the door panels and around the window? Beautiful.


This is what you see when you walk into the master suite. I thought it was an... interesting choice.... I think I would like to paint it all one color (obviously) and put a nice portrait of Christ there.



Master Bathroom - yes, they did know we were coming.



The master bedroom, aka "The Cave". This is seriously the best picture I could get. It was DARK in there! And they have very large furniture that takes up a lot of space.


There are his and hers walk-in closets - something that my husband has always wanted. (He doesn't like to share). I had to get a picture of the PINK "hers" closet. Nice, huh?



Downstairs bathroom


Downstairs bedroom - aka, MY office (paint will have to go!)

Zadyball will find lots of uses for this walk-in closet!


Love the cabinets in the laundry room!


The garage - 3 car, floor painted (yippee!) AND the owner told us that he MAY leave the cabinets. My husband was very happy about that!


And that's all folks. Now you have a much better picture of the house.
I know it sounds like I don't like it, but really, the only thing I don't like is the paint color choices. We really like the floor plan. The neighborhood seems nice. It seems to be in really great shape...
But before we move in, we will be having an serious painting party. Any volunteers??

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The secret is out - so here's the scoop

We've been kind of hush-hush on this since we didn't really know what we were going to be doing, but since my husband can't keep his mouth shut (I love you, dear) and most of the people we know already know anyway, I figured I'd post the details.

A couple of months ago, my friend, Hillari asked me if we had considered moving at all. They had decided that with the housing market the way that it is, it was a great time to upgrade. Well, at that point we HADN'T considered it, but I told my husband what they were doing, and he got all excited and started looking into it.
What we found out is that this is pretty much THE best time to buy. The prices are very low AND the interest rates are very low. So, we discovered that we could get a BIGGER house, rent out our current home, and STILL possibly have a lower payment than what we have now. Even if we can't get rent to cover the total current mortgage. So, we figured why not?
The thought of moving does not exactly sound like fun to me. We have accumulated a LOT of stuff over the last 8 years that we have lived in this house. Plus, I really like where we live. We have good friends close by, and I love our ward (local congregation). So, I agreed to look, as long as we didn't go to far out of my "comfort zone". (yeh... I need to expand... I know, I know)
So we started looking. We saw a lot of "nice" places. Some that we kind of liked. But none of them felt "just right". There was one that I liked a lot more than my husband. It was right next to a park, in a cul-de-sac, and right down the street from some friends. But, it did need a lot of work, and he didn't like that.
We were actually considering making an offer on that one, and we asked our realtor if we could go back to see it "one more time" before we decided. The day before we were going to go, she sent us another listing that we might like. The price and JUST been reduced so that it fit into our price range. So we agreed to see that one too. We were going to see the one we had liked FIRST, but as we were leaving to head over there, the realtor called to tell us she had lost her key! She had never had that happen before, and was searching frantically for it. We were supposed to meet at the house at 10:30, but she told us to meet us at the other house at 11:00 instead since we had an appointment with the owners then. (She did find her key)

Here is the house we met her at:

Notice the fancy car in the drive way? That was our first clue that we may see some "interesting" things inside.

We knocked on the door. No one answered, so our realtor used her lock box key to let us in. (She had talked to the owner's realtor previously and we had an appointment - at 11:00am). We went in and this is the first thing we saw:

Notice how umm... pretty(?) the purple paint looks with the lovely burgundy carpet? (yikes!)

Here's the kitchen:
I LOVE the cabinets and the counter tops. The green paint... not so much....



The backyard is an odd shape since it is in a cul-de-sac, and it's just dirt, but it is a decent size and has potential.


Then we went upstairs and saw this HUGE "bonus room". It would make a great play room for the kids, once we get rid of the RED paint of course.



So then, things got REALLY weird. (as if the paint choices and such weren't strange enough.)
At this point we had been in the house for at least 20 minutes. Our kids had been running all over, we had been talking about how awful the paint was.... Not being quiet, at all. We went to the first bedroom, opened the door and turned the light on. As we looked around the room, I happened to glance at the bunkbeds and realized there were KIDS sleeping in there!
We didn't know what to do. This was another first for our realtor. Remember, our appointment was at ELEVEN o'clock. Not exactly early if you ask me. So we all run back downstairs, and kind of "pretend" that we are just walking in the door. My loudmouth husband started yelling "HELLLOOO"! Trying to get some response. Finally, one of the kids stumbled out of bed. We told her why we were there, and she went and knocked on the master bedroom door. LOUDLY. For about 5 minutes. And we stood there and waited while they used the bathroom... and got dressed.... just a little bit awkward. Finally, we were able to go check out the rest of the upstairs.
There are a total of 5 bedrooms. Lots of crazy colors. The master bedroom is something of a cave - very dark paint, not much light. (I guess that is necessary if you sleep that late). But the bathroom is very large and beautiful. We really, really like the floor plan.
(I have no more pictures as I felt pretty weird taking pictures with them standing there, in their pajamas and such).

So anyway, that's the story of the house. We hate the paint colors, but that's pretty much the ONLY thing that needs changed to make it very liveable for us. The price is right. So we made an offer.
We got a call Monday morning to let us know that the seller's accepted the offer. But since it's a short sale, we still have to wait until it gets approval from the bank. This could take two weeks, or two months. Possibly longer (hopefully NOT!)
So, if all goes well, we will be moving. It's only about three miles or so from where we live now. Sadly, it is out of our ward, but it is in the Crystal Gardens ward, and we have lots of friends there. It's in the same neighborhood as the guy that Brandon carpools with, so that works out nice for him.

I guess that's it. I'll try to post an update when we know any more.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Zadyball Giveaway

I love Facebook. I really do. I probably spend way too much time checking to see what all my friends are up to. I also have a lot of fun updating the Zadyball Facebook Page. It's fun to know that people "like" me. (They recently changed from "Fans" to "Like" - kinda weird if you ask me)
Anyway, I'd like to find some more "likers", and it's been a while since I've done a giveaway, and I thought it would be fun.

So, here's the details:

The winner will receive their choice of ANY Zadyball. They can choose one from my webpage or Etsy Page or I'll design a custom one, just for them!

To enter - leave a comment, either here (on the blog) or on Facebook. Tell me WHY you "Like" Zadyball.

Only ONE entry per PERSON will be counted

Entries will be accepted starting NOW until we reach 350 "Likers" on the Zadyball Facebook Page.

Winner will be randomly selected and contacted via email or Facebook.

So, there you have it!
Here's the easiest way to tell all your facebook friends:
On the Zadyball Facebook Page click on "Suggest to Friends"

Then select "ALL" friends. You can even include a note to tell them about the giveaway! The sooner we get to 350, the sooner we can have a winner!

Have fun!

Here's the latest Zadyball, just for fun:

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Memorial Day Weekend - being sick sucks

We decided to go to St George, Utah this weekend to spend some time with family. My brother, Brady was blessing his baby boy, and we thought it would be a great time to get away and have some fun.
Brandon thought it would be fun to borrow his parent's motor home. It made travel pretty comfortable - we had a bed anytime we wanted it. And with the way things turned out, those beds came in handy.

We got a pretty late start Friday evening. We got everything packed up and left our house at about 8pm. We headed up to Brandon's parents where we unloaded everything out of our van and into the motor home. It was about 10 before we got everyone in bed. That was when I first started to feel a little "twinge" in the back of my throat. I tried to ignore it, thinking it would be gone by morning. It wasn't.

We left early the next morning, at 4am. Our plan was to get pretty far down the road before the kids woke up. We thought for sure they would sleep for quite a while since they had been up so late.
They were up before 5:30.
The motor home doesn't go nearly as fast as our van, so the trip that usually takes us about 6 hours took closer to 8. I wasn't feeling great, but I thought it was just because I was tired, so napped for about an hour. Then Brandon thought that he should be able to take a nap too, so he made me drive for a while.
I did NOT enjoy driving that beast. Especially down a steep hill...
My fingers were numb from gripping the steering wheel so tight.
I pulled over and made Brandon drive the rest of the way.

It was fun to be able to spend time with family. My parents came down, and my sister-in-law, Anna's parents were there too. The kids had lots of fun playing with their cousins.




I had been trying to ignore my sore throat, but by Saturday night, it was pretty bad. And I started shaking and realized that I had a fever. No fun.
Sunday, we got ready and went to church. I was determined to make it. But, by the end, I was feeling pretty terrible.






By the end of church, I was really feeling sick. We went back to the motor home where I slept for a while. Then, I decided that I wasn't going to get better without some help, so I had my husband take me to Urgent Care.
After waiting for what felt like FOREVER (about 2 hours), I was finally seen by a doctor. Found out that I had a fever of 103, and strep throat. No big surprise. They gave me a shot of penicillin and sent me on my way.
The next 24 hours are kind of a blur. I think I was asleep for most of it.
We left St. George at about 4:30am on Monday morning and drove back home. I don't really remember much of the trip. We dropped off the motor home, got in our van, and got back home at about noon.
Then I slept. Pretty much all day. And all night.
Today, I'm feeling quite a bit better. Not completely back to normal. I haven't eaten much for the last few days, so I really have no energy. But, I feel much better than I did.
I am glad that if I did have to get sick, at least it happened while I was able to have some help. My parents were able to watch the kids while my husband took me to the doctor, and since he was off work on Monday, he was able to take care of the kids while I slept.
Anyway, not the best weekend ever, but I'm still glad we were able to go. But, I don't think we will be doing any traveling for a while.