May 29th

Hi Everyone.


Today is a sad day for me. Gramp died yesterday, and I will miss him a great deal. I am happy to know that he has been very happy the past year, and that he is certainly feeling better now than he has in a long time, and that I will see him again, but it is still hard to know that I won't see him for a long time. Mike and I were talking about him, and I just am grateful to have known him well. He has such a tender heart and has certainly been important to me. Mike notes that Casey will also miss him, as he was the only one who snuck her people food.




In unrelated news, we signed on our house today. Mike and I were pretty nervous and worried this morning, but our Realtor and our loan person were both at the signing which helped us feel calm. They have been a great support to us and I would recommend them to anyone. It was sort of a relief when it was over, knowing that all that stuff is done. Now we just have to wait for the title transfer. We should get the keys on Tuesday of next week.

This past week we helped JP and Natalie move. I say we, but really I mean Mike. I was super tired on Saturday, so mostly I sat on the couch and watched other people move things. We are so excited for them and happy to have them close by. The house looks great, and their things look really nice in it.

Monday we celebrated the long weekend by going to Ikea with JP and Natalie and checking Jens into the play center. We also enjoyed dinner and JP and Natalie actually bought stuff. Tuesday Jens and I went to the library and zoo, something we haven't done in a while. It was fun to spend time with him doing something we both like. I am finally having a little bit more energy, although not today because I am emotionally tired.

Wednesday Mike and I had a date night. We picked up pizza from Chicago Fire (probably my favorite eating establishment in Folsom) and went to Lowes. It was very romantic. We looked at wood flooring, carpet, tile, and bathroom sinks. We both feel good about the decisions we are making except that there is no way the new carpet is going to be installed by the time we move in. Boo. Also, we have decided to wait on the wood flooring and get the good stuff installed right, which means a lot of prep work and laying a new subfloor downstairs, which means it won't happen for quite a long time. But it will be really beautiful when it is done.

That's all from us. When I write next week we will be owners of a house, albeit a house that needs a lot of TLC.

May 21st

Hi Everyone--

After last week's declaration of writing on Thursdays, here I am writing on Wednesday again. I am in charge of playgroup tomorrow, so I figure I have a better chance of getting it done today.

First, our exciting news is that we heard from the bank yesterday and our loan has been approved. We are excited and terrified--I think Mike was still hoping that something would go wrong with the loan approval. I have a feeling we are both going to be very educated on DIY projects in the next few years. Our closing date is June 3rd and our moving date is June 14th.

This week I was in charge of sharing time, always a treat, and we did a lot of cooking out because it was so hot. We were up over 100 several days, which is alarming considering it is only May, but now we are back to normal. I made a solar cooker on Monday, which was fun. I wanted to use it yesterday, but of course, yesterday was a little cloudy and not that hot, so it didn't get much over 175 degrees in the oven.

Since it was so hot, Jens's new favorite activity became playing in the sprinkler. I got a little sprinkler and put it way out in the grass to prevent a repeat of the hose-in-the-house incident. Can you tell that he is working on putting his underpants on by himself?


Yesterday and today Jens and I are helping Natalie start moving their stuff. It is amazing how many things you can fit into two cars. Hopefully we will get a good start on getting them moved into their new house. They are doing the big move-out on Saturday. We are excited for them to be close by.

Tonight is our second book club meeting--Pride and Prejudice tonight. I just started reading it, so I am not sure if I will finish, but I have read it many times before and watched the movie so many times I am still going.

In Jens news, Saturday he and Mike had a special adventure. Mike loaded Jens into the bike trailer and took him down to the river where they saw crawfish and splashed in the water. The Pac-10 crew finals were last weekend and we had talked about going to watch for a while, but it was one of those really hot days, so we didn't do that, but the boys had a good time playing at the river together, and I had a good time lying on the couch at home.

Jens has also been full of energy and vim, which is hard to keep up with most days. He is also going through a violent "I am not listening to anything you say" phase. He is very good at punching and ignoring directions. Hopefully this phase won't last too long.

I am starting to feel a little better although I am still pretty tired, but that might just be because of Jens. Hope you all had a happy week.

May 15th

Hi Everyone--

I have decided that Thursday is an easier day to write than Wednesday. This might be a permanent change. First, Congratulations to Collin and Bree--baby Felix is darling and sweet. There is nothing like a tiny new baby. Don't blink too long, because he will suddenly be an almost three year old leaving destruction in his wake. Also, happy birthday to Brenda.

It has been a busy week around here. For some reason we have decided that this should be the most exciting year ever and try to 1. buy a house and 2. have a baby all before 2008 is over. Yes, that means we are pregnant. We had our first doctor's appointment on Monday and everything is going well. We had an ultrasound and even saw the little bean. I will try to send a picture. You have to squint and be really imaginative, but there is definitely a baby there. My due date is December 3rd, which means we will not be traveling for the holiday season at all this year, but that is okay because with a new house, we won't be able to afford traveling anyway! For those of you thinking about the beach, this means I will look almost exactly the same at the beach this year as I did three years ago. It will be like no time has passed except that I will have a three year old. We bought our beach tickets yesterday, so suddenly it is starting to seem real and close. We are very excited!



We had the inspection on the house on Monday as well. Aside from a few small things, the house is in decent shape, aside from the ugliness. We were worried about water damage in the roof because you can see sky when you are in the attic, but the attic is totally sound. We do have to replace all of the bathroom sinks, which are rusting over, and we are pretty determined to rip out all of the carpet and install whole house internet wiring, the idea of which makes Mike a little giddy, before moving in. Our closing date is set for June 3rd, so as long as the underwriting goes as planned, all should be well. It is very confusing and complicated to buy a house, and there are a lot of official and alarming papers to sign. We are excited, though, and are looking forward to having our own place. Hopefully it will give us a settled feeling we have never really had since we've been married.

On Tuesday I went to an enrichment about solar cooking. It was really cool, and I am totally going to make a solar oven. Aside from being 'green', it means I can cook things outside without turning on the oven, which makes our house really hot. It gets so warm here that we can apparently do solar cooking for 5-6 months of the year, and it works a lot like a crockpot. I will let you all know how my oven turns out. Of course, this is assuming that I have the energy to do that this week. We'll have to see about that.

Saturday we went to Ikea with the Nielsens. We realized with delight that Jens is tall enough AND potty trained, so he can go to the kid's area and be checked in! It was so nice, and I think he had a good time. I know we had a good time walking around without him.

It is hot here--100 degrees today. I don't think it is supposed to last, though, so that is good. Jens has discovered a great love of playing in the sprinklers. Yesterday we had all the girl friends over and they ran through the sprinkler for almost two hours, and when he got up from his nap he wanted to play some more.

May 7th

Hi Everyone,

I am finally starting to feel better, which is good because it has been a stressful week. Stressful and exciting. We are in escrow and having a house inspection today, and I think Mike might be secretly hoping that it is disastrous so we don't have to face the responsibility of becoming home owners, but I am feeling excited about the house, and I am starting to picture us living there. Of course, even if it passes inspection we still have to worry about the appraisal next week, especially since the roof needs replacing and our loan can apparently be denied because of that, even if we plan on replacing the roof soon. It will be a relief when we just know something so we can either start planning the move or go back to looking for something else.

Jens has had a destructive week. I don't think I wrote about how last week he emptied a bottle of dish soap, peed his pants, poured dirt all over the couch, ottoman, and carpet, stuck a bubble wand and his hand in the toilet after peeing, and shattered my spoon rest all over the floor all within a two hour period. This week he brought the hose into the kitchen. He had asked to play with the water, so I put him in his swimming suit and stuck him outside. He was being very cute. I was in my room getting dressed and suddenly heard splattering water, so I came running and found Jens standing on the patio with the hose sticking into the kitchen and a 8 foot by 10 foot puddle of water on the floor.





Then on Tuesday during his "nap" he emptied all of the clothes out of his dresser, stirred them together with all of the dirty laundry from my room, all the pillows from my bed, colored on my glider and the carpet with a brown crayon, and to top it off, he found a tube of Balmex in the dresser and squeezed out the whole thing, then rubbed it into the carpet and the inside of his shoes. We had to rent a carpet cleaner and we spent many hours with a degreaser and rags. Hopefully we did a good job.

These are on top of his normal sand scattering, toy throwing, bed jumping activities. Luckily he is also occasionally good and cute. He has decided, though, that being in a crib means nothing. Last night after he was put to bed, he climbed out, turned on the lights, and sat in the glider reading books. We let it go since he was in his room, and by 10:30 when Mike checked on him, he had climbed back in bed and had gone to sleep.

I have enjoyed following "the great American roadtrip" (greatamericanroadtrip.us) the past few days. I heard the story on NPR yesterday morning and it has been fun to track their progress. I keep thinking it sounds like something Loren would do.

I think that is all for this week. Have a good one.

(Maybe) Our New House

We might be getting our own house. We are excited and terrified! We will see how inspection goes.

The hose

Jens learned how to turn on the water spigots outside. Today he asked if he could turn on the water and play so I put him in his swimming suit and sent him outside. He was playing with the hose, then he came to the kitchen door, opened the screen, and stuck the TURNED ON hose inside. That is all I have to say, except that it is a miracle my head didn't explode.

May 1

Hi Everyone,

I have a cold and feel miserable. How can that be when it is 70-80 degrees every day and totally gorgeous? I went to bed before Jens last night and slept until he woke us up this morning, but still feel lousy.

In other news. We made a few offers on homes last Friday. One is a short sale, which means it could be months before we hear anything, and one we have heard back on and the bank is not willing to come down to what we are willing to pay. It is exciting to be doing something--we just hope we can find something that will work for us.

We spent a little time over at JP and Natalie's new house this weekend, helping them finish up a few little things before they move in. Jens was a great helper and enjoyed using the hammer and helped throw things away. You could tell he felt very big.

Also in Jens news, he has started holding all sorts of imaginary conversations with and between his cars. While we were going to the grocery store, Lightning McQueen and the red Ferrari were discussing how the Ferrari's wheels hurt. Lightning was being very helpful, looking at the Ferrari's wheels and not finding anything to cause pain. ("My wheels hurt!" "Let me see. I don't see anything!" "They still hurt!" "My wheels don't hurt." etc.) It was funny. Yesterday Jens and Lightning were packing suitcases to go on a train to Ohio. We got a Thomas the Train book (Thomas the Really Useful Engine) from the library. Jens had us read it five times a day, I swear, and he now walks around quoting large sections. ("Thunder rolled and lightning flashed and rain fell heavily on the Island of Sodor . . . ") I finally couldn't take reading it anymore and returned it, but that has not dampened his enthusiasm.

I just realized I forgot to go to the primary board meeting last night. Oh well. I was in bed.

Hope you all feel more chipper than me!