Home Sweet Home

Everything is unpacked! We're ready to live here now. The kids get back from their week at Grammy and Grandpa's house tomorrow, so we thought we should take a few snapshots while everything is in it's place. Tomorrow the kid tornado will roll through, and our new home won't be quite so picturesque.

So without further ado, here are a few pics.

The front of our house.


The backyard, complete with bunnies, quail, squirrels, and a nest full of baby robins.


The front room (with a little of the hallway and dining room visible)


Basement highlights - Cameron gets a workshop and the kiddos get a schoolroom. We actually just got those school desks at a garage sale here in Lincoln for $3. I have a feeling we'll get along with Lincoln pretty well.

We still have a few things to get done before we can consider ourselves settled. Eg. we're not planning on using Alex's towel for our bathroom curtain permanently; we do have bathroom curtains on their way. Also, Mt. St. Box erupted in the garage, and the disaster recovery crew needs to work on cleaning up the aftermath.

If you just can't get enough of our new house - we put a video tour on You Tube. It didn't seem like a good idea to post a detailed tour of our valuables, along with means of entrance and quick exits for all to see on the internet, so if you want the video tour you're going to have to ask us for an invitation. Feel free to do so, as long as you're not a criminal.

PS If you want to see the video tour you'll have to give me your youtube ID.

oops

I was just gearing up to post a plethora of pictures and videos from this past week, but alas, I just realized that I packed the camera cable. You'll all have to wait until we're settled in Nebraska before you see our pictures and hear from us again. Ta Ta For Now.

Last Week in Michigan

We're down to our last week in Michigan. Next Monday we'll load up the truck, and Tuesday we'll be off to Nebraska. We've got quite a week scheduled. Here's what we did today:

This morning after we finished school we headed off to Greenfield Village. We've been going to The Henry Ford or Greenfield Village at least once a month for the past year, but sadly our annual pass expired in April. Thanks to our wonderful friend Hallie, we were able to go today as guests on her family's pass for one last trip.

We spent most of last week packing and cleaning. This week we hope to finish everything up. On today's to-do list was packing and cleaning the play room and the dining room. Here are the finished products.

On tomorrow's agenda: the zoo and the basement. Wish us luck.

2 down, 11 to go

We've been a little lax in getting this on video, but William has known the Second Article of Faith for a while now.

Our Little Obsession

We packed up our books yesterday. Here they are. Well, most of them anyway. We still haven't packed our scriptures and I'm sure we'll find a few more stragglers as we pack the rest of the house. We LOVE books. And yes, we do use them all. But we never enjoy moving them.

Present Colors

Esther and her friend Juliana were the flag bearers at tonight's American Heritage Girls opening ceremonies. Esther stayed very focused and did her country, troop, and family proud.

There and Back Again

Last week we took our last visit to Nebraska. Next time we go, we'll be staying. Everything went AMAZINGLY well. Here is a recap:

Wednesday Morning through Evening: Driving all day with hardly any fights! Thanks to Amberly for lending us the Chronicles of Narnia on CD. Those made the trip.

Wednesday Night: Pull in to the Marriott Hotel! Thanks to Cameron and the magic of priceline.com we were able to stay at 3-4 star hotel for $5 more per night than the cheapest motel in Lincoln.

Thursday Morning: We meet Bob, the realtor. He's great! We look through rentals together, but the only homes that were in our budget and in a good area were not available until the end of June. He makes a few phone calls to see some possibilities, but there's nothing we're thrilled with. We let Bob know that we're also open to buying, so he sends us to the bank while he scouts around for us.

Thursday Late Morning: We meet a great banker who thinks that doctors are a good risk, and will therefore give us a loan with no money down, a good interest rate, and no payments due until Cameron has had a couple of paychecks.

Thursday Early Afternoon: Back with Bob, visiting houses. We see several that we like, as well as a few we don't like so much. We visit one last house on a whim and fall in love with it. It's perfect for our family. More details will come over the next three years that we live there.

We head back to Bob's office to sign papers, and as we turn the corner from our new home we see this less than a block away.

That's right, we get to walk to church. There are two LDS church buildings in all of Lincoln, and we just happened to fall in love with a house half a block from one of them. How awesome is that?

Thursday Late Afternoon: Signing a lot of papers. Magically our children content themselves to play mostly quietly while we tend to grown-up things.

Thursday Night: Our offer was accepted, and the seller will pay all closing costs plus a one year warranty so we won't likely have to put down any money when we close. We also happen to sign one day before Obama's tax stimulus is up (which we didn't know about until that morning).

Friday Morning: Sign a lot of papers at the bank, and start heading back to Michigan.

Friday Evening: Bad rainstorms. Lots of accidents on the freeway. We decide to stop for the night. Thanks again to Cameron and priceline, we got to stay at the Holiday Inn for less than the cost of a cheap motel.

Saturday: After driving all morning we decide to stop at the Chocolate Garden - as the billboard has intrigued us since our first drive into Michigan nearly two years ago. It's lame. But the McDonald's down the street has a great playplace. This is what Alex decided he could do.

Saturday Evening: Arrive at home sweet home. Now we just have to pack it all up.