Ummm.....

....I just heard my baby fart through the monitor.

That's weird.

My Neighbors

Two funny(semi-eerie) happenings as of late:

Story#1: Now that we're moving, I've been on a hunt of moving boxes recently. So I turned to trusty Craigslist to see what I could get for free. One ad said they were giving away a few very large boxes and they could meet in the Costbo parking lot (note: names have been changed for security purposes). I'm thinking, "Sweet, I live right by the Costbo parking lot. I'm so responding to this ad."

I get a phone call the next morning from the lady who says she'll meet me in the parking lot, but she's concerned that the boxes won't fit in my car. I tell her, no worries, I live right by Costbo, I'll just walk the boxes over to my garage. Well, she happens to live right next to Costbo too.

"Oh, maybe we're in the same area, Where do you live?"

"I'm on the corner of 162nd and Whompolooga."

"What?!? I'm on the corner of 162nd and Whompolooga!"

"No way! Let me go out onto my front porch."

Peering out my window I say, "Oh, I can see you from my bedroom window."

"Ok, that's creepy."

So as I'm hauling the boxes the short distance I find out that her and her husband moved in the same time we did a year ago, she's pregnant with her first and due in two weeks, and we both had thought about meeting our neighbors but never got a round to it. We should have been friends long ago. But now it's too late cuz I'm moving....

Sad when we have to meet our neighbors through Craigslist.

Story #2: I recently reconnected with a friend from high school who had a baby boy about the same time I did. Lizz and I were in theater and choir together and she's awesome (check out her blog). She came over a couple months ago, we had grilled cheese sandwiches, it was great. She happened to mentioned that she lived in Hillsboro off of Watery Road and that her neighborhood had some rules about parking on the street.

A few weeks later we find our house, and it is also just off Watery Road and the neighborhood has has parking restrictions. It's gotta be close to her house. So I called her up.

"Hey Lizz, we're buying a house and I think it's close to where you live."

"Oh, what street is it on?"

"Cowabunga Loop."

Pause, "What's the address?"

"1234567."

"That's right next door to me!!! Our neighbors are selling their house!!"

"What!? No way!! We're going to be neighbors!! That's awesome!! What are the chances!?"

And then we continued to talk about it for the next 20 minutes in high pitched girly voices, completely flabbergasted by the whole crazy coincidentalness of it all. (Man, I am on a roll with these made up words). She gave me the scoop on the neighborhood and I am feeling so much better about this whole moving thing now. It certainly helps to already know your next door neighbor. And it's also nice that our baby boys are the same age :) They better be friends.

Funny stuff.

Although it also would have been funny if we had instead accidentally seen each other in our front yards on some random future day.

Moral of the stories: Get to know your neighbors. You'll probably get along with them.

We're buying a House!

If you'd asked us three weeks ago, we'd have said "Well, it'd be really nice, but it's still a far off possibility." We'd been casually looking at houses online since April, but most everything in our price range were real fixer-uppers, foreclosures/short sales, or manufactured homes. And then, there it was. Our three bedroom, two bath ranch style future home:

Ok, it could use some cheery red shutters and a new paint job, but the inside has been fully updated and it's well-built. (Love the trees in the backyard).

Check out those wood floors!

Lovin' the kitchen

My dining room table will look so much better here:)

New tile floors and countertops.

Stainless steel dishwasher.

We were really hoping for a wood stove, and there it is!

Along with some sweet french doors and a ceiling fan.

New bathroom cabinets and countertops

(I feel like I'm running an ad here - but really, I'm just excited to show things off. Sorry, it's off the market)

Not pictured: Huge backyard for our future garden and kids, oversized garage with lots of shelving for food storage, large attic space for our accumulating junk...

Location: Southeast Hillsboro, quiet kid-friendly neighborhood next to wetlands/farmland. Apprx 15 mins from where we currently live.

Bonuses: ONE level, NO stairs, no more shared walls with nieghbors, appliances included, Air Conditioning, and access to the nighborhood POOL!

Negatives: I'll have to redo the nursery wall that I just painted. bummer.

The Sellers seemed pretty anxious to sell, so we got great home value for the price. Our mortgages payments won't be much more than we're paying right now for rent. Also, we'll close before the end of the year, and as first time home buyers, that qualifies us for the $8,000 tax rebate. Woohoo!

Kirk and I are excited to have Saturday home projects and to make improvements on something that we'll be ours. Ownership. There is something nice about that.

We get the keys on Sept 25th!!!

But I'm not excited or anything.

Beach Trip

I've been aching to go to the beach all summer and I finally did! Funny, in Oregon, it's always referred to as "the coast," unless it's actually sunny out, then it suddenly becomes "the beach." We happened to catch it on a gorgeous day! And of course I didn't even think to put on sunblock and got totally burnt, but whatever, it was worth it!

Nolan pretty much slept the whole time in the front pack. I was okay with that.

I took the trip with my sister/sister-in-laws and all their kids.

So it was fun girl time.

Note: tent for sleeping babies is a supurb idea :)

The kids had lots of messy fun in the sand.

Here's Marah, Levi, Delaney, and a view of the ocean which was still far too cold to even touch - but it at least looked refreshing.

I hope to have a girl some day just for this reason.

Pink bums are irresistible.

FYI

I went for a jog today! A real jog. Meaning, I actually jogged. More than half of the time even :D I think Nolan liked it too. At least, he wasn't crying the whole time.

Now I could really go for a nap. If only this little guy would.

Oh, there he goes. He's out. I just watched him fall asleep in my arms. Precious.