More House

I thought I would put up more house pictures

Here is the stream. I love the mini steps with babbling waterfalls

Another view of the kitchen

Another angle

It's time to get going . . .

Well, time flies by and we are almost done with Jake's fellowship training here in Mass. We went house hunting over the holiday weekend. With two kids and limited time, it was CRAZY. After being on the road about 7 hours Friday we went into Jake's new office, signed paperwork, then promptly went and saw 4 houses. Saturday we went out and saw 10 houses. I know. CRAZY. We were all more than exhausted.

However, we think that we were successful! We found a great house in a great neighborhood and had our offer accepted within 3 hours on Monday. So, (fingers crossed) once all the inspecting and financing goes through, this will hopefully be our new settling place!

We love all the windows, especially in the living room in the front of the house.
The yard is GREAT with tons of trees and a creek on one side. The deck you see on the right is connected to the master bedroom. Nice!

One of my favorite features of the house-a brand new kitchen with granite countertops, brand new stainless steel appliances and beautiful new cabinets. We didn't post more pictures of the inside, because it's hard to know what the house looks like with other people's stuff in the pictures (although they did have cute stuff!) So, stay tuned and we'll post pictures of the inside once we've made it look like us!

On a different topic, my sister Melissa has started a cakes and flowers business and is doing very well! I thought I'd give her a little plug here since I was so impressed by the stuff she did for my brother's wedding when we were in town recently. She did this amazing cupcake tower for his open house. She also did the flowers and they were so perfect. Her style is very classy, but not the same-old. She has a lot of creativity so the arrangements were fresh and so pretty. She has done weddings, baby showers, funerals, and cakes for every occasion.

If you're interested in checking out her stuff, here's the blog for her business:

http://flowerandflour.blogspot.com/

Scorpion Hunting . . . and more

So, apparently there are scorpions living all over the place, even in the sandbox where the kids played all the time at my sister's house in Arizona. But, they only come out at night. So Jake went scorpion hunting with some of the family. You use a black light and take the BBQ lighters and when you find one, you torch it. Or smash it with a brick. Or whatever. Simple enough. James even got to take one to show his school class.

The things you miss out on when you live in cold weather.

Our last night in AZ, Jake got a good Mexican food fix. The kids were hilariously hyper at dinner. Too much fun? Too much sun?
We got to catch up with some good friends in Utah. We love the Tullis's!
James got to hold his cousin Oliver for the first time. Oliver's about 6 months old and weighs about half of what James does. He's so dang cute!

Our trip back to Massachusetts was eventful--after spending 2 hours on the runway in SLC, missing our connection flight into Providence, and waiting 3 hours at the Detroit airport for another flight, we were VERY relieved to get home! Thank goodness for the fountain in the Detroit airport--it was great entertainment for Jack (and thank goodness for the hand dryers in the bathroom at the airport that helped dry his pants after he played in the fountain).

Traveling is always an adventure!

Wedding Day . . .

As promised, here are some photos from our trip to Arizona. I'll start with the wedding. It was in the Mesa Temple last weekend. This is my brother Chris and his new wife Abby.

Whose idea was the grandkid picture anyway (and whose kid is that crying)?

Our poor New England boy can't handle the sunshine. He squinted in almost every Arizona picture we took! Notice the Arizona cousins didn't need to squint.

Poor James. It was just too darn hot. 107 degrees on the wedding day!

The reception was at my sister Kim's house in Gilbert

We're so happy to welcome Abby to the family!
Stay tuned to the blog--tomorrow I'll post about:
swimming and scorpion hunting (not done at the same time) . . .

Family Photos

In case any of our readers have been wondering why we've had the same post up for the past 2 weeks--we've been traveling. We first went to Becky's brother's wedding in Arizona, then flew up to Utah to spend a few days with family before heading home. We have lots of pictures from our trip to post, but wanted to post these first as they were most handy!

We had our photos taken in Utah by a wonderful photographer just getting her photography business up and running. Her name is Karina Orgill.

We were so pleased with how the photos turned out.

As you can tell, we love the not-so-formal style and nontraditional background.

We had a lot more taken, so this is just a sampling . . . look for more later on!

Thanks so much Karina!

If you need your photos done in Utah, we highly recommend calling her! Her blog address is:

ko-photography.blogspot.com

A New Adventure Awaits

So many of you may or may not know but we have accepted an offer at Ithaca NY for a job. Many of may not know anything about it so here is a breif description. It is in Central NY State about two hours south of Palmyra (for the Utah crowd). It is four hours from NYC and one hour from Syracuse, and about three hours from Albany. It is home to Ithaca College and Cornell. I am joining a sports medicine office in Ithaca.

This is the center where I'll be working.

From the outside.

Ithaca Falls, one of many in the area.

Ithaca is Gorges.