Phoenix Pre-Christmas Celebration

Hello from chilly Cleveland! It's kind of weird to be blogging from home, about Phoenix, while Rob is still in Phoenix, but I am trying to not get so behind on updates. Last weekend, after my ridiculous amount of portfolio grading, I was able to relax a bit and start truly getting in the Christmas spirit. My mom had sent us a fantastic pre-Christmas care package, with an evergreen scented candle and a gingerbread house kit, among other delightful surprises. Rob got a bit frustrated with me when we were building the house because I was too impatient and didn't want to wait for the frosting to harden to keep the house together before I started decorating. Despite my lil kid impatience, our house turned out quite well. Here are a few pictures.

Intense concentration from us both.

Let's compare. Above is my messing job of frosting the windows and below is Rob's. Impatience/terrible artistic skills on my half. I'm a lil embarrassed.

The finished product!

Our Christmas present to each other this year was a night flight to look at Christmas lights. Rob had done a night flight two years ago during his training, and thought I would really like to see the lights from a helicopter. Unfortunately, there weren't quite as many houses with lights up this year. I still had a great time in the helicopter and loved seeing the lights that were there. We were even able to find our apartment by using the car dealership across the street and the lights around our door as landmarks. I tried to take a few pictures, but it was hard in the dark to get them to turn out. Nevertheless, here they are.

 

The diagonal strand of lights in the picture above is the highway...I'm pretty sure. And in the picture below, I thought it was cool how the blue LED lights stood out.

Our last piece of Christmas celebration before I headed home was Zoo Lights! The electric company that puts on Zoo Lights sent out bogo admission coups for Wednesdays, so we headed to the Phoenix Zoo (with the rest of Phoenix it seemed like!). After waiting in a long line, we were finally able to see the lights. I had never been to Zoo Lights before (in Phoenix or Cleveland) and was a little disappointed that they had roped off part of the zoo rather than covering the entire thing with lights. Still, it was really cool to see them all...I was quite impressed.

flamingos! Rob's Aunt Sue's favorite :)

giraffes are my favorite animal :)

pretty lit up trees :)

cactus! lit up desert landscape :)

and penguins :)

Rob and I went out to dinner at Oregano's, one of our favorite Phoenix restaurants. We sat out on the back patio, under the heaters (Rob was sweating!) and had Chicago style pizza and pizzookie for dessert (my absolute favorite!). Then, I took a red-eye flight home. It left Phoenix at 12:30 am and landed in Cleveland at 6:15. Not the greatest night of sleep ever, but it was great to be done with school for the semester and home. The entire family picked me up and we had breakfast at Einstein's. I napped a bit, visited with Grandma, Grandpa, Cindy and John, went to church with Mom, Adam's basketball game and the Morini's annual Christmas party. Busy, busy! We were up early again today to celebrate Christmas in Lancaster. It had been quite some time since I had seen everyone in Lancaster, and it was great to catch up with them all. It will be a busy week, but I am looking forward to seeing everyone and Rob coming into town on Thursday morning :) See many of you soon! Love, Sarah (and Rob too!)

A Ridiculously Late Happy Thanksgiving

The fact that it was quite a few weeks ago now aside, Rob and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving and visit with his parents. It feels really weird to talk about Thanksgiving when we are in the middle of Christmas shopping and celebrating craziness, but it took me a lil while to get copies of the pictures Rob's dad took while he was here and to find time to sit down and post. I was, regretfully, an epic failure at taking pictures, probably because I was enamored with the high megapixel camera in the Droid phone Don had. And I've spent the majority of this weekend grading writing portfolios that do not include amazing higher level vocabulary like the words in my last sentence :) Wrapping up the end of this semester has been hectic, to say the least, but I have one class of portfolios left to grade, three days of review games and two days of finals and I am D-O-N-E. I can't wait.

Back to turkey day. Rob's parents arrived on Wednesday. Rob had to work until later in the afternoon, so I picked them up from the airport and we went to Paradise (my favorite) for lunch. (It is a Panera-esque restaurant with the world's greatest cookies.) We spent the majority of the day catching up and getting a head start on Thanksgiving baking. The head start left us with just the turkey, stuffing and potatoes to cook on Thanksgiving. We spent most of Thanksgiving day working on the giant crossword that comes in the newspaper here, eating and relaxing. That is, until Thanksgiving evening. Rob's parents headed back to their hotel and Rob and I went on (another) day after Christmas shopping excursion. An outlet mall that was (only) 45 minutes away opened at 10:00 Thanksgiving night. No need for early wake-ups! We hit traffic about a mile from the exit on the highway and I thought Rob was going to kill me. I did manage to get some amazing deals at JCrew and was quite pleased with the adventure. (A side note to Kaiser/McCandlish ladies: Rob maintains that two years in a row of Black Friday shopping is his limit. He also isn't the best shopper. Please come next year to shop with me!) Back to Thanksgiving. Our food was delicious and the company was great :) There are a few pictures below of the cooking process...Rob and I preparing the turkey, Rob putting it in the oven and Don chopping onions for stuffing.

We went on a tour of Arizona the day after Thanksgiving. First, we headed to Sedona to show Rob's parents the park where we got engaged. Then, we continued on to the Grand Canyon. We arrived just before sunset, which limited our time there, but because we weren't planning on doing much hiking, it wasn't that big of a deal. Rob had been to the Grand Canyon with his dad when they made the trip out here when he first moved to Arizona, but they both really wanted his mom to see it too. We detoured through Flagstaff on our way home, showing his parents where we hung out on Rob's birthday weekend and stopping at Starbucks :)

the four of us at the Grand Canyon

On Saturday, we spent time exploring Phoenix/Phoenix suburbs. We showed Rob's parents our hopeful house and my school out in Queen Creek. The current owners of the home were in the process of moving out when we walked through. It was the first time we were really able to get an accurate idea of the size of the house/rooms because they had a lot of clutter that was somewhat distracting. I think it made all of us love the house even more, which makes me even more frustrated with Bank of America continuing to do nothing. I am thinking that all my finals stress will make for a fantastic frustration letter addressed to them. Honestly, I have nothing good at all to say about Bank of America...in the mortgage or short sale department. I want to do everything in my power to stop everyone I know from banking there. Please support me in this effort. Back to Saturday...after spending time in Queen Creek, we showed Rob's parents his flight school, his old apartment and our favorite park in Gilbert. A few sight-seeing pictures are below. (The picture of Rob and I is taken on the back patio of the house Bank of America is keeping us from celebrating the holidays in. Bad words.)

On Sunday, Rob took his parents flying. (I stayed home to finish my online class and get ready to head back to school. It would have been too much weight in the plane for the three of us to go together.) The plane's home base was moved to Phoenix/Sky Harbor airport, which meant Rob was able to fly out of busier airspace for the first time. I think all three of them really liked doing that. Rob is at work now and I wasn't flying, so my knowledge of the flight is hit or miss. I do remember Rob saying that they flew over Queen Creek and through the mountains a bit. They also flew over the canyon lakes that we flew over with my mom when we took so many pictures. A few pictures from the airport are below...

Rob worked at Cutter on Sunday afternoon, but was able to get out a little early, and we all went to Olive Garden for dinner. Rob's parents headed back early Monday morning after a great visit. It was the first time they had the chance to make it out here together, and so we crammed a lot in, but I think everyone had a great couple of days.

Now that my craziness is about to end and Rob has a lighter schedule at work, we are gearing up for Christmas. We shopped a lot yesterday morning, made a gingerbread house last night and are planning on going for a night flight in the helicopter to look at Christmas lights tomorrow night. I am heading home on the red eye Friday night, and am hoping to post sometime early next week/from home about all of our Christmas festivities here in Phoenix. Rob is following on a red-eye Wednesday the 23rd, so he will be home early Christmas Eve morning. We are both crazy excited to be home and see everyone! Not much time left :) Love, Sarah and Rob

Quick lil note...

1. Yes, we are still alive.
2. The end of the semester in a high school with an abnormally high number of failing kids is chaos.
3. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and visit with Rob's parents. Details and pictures are (clearly) overdue.

Expect a better update soon! I promise it's on my to-do list!

PS- Birthday shout-out to Bubs and a belated shout out to Nancy/Rob's mom :)

New Desk!

Holy moly productively busy weekend for Rob and me! Yesterday, Rob worked 6 hours at Quantum and today he has his regular 8 at Cutter that allows him access to the company plane. It has given me a ridiculous amount of time to get caught up on work, which was probably a good thing. I spent the better part of yesterday working on my online classwork. I am trying to finish the work that is due next Tuesday so I can relax and enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend. Right now I am just over half done. Hopefully, I will have some time at school tomorrow and Tuesday to finish up the remaining half. When Rob came home from work we headed over to our friends, Jason and Shannon's house for dinner. We all watched the U of A/Oregon game and then headed over to Jason's aunt's house to pick up a desk. We were super lucky because his aunt just wanted the desk gone and didn't want any money for it, and Jason and Shannon thought of us/our need for furniture in our potential new house! We smooshed the desk into our apartment, and while it's a fairly bootleg setup, it is really nice to have a second desk!

Here is a picture of the desk...

...And another of the eat-in dining area all switched about to fit the new desk.

We woke up early this morning to work at the new desk! I made homemade biscuits, eggs and bacon for breakfast, and Rob and I sat down to finish our mortgage application. Talk about a project. The first ridiculous task was figuring out all the bank/mortgage language. The second was determining all of our assets and liabilities, and then organizing all the paperwork. It seems like all we have left to do now is make copies tomorrow and we are set. I spoke with Ed this evening and he said that the bank is 75% through the short sale process. He was very excited about the progress that is being made. I am too, but I really just want to be 100% through and have our offer accepted. I'm definitely learning patience I suppose.

I've been grading and searching for Pepperidge Farm bread to make Grandma Edna's stuffing recipe all afternoon. I have quite a to do list to accomplish over the next few days, but am definitely looking forward to a lil break from school and spending time with Rob's parents for Thanksgiving!

Wishing everyone a happy (early) Thanksgiving...because it will likely be after Thanksgiving when I update next with pictures and stories of Rob's parents' visit! Love, Sarah and Rob

Birthday Snow!

We headed up to Flagstaff on Saturday morning to get out of Phoenix for a bit and celebrate Rob's birthday. I'd heard rumors of fall and leaves changing colors later in Flagstaff than the midwest and was ridiculously excited for it. (I even held off on a peppermint mocha at Starbucks, which I get right when the Christmas cups come out, telling Rob that I wanted "fall and not Christmas in a cup." :) We thought enough in advance to make reservations at a hotel that had run a special in the Sunday paper a few weeks back, but packed rather hurriedly due to last minute Friday night plans. (Read: listening to my principal's band play at a middle aged Mexican bar with a group of teachers. Awkward.) We never looked at a recent forecast (although I'd checked earlier in the week and it said low 50's) or read up on Flagstaff's seasons. Oops. We made it into town (it was just over a two hour drive...much shorter than I'd expected) and stopped at Target (because I'm quite particular about public restrooms). When we left Target it was flurrying! Holy moly, winter! Things escalated quite quickly from there. We had planned on hiking for the better part of the day at an even higher elevation than Target/town. More elevation=more snow. Rob was ridiculously pleased with it, and I'm going to be honest, I was fairly alright with it as well. I even did a lil snow dance (see below).

We headed out on our hike as planned. About a half mile in, Rob gave me the most amazing thing ever: some kind of hand warmer invention. It's these lil bags with chemically pellets inside that react with the oxygen to heat up, so when you hold them your hands stay warm! They also warm up your tush if you put them in the back pockets of your jeans, your whole body really, if you place them on your thighs while blasting heat in a vehicle (such as our gem, Esmerelda) and serve as seat warmers in a pinch. Serious weekend saver. There are a few action shots of the warm goodness to the left :)

Unfortunately, despite their amazingness, our hike was cut very short due to my frozen toes, which could not be reached by the heaters. We still managed to get a few really pretty pictures of the snow and forest.

Rob signing us into the forest.

(Above) A picture of one of the San Francisco peaks on our way back down into town. (Below) Mac and cheese cooking on Rob's lil portable stove he uses on backpacking trips. (Originally we had planned to make this in the woods, in the middle of our hike, but we ended up cooking it in the parking lot!)

Rather than hiking all day in the snow and cold, we headed back into the business/town portion of Flagstaff and drove around exploring. One of the three (yes, only three) universities in Arizona, Northern Arizona University/NAU, is in Flagstaff. It was a beautiful campus. We had dinner and watched football at BW3 until some crazy UFC fight came on, at which point I was fine heading back to the hotel room to watch the Georgia game and make s'mores on the bootleg stove! (We had planned on a campfire dinner originally, but it was too cold.) I was a tad nervous that it would set off the smoke detector, but we were lucky and it did not!

We left Sunday morning so Rob could still make it to work at Cutter. We did have breakfast at Denny's (free for Rob because it was his birthday!) before we left. I spent the remainder of the day grading junior persuasive essays and baking Rob a surprise coconut pound cake for his birthday! We both have a pretty busy week at work this week, but next week is Thanksgiving and Rob's parents are coming to visit! I think we are all looking forward to the time off and spending time together :) Also, Rob wants me to thank everyone for the birthday calls, cards and wishes and let you all know that he will catch up with returning phone calls and such asap. His week consists of 10-12 hour days! Good for the paycheck, not so good for staying in touch. We both hope all is well with everyone. Love, Sarah and Rob

PS, I maintain that I am so okay with snow because it is a controlled environment. When we were done with the snow and cold, we headed back home to Phoenix and I went for a run outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Winter is never ending and uncontrolled in Cleveland. This is all. Except for the fact that Arizona is a wacky weather state and I'm fairly alright with it.

Oh and in case you were wondering, Thomas '09 has been procured and is freezing up in our lil freezer in preparation for the holiday. So good!

Happy Veterans Day :)

...Another day off school :) Though, I must admit, I use the word "off" very loosely. While I didn't have to wake up early and drive into work, I still spent a good portion of the day getting caught up on grading and working on the online class I needed to take this year in order to transfer my teaching license to Arizona. (Thankfully, I have just under a month of the class left. I'm not a huge fan of online classes.) Luckily, there was some fun involved in my day off. Last night, Rob and I ordered pizza and watched Transformers 2. We watched the first movie (and ate homemade pizza!) last Friday and I liked both a lot more than I expected. Rob maintains that there is hope for me yet. (He doesn't quite approve of the length of the list of his favorite movies that I still haven't seen.) I also baked a loaf of homemade bread this afternoon and may have accidentally talked myself into buying a pair of shoes on sale at Target. They are blue and gray plaid and will look wonderful when I wear school colors each Friday :)

Rob and I are headed up to Flagstaff to celebrate his birthday and enjoy a little bit of fall this weekend. Everyone in Phoenix claims that fall in Flagstaff comes in mid-November and I'm ridiculously excited for colored leaves. I am seriously hoping that everyone is right though because weather.com says it is going to get down to 15 degrees on Saturday night! That's artic cold for sure! Initially, we had planned on making the weekend a camping trip, but when we officially decided to go to Flagstaff, changed our minds, figuring a day hike and hotel would be best...for me at least, and in turn, Rob's happiness :) I will hopefully have some beautiful pictures from the weekend to post next week!

Okay, I am off to deal with my bread that is about done baking and also Rob will be home from work in a few minutes. Hope all is well by you all...look forward to Flagstaff pictures early next week! Love, Sarah and Rob

Happy Halloween!

And happy one year anniversary of our life's belongings arriving in the pod! It is hard to believe how much change just one year has brought. Last year, Rob and I ordered pizza and ate it on our balcony because the apartment was full of boxes! This year we went to a Halloween party at our friend Davina's house. The whole crew of instructors was there. Rob and I dressed up as Kanye West and Taylor Swift. (Costume idea courtesy of my cousin, Brian.) Despite a few setbacks in our costume designing/acquiring we won second place in the party's costume contest. The prize: Costa Rican coffee. Good morning deliciousness...especially when paired with my chocolate chip cookie dough syrup!

On Friday after school/work, Rob and I set out to the dollar store and Good Will to purchase Halloween costumes. (Nothing like waiting until the last minute and hitting the classiest stores :) We were on a hunt for a silver evening gown dress similar to the one Taylor wore at the VMAs. We managed to find a silver dress, but I was, admittedly, being prissy and refused to wear a sparkly dress circa seventh grade. After going round and round about new potential costume ideas, we ended the night nowhere closer to where we started. On Saturday morning I decided to bring back the costume idea, wear a dress I already had even though it didn't really resemble Taylor's and stick with purchasing accessories. In the end, I wore what Rob likes to call my "garbage bag" dress (obviously, it's one of his favorites!) and Rob looked much more like Kanye West. He painted his face and bought aviators, which pretty much sealed the look.

My attempt at a shocked face when Rob/Kanye grabbed the mike.

Awkward smiles and it looks like a fist bump, not a microphone transfer, but you can still see our costumes :)

The quality in this picture is not as great because it is from my cell phone. Also, I have a weird expression, but I think Rob is funny here!

In addition to our costume hunt/design process, we made the dirt dessert recipe (check out my food blog for pictures there) and went for a long run (Our half marathon training officially started last week! So far we aren't doing great at following the plan, but it is early, and I kind of feel like half marathons are capable of completing without toooo much training.)

Rob has had a crazy long day at work today. He had his night checkout flight (to instruct at night) at about 8:00 and went in at 7:00 this morning. I am expecting the beginning of my week to be fairly easy, then lots of essays and tests to come pouring in at the middle/end of the week to be graded. Hopefully this week we will get our mortgage application completed and all the paper work that accompanies it together. (Still no word on the house, but we want to be prepared just in case. Our realtor still seems to feel positive and believes that we will hear something from the bank any day now. I hope so. This has been quite the process.) We are also going to make plans for Rob's birthday weekend. He has the Saturday before his birthday off and so we are thinking about either going camping or up to Flagstaff for a weekend in the fall weather.

It was very cold last week...highs in the low 60's and lows in the low 40's at night. It was definitely chilly in my classroom in the morning...they didn't turn the heat on because it warmed up as the day continued! I was kind of liking the cold weather. It is back to the 90's now. Not sure how long that will last, but it seems very warm.

Okay, I am heading over to the food blog to update that :) Hope all is well with everyone! Miss and love you, Sarah and Rob

New Food Blog Link!

My new food blog is up! I have a few posts on it from the past few days, but realistically won't be updating it everyday as I have lately. I just needed to get a good base to start it.

The link is: www.serendipitousrecipes.blogspot.com/

Feel free to pass this link along to others and visit it regularly, as I have advertisements on the food blog and have made it public so that I could potentially earn a few dollars off of it! (This blog, with all the details of our crazy life, is still private, which means it won't come up in a Google search; you have to know the web address to get here.)

Also, if you have any recipe suggestions that should be included, pass along the recipe to me and any specific information to be included with it and I will do my best to bake/cook the recipe and post my attempt at recreating it in a timely manner :)

Hope you enjoy!

Holy moly, I am finally on top of updating!

Back to school/reality tomorrow. It has been a great week of fall break. Mom's plane left early this morning and even though we had an awesome week, I was a lil homesick all day today. Things are going well out here, but it still doesn't feel like home. The cooler weather I wished for all summer finally came, and now I am upset that there are no leaves to change colors! And, even though I complain about how I will likely die of hypothermia when I come home at Christmas, I really do kinda miss the snowy/slushy/yucky Cleveland winters. Never thought you would hear that one, did you!?! Rob and I are both planning on heading back east as soon as we can, so there probably is no need to be sad about being here now, because it is something we really can't change. We have good jobs that we enjoy...most days :) and also each other, which is best. We will make it. On to happier things...

We did so much while Mom was out here...made homemade granola bars (which even Rob thinks are delicious!), discovered chocolate chip cookie dough coffee syrup (which Rob does not think delicious thoughts about at all, but I do!), explored Queen Creek/school/a few houses, shopped at the outlet malls (new shoes!!) and Costco (I am now the proud owner of 72 ounces of honey...), and even went flying! Rob flew us over the stadium where the Super Bowl was held in Glendale, the Indians/Reds spring training camp in Goodyear, our hopeful new town to live in-Queen Creek, and through Saguaro Lake and the other lakes in that area. The view was beautiful! We left in the late afternoon and were in the sky for the sunset, which I hadn't even done before! Mom and I turned it into a little photo flight and a few of the million pictures I snapped turned out really well. I sat in the backseat this time because there were three of us, and actually was able to take pictures from angles I couldn't get to before. I was pleased.

ready to fly!

Indians spring training ballpark...the one for games, not just practice.

These are the San Tan Mountains. I like to call them the backyard mountains because our hopeful house is right in the middle of the foothills of them!

The city of Queen Creek from the sky!

Not positive what city this is, but I took the picture because I thought it was crazy how this lil piece of civilization just pops up in the middle of nowhere. Queen Creek and other towns that are just being built up as Phoenix continues to expand are just like this.

This is one of the canyon lakes. (Rob would know which for sure, but he is at work!) You can see a little bridge...there is a dam right around it.

sunshine reflecting off the lake

sunshine on the mountains...we have a lot of sunshine out here :)

more sunshine...this time reflecting on the water again. I like this picture a lot.

Just after the sun set over Deer Valley (the city where the plane is stored). This is just before we landed.

I am not sure the pictures do the view justice (and I think Mom and Rob would agree). I guess this just means you all will have to plan a visit out here to come flying :)

It will be good to get back into my usual routine tomorrow. We have a busy week this week. I bought a ridiculous amount of plain, boring old oats, thinking Rob and I would be super healthy and make them for breakfast. We each made them one day. Disgusting. Plain, boring and gross. Soooo, I think I will bake oatmeal cranberry cookies and perhaps some more of my delicious granola bars with all these oats! Rob is in need of some new running shoes and our official half marathon training plan starts this week...eek! We also have some hunting to do to put together our fantastic Halloween costume idea (technically the fantastic costume idea Brian came up with in Vegas) and of course, must carve pumpkins. I think we will keep our costume idea secret for now...but I will hopefully post pictures of the costumes and pumpkins after our Halloween party on Saturday! We hope all is well with everyone and wish we could be there with you, but are looking forward to seeing Rob's parents at Thanksgiving and lots of family at Christmas :) Love, Sarah and Rob

Viva Las Vegas!

I am behind at updating (again, blah). However, I am blaming this on my ridiculous online class that I need to take to transfer my provisional Arizona teaching license to a permanent licenses and on my mom's visit :)

After a ridiculously long week last week (I graded a lot, had parent teacher conferences and was voted to get pied in the face at the homecoming carnival at school), Rob and I headed to Vegas! My dad was there with his friends for a long weekend and so we zipped right on over (it was about a 6 hour drive) to spend time with him. Brian (my favorite San Diego cousin) met up with us as well. They both introduced us to the Bellagio breakfast buffet (despite my reputation for not getting my moneys worth at buffets!) and the fantastic game of craps. It was one of my top two life dreams to be the dice roller on fire for people who bet exorbitant amounts of money and tip me very nicely when they win even more. (The other life dream is to draw arrows on the tv screen during the football games.) My dream didn't quite come true, but I was an alright roller and Rob and I managed to leave Vegas with $50 we didn't have when we got there, which was a nice situation. I would say we successfully viva-ed Las Vegas.

Another thing that happened last week: the first house we had a bid on (it was on Zircon and there were pictures posted earlier) went into foreclosure. We had a bid on it as a short sale, so this was not a good thing for us. A lot of investors scoop up foreclosures with their cash and leave us homeless/still living in the apartment. So that house is gone. But it was a stupid house anyway. Total junk. Trust me, it's probably crumbled into dust by now it was so junky.

As I mentioned earlier, my mom is here! She came in late Tuesday night and is staying through early Sunday morning. Yesterday we went on yet another house hunting escapade with Ed, our realtor. We walked through five new houses...four foreclosures and one regular sale. There was one foreclosure that had a really fantastic layout, but was a hot mess otherwise. The carpet was so stained it would need to be replaced entirely and the walls needed cleaned and painted big time. It would have been a big investment financially and also would take a lot of time for us to get it move in ready. The other foreclosures were not so great...weird floorplans and front doors on the side of the house and linoleum, not stone tile floors, for example. The regular sale property was actually very nice. It had been purchased in March by what we assume to be an investor that was now flipping it. It was clean and kind of cute, but I just didn't fall in love with it. Plus, after looking at this house, we walked through the second house that we have a bid on (it is also a short sale) and I became ridiculously attached to it. It's probably the most amazing house ever, with a huge kitchen and gorgeous patio that stretches around the entire side of the house. It is in the neighborhood that initially attracted us to the area, and is closer to both of our jobs. Unfortunately, because it is a short sale, it isn't a guarantee, but I'm not sure I'm ready to put bids on other houses. I would keep wishing I had this house! (All the pictures are posted in the other blog post, just because it is easier. Hope you like it as much as we do!)

Today we went shopping at a wonderful lil outlet mall and wandered through Ikea. We also made amazing homemade granola bars with orange flavored cranberries and chocolate chips mixed in. Mmmmm no high fructose corn syrup deliciousness. We are planning on flying around the Valley on Saturday in the airplane Rob can rent for crazy cheap and will hopefully have some new pictures soon.

Pictures of the house we desperately want

These are just a few pictures of the second short sale (and the only house now) we have an offer on. Mom and I walked through it again yesterday and I fell in love with it even more. I am really double crossing fingers because I have basically come to the conclusion that it is my dream house. Really, I think that this house is the reason why I have accepted losing the first house we put an offer on so well. The pictures aren't the best because the house is still occupied/in the process of being packed up, and it is hard to get the gist of what it is like with so much clutter. Also, the blog has a whole new uploading system and so some of these pictures are all over the place.

 

above is a picture of the house from the street and below is Rob pointing at the house and facing the beautiful mountain view down the street :)

and above here is the family/living room. it runs right up to the front door, which you can see to the right. the room is carpeted, but the rest of the foyer and kitchen is tiled with a beautiful, dark ceramic tile. Basically, I'm obsessed.

The two pictures above are of the kitchen. The first is the cooking kitchen area (with an island!). We spoke with the owners yesterday and they are guaranteeing us that all appliances in the kitchen will stay. (We will only need to buy a washer and dryer...so good!) The second pictures is the eat in kitchen area that goes forever all the way back to a door leading to the gorgeous patio that wraps around the back and side of the house. (Pictures of it are below!)

Above is the side of the house patio and below is the back of the house patio. The original owners have a number of canopies throughout the patio that they will take with them. I am thinking we will invest in a nice umbrella table for some shade and skip replacing the canopies (at least at first).

This is the master bathroom. It is really the only downside to the entire house. It is quite small. The lil piece of white on the left hand side of the picture is the shower curtain. Things are very on top of each other. However, I am more than willing to look past this. Also, below is a picture of the second bathroom. (This is a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house.) It is also smaller, but is quite quaint. :)

Here is a picture of the laundry room, leading out to the garage with an apoxied floor. (Honestly, I'm not even going to try to spell that one, but it needed to be thrown in because from what it seems it's a pretty big deal.) There is a picture of this spectacular flooring situation below.