A new house???

So, we may have bought and sold a house within the same week. Late last week, we got an offer on our house in Flagstaff, and after a couple of counters, we had a deal. They had their overall inspection on Friday, the termite inspection is Wednesday, and if all goes well, we're 99% of the way done with the sale. The overall inspection went just fine according to our real estate agent, who spoke with their agent, and I'm not sure that there are any termites in the entire state of Arizona, so I'm not too worried about Wednesday's events.

Meanwhile, we went and looked at some houses in Queensbury on Friday. We already knew what neighborhood we wanted, and this one house suited us really well. Since we already knew where we wanted to be and this one had everything we were looking for, we made an offer on Saturday afternoon, and by the evening, the deal was done! Crazy fast.
The house is in really good condition, it just needs some work on the interior (see pink carpet and sweet, sweet wallpaper in the photo). There are rooms that are just as fine and even finer than this one, too. It has an awesome three-season porch off the back, a geothermal heat pump system. We'll probably end up re-doing the kitchen, which might mean moving some walls around in the rest of the bottom floor. The top floor can wait for a couple of years. :)
From the outside pictures, you can see that there is quite a bit of grass. It took me about 20 minutes to mow the grass in the back yard of our Flagstaff house. I imagine that it will take at least 30 minutes for this one. Also, there are a LOT of mature, deciduous trees in both the front and back yards. I have heard of people raking leaves before, and I have seen pictures, but the rake that we bought in Flagstaff was mostly for decoration. I'm curious to see how many slugs, I mean bags, we'll accumulate. Anyway, we're very excited!!

Ian the Super Model

I've never seen a kid who can be quite as expressive as Ian. You can take a dozen photos of him and he will have a different look in each one. Which can be a good thing and a bad thing. Some of his faces are pretty goofy. Okay, most of his faces are pretty goofy, but he's so cute.

Anytime the kids go outside Gwen freaks out. She wants so badly to be able to play with them. I'd let her sit on the grass out there with them if I could, but the mosquitoes just love her little fleshy body. So she contents herself with watching them out the window.

Ian is going to be so lonely next week when Hannah and Isaac start school. If you look closely you can see that Ian has a mosquito on his forehead. They're everywhere.

Every house needs a hill to run extra fast down.

Gwen

Gwen is growing up too too fast. She will be one soon. Ian turns three even sooner. Gwen just makes all of us smile. She is learning how to walk and always waits for a reaction when she has done something impressive. She usually screams when she is happy and she is frequently happy. What must the neighbors think.

Splash!

So behind the house is a marshy water retention area that floods when it rains. The kids thought the huge deep puddles were great. Standing water is kind of a new thing for them. I just love this picture because Isaac has some serious air.

Gwen is Awesome!

Proof that Gwen is a Buehner.

Blueberries are Tasty!

Saturday we went to Hick's Orchard in nearby Granville and picked a lot of blueberries and cherries. We had a great time harvesting all the fruit and then got to go back to the farmhouse for some very tasty cider donuts. Dan and I are just counting down til the apple harvest next month.
So far I've made a cherry pie, blueberry sauce and blueberry pie filling. We still have a ton of cherries left. Thank heavens for a big freezer in the basement.
Monday night we had breakfast for dinner. After the kids got over the idea of breakfast for dinner we enjoyed slathering our pancakes (and faces) with blueberry sauce. Hannah was adamant that the blueberry smears on her nose and cheeks, from licking her plate clean, did not exist and wouldn't let us take her picture. The boys proudly showed off their mess.