SO. AWESOME.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!

Geez, I need to start posting more.

I hope to have the ambition to take a few pictures of our house and post them up here.

Big news of the month is that my parents are moving. To Ohio. Bummer. Not a huge fan, but I'll do my best to be supportive.

The one positive is that my parents are down-sizing their living space, so they suddenly need to purge some stuff. So... early inheritance of family furniture for my brothers and I!

We are now proud owners of a family grandfather clock, a family cedar chest WITH clothes from my grandparents and mom, a table saw and some other saw thing (temporarily storing until my parents move to a larger space someday), a washer and dryer (yay!), a good, hefty car jack, a leaf chomper machine thing (looks like a lawn mower, not sure what it does, but Chris was excited), canning supplies, a sewing machine and some food for our freezer. And we already had my piano.

So our house feels even more "homey" since those items are starting to fill in some more of the gaps.

In other news, Major Pumpkin Patch (this is the pumpkin portion of this post) is going on for the next two weekends. Come visit Chris and I up there! Great photo opportunity and some fun games for the kiddos (or parents, if you want). Food is available (homemade by Mom (Karen) Major!). The hayride is my favorite - Dad (Mike) Major has been making some REALLY cool scenes the past couple of years. Can't wait to see what they added this year! I think I heard there was going to be a Wizard of Oz scene...

Then we'll be having our Pumpkin Stew party and then we can relax.

Also, we are starting up with RIOT (our middle school youth group) this week. So tonight I hope to bake some cookies to bring on Wednesday!

Oops.

I have neglected this yet again. I blame it on my job putting me in front of a computer all day... I just don't feel like sitting on the computer when I get home! Oh well...

What's new? Well, let me tell you...

• My older brother Chris got engaged
• My younger brother Sean started dating someone
• My parents sold their house
• My parents are moving to Ohio
• Chris' job has gotten quite stressful, but he's doing a great job with a huge project right now
• My job is more enjoyable in the IT realm as I continue to learn more "IT" things and "make IT look good" ... as my supervisor keeps telling me.
• We didn't sign up for Apple Cider Century this year and I'm regretting it. I'm already checking the website daily to see when I can sign up for next year's... Since we're not setting aside any vacation money, I was thinking that could be my birthday present...for Chris and I to go. That then takes away getting tickets to Wicked in Kalamazoo (I've never seen it)...so...not sure. I'm definitely doing the ACC next year though. Wicked may or may not happen.
• We're going to sell the LeSabre and go down to one car. That's really all we need. I can walk or bike to work, plus Chris has his motorcycle. Once winter hits, he'll most likely be driving the plow truck anyways, so if I want to drive to work, I can take the Jetta.
• I read "Hunger Games" ... the next book, "Catching Fire" is on the hold shelf at the library. Must get soon... I enjoyed the book, I'm thinking the trilogy is very closely entwined and you can't read one without the others... The first one kind of leaves you hanging, wondering what's next.
• Chris started another wine batch. We might have messed it up. Hopefully it turns out okay...
• I want a pet. But not until student loans are paid...
• RIOT (our middle school youth group) starts very soon. I should get some lesson plans together...
• Pumpkin Patch is coming up soon... I need to try and make a t-shirt design so I can get those ordered.
• Pumpkin Stew party will be at our house, not my parents house, for the first time... I'm ready to start planning, Chris said it's too early since it's over a month away. *sigh*

So there's a quick little hit list of my life. Not too exciting, but good enough for me!

Connecticut

Here's just a few pics of our time in Connecticut. Most of the time was spent with family, so there's not a lot ot share unless you know all the relatives. :)


Chris' parents having lunch with us at a Friendly's.

Chris at Friendly's.

Chris driving. We did this a lot.

Most of the group after the funeral at the luncheon.

Drive to Connecticut

As some of you know, Chris' aunt Gail (his mom's sister) passed away last week. She lived in Connecticut. Chris and I planned on going to the funeral, so we packed up my dad's car (better for traveling than the cars we own), drove to the farm to get Chris' dad (his mom has been in CT with her sister for the past 3 weeks) and headed out early Sunday morning.

Chris and I planned to leave the farm at 6am. At 6:15am...we had been ready for 15 minutes... Our third passenger was still in bed... Oh well. We hit the road at 7am.

I tend to get motion sickness, so I prepared for the trip by taking Bonine. It's a "less-drowsy" formula than Dramamine. I am one who tends to fall asleep in cars. Growing up we would drive to Pennsylvania to visit my relatives and my natural defense against car sickness was sleeping during the trip. Now that I'm an adult, it's still a natural habit that I can't seem to break - I just get drowsy in cars. That paired with my body's inability to cope with drugs (normal Tylenol knocks me out for crying out loud), I was VERY groggy the whole trip. I took a turn to drive and couldn't figure out why I was so tired. As we neared the end of our 17 hour drive it dawned on me that the Bonine was a "LESS" drowsy formula, not a "NON" drowsy formula. So...I won't be able to take that on the return trip, because I'll need to be able to help Chris with the driving, since it will be just the two of us on the way back (Chris' mom and dad will take his mom's car home).

Luckily I have several other methods to avoid car sickness. We'll see how well they work. It involves those old pressure-point wristband things and ginger snaps. Ginger is good for nausea, so I'll see if the ginger snaps help me out in this.

Anyway, we made it safe and sound to Old Saybrook, CT late Sunday night. About 12:30am. That's better than I expected, given one traffic jam, a late start and plenty of food/bathroom stops. Definitely doable in one day. But I may just feel that way since I slept through most of the trip.

Yesterday we slept a lot due to the exhaustion of the trip (and I still had the less-drowsy Bonine in my system). We had lunch in a little pub downtown and then spent the rest of the evening with family. Gail had a husband Peter (from England), a daughter Sharon (a little older than Chris and I) and a son Kevin (a little younger than Chris and I). Kevin is recently engaged to Liz.

So we hung out with them. This was my first time meeting Kevin and Liz. I think I meet Peter at our wedding 3 years ago. Sharon I've met a couple of times in Michigan and in Florida (where she used to work).

Today's plan is to go to the town of Avon. Apparently it's quite a cute town with cute stores and such. Chris and I have been ready to go and awake for the past few hours. We have yet to see his parents. It may be a quick drive there (er...1 hr drive), eat lunch and then head back, because we'll need time to get ready for visitation tonight.

So that is my update so far. Hopefully everyone back home is holding down the fort okay with the responsibilities we left behind for the week!

Prodigal: An Animation

iPod Blogging

I'm at my parents' house, doing laundry. Didn't stop home to grab the laptop... So I've been bored between loads, so I've been checking facebook on my iPod, downloading apps and all around wearing down my battery. Last few moments are being spent making this post and then I'll have to go and find some other form of entertainment...

Weekend Away

Chris and I finally had a chance to get away for a couple of days.

We both took Friday off from work. Well, that was the plan.

Chris ended up finishing a drawing so that he wouldn't be thinking about it all weekend. That took the morning.

And since he got to do work on his day off, I decided we could also clean the house so that it was nice when we got home.

So by the time all of our "work" was done, we left around 4pm. But then we had to stop at Bekins in Grand Haven so Chris could drop off the previously mentioned drawing so that the audio/video guys would know where outdoor speakers would go. Usually "drop-off" should mean no more than 5 minutes. I think we were there about an hour. I had fun watching Kung Fu Panda on one of their big screens and looking at kitchen gadgets.

Once we hit the road we headed up to Big Star Lake near Baldwin.

Chris grilled steaks for dinner. We forgot to grab a bottle of wine and there was none at the cottage! So... steaks and beers it was!

Saturday was a glorious day to sleep in. Then we finally rolled out of bed for breakfast. And then I slept some more on the sofa while Chris read a book.

The afternoon we spent out on the boat, tooling around the lake. Then we anchored near an empty portion of beach and swam around. The water was really warm. It was a great day to be on the lake.

Sunday we packed up and headed over to Major Farm to hang out with Chris' dad and grandma. His mom is currently in Connecticut with her sister, Gail. Gail is very quickly losing her battle against cancer. Please pray for her and her family, as well as Chris' mom.

While Chris' mom is gone, it's just his dad at home, taking care of Grandma, so we made him lunch and cleaned up the dishes so that he at least had one meal he didn't have to deal with.

Then Sunday night we headed to my parents and dropped off some cottage stuff to them and went over plans for the next two weeks. They'll be leaving for a motorcycle trip to the Badlands and we'll be dog-sitting.

Eventually we made it home to our nice, clean house!

And now I'm back at work... using my lunch hour to blog.

Strawberry Pie

Today our church had it's first "Summer Round Up". There was a chili cook-off and a pie contest. I was excited to have an excuse to make a pie, so I decided to make one.

I have a recipe from a friend (Janna) for a Blueberry Cream Pie. It's absolutely fantastic. Last year we used the recipe to make a blueberry pie and also tried it as a peach pie.

Now that strawberries are perfect in Michigan, I decided to try out the recipe with strawberries.

Last night I baked a pie crust. It was the prettiest one I've every made (which doesn't take much)! Wasn't perfect, but was waaay better than pie crusts I've done before.

Well, the church thing was tonight, so during my lunch break I went to the Farmer's Market, got some Visser Farms freshly picked strawberries, booked it home, ate a quick lunch and then prepared my pie filling. It didn't really have time to cool completely, but I finished it, filled the pie and booked it back to work.

Once I got done with work and booked it back home. I didn't have time to put the topping on the pie, so I gathered up what I needed and headed to church.

Once at church I topped the pie and added some little mint leaves for decoration to make it pretty. The mint leaves freaked a few people out since they made it into their slices of pie... Oh well.

Anyway, long story short, the pies were being judged. I didn't really expect much because our church BREEDS pie makers. I swear. They are all amazing in the kitchen, especially in the pie arena of food-dom.

Well... Apparently the judges were craving some fresh fruit, because they (and a lot of other people) loved my pie!

It was great hearing all of their compliments. Chris is excellent in the kitchen, but I tend to be a little bit more...still learning. I think I fit well into the baking, whereas Chris fits well into the cooking. A nice complement of each other. Anyway, I'm used to Chris getting compliments for what he makes, so it was really exciting for me to have made something that everyone seemed to love so much.

So thanks, North Holland church members!

I didn't have my camera with me, so these are from my cell phone:

Hiatus

Okay, okay, it's been far too long since I posted ANYTHING.

Pretty much about the time we were moving into our new house, my work hours got crazy for a few weeks. Then I got back to normal at work for a short period and then this past month has been largely overwhelming. Most days I would feel like people didn't realize that I was only one person, but I've made it through most of my list! Now my position is transitioning and hopefully in the next few weeks I can ease into a better groove.

The one unfortunate thing about my job is I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer (the entire day), so when I get home and the weather is nice, it's hard to sit down in front of my computer some more. I'd say that's pretty healthy to want to be outside, but I know y'all miss me. All two of you.

I have yet to take real pictures of the house (we finally have it pretty well furnished, now it just comes down to getting stuff on the walls, moving the piano in and maybe a few side tables and file cabinets here and there), but hope to soon.

In other news, the garden is planted, our back porch is always rotating with new potted plants (Chris brings them home from his parents greenhouse for clients, so they sit on our porch until he installs them), we have a lawn mower so I can be more pro-active about mowing, we've met the neighbors on three sides of the house (need to do a grill out to meet the rest, I think), um... Yeah. Basically we've been keeping busy!

I will do my best to actually get some pictures up here soon. The camera memory card I'm sure is filling up anyway, so I'll have to empty it here!

Closing Next Week!

The family who currently owns our new home found a house and have set a closing date with us!

Next week Thursday (the 25th) we'll be signing mounds of paper and making the first of many payments. The current homeowners will most likely be out by Saturday and then the moving begins!

We don't really have much to pack, because most of our stuff is in boxes other than the stuff we use everyday. So...not sure if moving will go smoothly or will be chaos. It doesn't matter...we're excited to move in!

Back to Savings

Since we currently live with my folks, I've kept my Savings Angel account, but most often just give my mom money to help pay for groceries and she does the coupon thing.

However, since Chris and I will soon be moving, we are trying to take advantage of some sales before we move in so that our pantries are not completely bare.

So today we went shopping! Got a few basics... drugs for the medicine cabinet (those can get expensive, so we stocked up on some good deals!), oatmeal for lots of breakfasts, kleenex, womanly products, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc.

Looking at my receipts, I think we did a good job. I had a little bit of a hard time figuring out my totals with the Rite Aid receipt - they don't break it down with the instore savings like everyone else does. But, here's my best calculations on what we did:

SPENT: $107.89
SAVED: $86.68


Good job us!

House Status

So we settled on a price last week. We had the home inspector come in on Tuesday and check out the house for us. He had actually inspected the house 9 years ago when it was a foreclosed home and the current couple who lives there bought it.

He was very impressed by the house and explained to us how blessed we are to be getting this home as our first house, not only because of the quality but also a good neighborhood. To our benefit, the current owner is in construction, so all of the fixer-uppers that he did were done on a very high-quality professional level. Great for us!

Everything looked great except for very low levels carbon monoxide. Our inspector said you'll start getting a headache at 30 parts per million and the highest this was getting was 6. However, he recommended we have the furnace inspected. So Chris is meeting with a furnace inspector at the house tomorrow to just check things out and see what we're looking at. Meanwhile I'll be at the dentist - hopefully no cavities.

After we're both done with our respective appointments we'll head to the bank and start sorting out that whole mortgage loan thing. Definitely don't look forward to signing up for such a loan, but I take comfort in the fact that we have no car debt, no credit cards, and the only loans we have are student loans. Plus, with the help of the tax return we'll receive for buying a house, we should hopefully be able to pay off the student loans within a couple more years! I know, that seems like a long time, but that's waaaay better than the proposed finish date that the loan holders give. Once the student loans are paid off, we'll be able to add more to the emergency fund (you Dave Ramsey followers know what I'm talking about) and push harder on paying down the mortgage.

Speaking of Dave Ramsey, Chris won tickets to go see Dave Ramsey tomorrow night in Grand Rapids! So... we're excited to check out that live event. Should be a good motivation to kick in that gazelle intensity again. Don't get me wrong, we budget very well, but it's always good to re-motivate to push a little harder.

Then Friday when I get home from work, Chris, my mom and I will all hop in the car and head to Findlay, Ohio to meet up with my dad. We'll check out the office he's been working in and...well...that'll be about it because I won't get home until after 5 and it takes a few hours to get there. Then Saturday morning all four of us will pile into a car and make the long trip to Pennsylvania. We'll stay with my Aunt Sandy (I'll get some good herbal recipes from her while I'm there) and then Sunday meet up with the rest of the East Coasters of the family for a celebration of my grandma's 78th birthday. I'm excited to see the relatives - we couldn't make it out to the last wedding because I was standing up in one here in town. We don't see that side of the family that often. Then Monday morning we'll load back into the car and make the trip home!

So the other day I went to the library and loaded up on some books and DVDs for the long drive (did y'all realize it's free rentals at the library for DVDs? Just FYI in case you didn't know... Good money saving entertainment!). My podcast I listen to (PotterCast, for those of you that are crazy Harry Potter fans - hey, podcasts are a nice way to pass time when you're working on a long project) was talking about Avatar, the Last Airbender, so I checked out the 3 seasons they had at the library. It's funny, 'cause when I was in LA for a semester, I actually interviewed at Nickelodeon to work on this show as an intern. Unfortunately I didn't get the gig, but I ended up at Film Roman, which was still interesting, just not in the area I was actually looking to study.

Anyway...I think that sums up the current status of my life.

I'm excited to get out of the basement and into a house. Once Chris and I have the keys to the place, I'll invite y'all over. But you might have to take your own chairs, 'cause we have almost no furniture. Living with my parents for over a year, Chris and I got rid of our old used couches. At the house we'll have two rooms that need couches. We do have a dining room table and a bed. And we definitely have a pretty well stocked kitchen (at least in regards to pots, pans, utensils and spices). Food... well... I need to get back into the Savings Angel thing and start stocking up on stuff so we don't have completely barren pantries when we move.

If you've made it this far into the post, I congratulate you for reading so much.

Easy as 1, 2, 3... Right?

Well, we're just a few steps away from being homeowners:

1. Seller's need to sign one last dotted line on the contract
2. House Inspection next week
3. All that other stuff that makes buying a house take 4-6 weeks.

We're pretty excited to get the house - especially so we can have you all over! Unfortunately, we have very little furniture to our names, so y'all may need to bring camp chairs along when you visit until we get some seating. ;)

Anyway, check out some pics! (This is the current resident's furniture - it will be much emptier when we move in).

Offers and Counter-Offers

We put in an offer on Wednesday.

Today we received a counter-offer. Everything in the counter is fine except the price.

So... We're countering with another price. We'll see if we can meet somewhere closer to our budget!

House Shopping

It's been a very long time since I posted. Life has been busy!

In December I was sick for half of the month, so when I finally got better, I had to cram all of the things I was going to do in preparation for Christmas earlier into the month into the last week or two before Christmas. Hence a very busy December.

In January Chris and I were able to recuperate some from the holiday craziness, but then dove into more serious house shopping.

We've seen about 20 houses so far. We had put in an offer a couple of weeks ago (didn't get it, but we're the backup if the other falls through) and have found a new one (actually just down the street from the other one) that we're considering putting an offer on. Chris and my parents have such hectic schedules right now - we were hoping to get all of us as a group to look at the house one more time, but I don't want to dawdle in getting an offer in, so we're going to try to get my parents in the next day or two and Chris' parents in it hopefully this weekend.

Also this week Chris will be meeting with our mortgage person and finding out what we can afford as an offer by finding out what monthly payments would be for the mortgage, insurance and taxes. Meanwhile, our realtor is looking into the yearly utility costs so that we can keep that in mind as well.

The house that we're considering is higher than what we were planning on, so I want to be very careful not to stretch ourselves too thin and be miserable trying to keep up with payments. So hopefully all of our careful planning will not go to waste!

Anyway, I'll let y'all know if we put an offer in and what we find out when the time comes.

For now, I'm keeping busy!