News and Notes: 2010

Our New House ... Assuming it all works out

The front of the house

The living room -- the pink carpet will get replaced somedayThe dining room

The view from the kitchen

The kitchen -- view from the family room

The kitchen

The refrigerator

The laundry room (1st floor -- yippee)

The whole house intercom system

The rail the splits the kitchen and the family room

(the family room is one step lower)

The fireplace in the family room

View #1 of the enclosed sun room

View #2 of the enclosed sun room

(looking out to the backyard)

View #3 of the enclosed sun room

"Balcony" overlooking entryway from 2nd floor

Master bedroom

(the custom curtains will come down very soon)

Master bathroom -- complete with jetted tub

Molly's bedroom

Abby's bedroom

The girls' bathroom

The rec room in the basement

The other end of the rec room

(the door to the left goes into a room which

will become a craft room for Betsy!!)

Furnace room / Amazing storage room

A complete kitchen in the basement

The basement bathroom

View of the back of the house

How's this for a backyard -- yep, it's all woods

When we thought about housing way back when, we knew our first house was going to be our starter home. It was just that and it served our purposes very well for 5 years. Abby and Molly were born while we owned that first home. Then we bought our second home and that worked great for us for 10 years, but we had a pretty good idea that we would buy one more home while the girls were still living with us. We were just starting to get the itch this spring and started to look at a few houses. A very good friend of ours is a real estate agent and she showed us this house kind of on a whim. It was already vacant, so we weren't bothering anyone to take a look and it was the first house we looked at -- it was love at first sight. Long story short, we looked at a few more houses and felt the nudge that we should "go for it" and we put in a bid for the Tudor. Within a few phone conversations, we came to terms with the sellers. The inspection found a few glitches which were going to be fixed rather easily, so the house is ours. This all happend within days of our vacation to Hawaii. And no, our other house is not sold -- we don't even have it up for sale yet. We are confident that God will provide a buyer in due time.

Swim Season ... Still More Pictures

Molly -- Now that's a happy swimmer

Emily -- one of the youngest swimmers (and one of our favorites)

Rebecca -- she's like family to us

The friendships made and re-inforced through swim team are one of the best benefits of swim team. We love going to the swim meets just to have a night with our friends!

Yum!

Molly had the opportunity to go to cooking camp (day camp) at church this summer for a week. These animal-shaped loaves of bread were one of her creations. Molly LOVES spending time in the kitchen and making, baking, and creating. Perhaps we have a little chef on our hands!

4th of July 2010

Emma & Molly

Nothing says "We're having fun" quite like a colored tongue!

The adults

An adult?
Paul playing a game...

Paul trying to catch the cups...

Bart giving his best effort to catch the cups, too

Abby, Tabitha & Allison

Teepee time for Emma & Molly

Nothing says CELEBRATION quite like cotton candy!

Abby's turn with a CELBERATION snack

"Bing"

"Bang"

"Boom"

We had the opportunity to hang with most of our college gang to celebrate the 4th of July. We ate, we played games, we ate, we watched fireworks, we ate, we hung out and chatted with one another, and we ate some more. Seems like there's always more than enough food when we get together with this crowd! Fun was had by all, for sure.

Flowers and Butterflies

These pictures were taken in the flower garden in our front yard. One day I saw a butterfly on the flowers, but by the time I got my camera, it was gone. God gave me a second chance the next day and I got the pictures I wanted -- complete with the butterfly.