Things at the house are going pretty well, especially because I have a lot more time. I still have occasional trainings for work and appointments, but it’s been great not having so much to do every day. Summer break is one of the greatest creations ever! We even are going to be going to Utah next week- woo hoo! Gonna visit the families and maybe some friends too- we are so excited. We’re even thinking about stopping by Moab on the way up to do some hiking and what not- I love Arches National Park.

On another positive note, my headaches are slowly improving. Nothing had been working, really, so on the suggestion of my grandma, I have been trying a chiropractor. I’ve done several appointments now, and overall, I have noticed a significant difference in the headaches and their intensity! (Thanks for the suggestion, Grandma!) I learned that my neck is too straight and the vertebrae aren’t all exactly aligned correctly, so we’ve been working on that. I am just hoping  it’s not a fluke and the pain keeps going down and away!

Now we are battling the house. The biggest problem so far is BUGS! All over. We’ve found several interesting varieties of bugs inside and outside the house, including but not limited to: spiders, pill bugs (roly-polies), fire ants, and roaches! Some really, really big roaches. *shudder* We even have a hive of bees that recently took up resident in the knothole at the base of the great big tree.

Apparently, the weatherstripping of at least the doors really STINKS and lets lots of buggies into the house through the cracks (big enough to see light from the outside through!), so we’ve been trying to play around with fixing that. We also have gotten some quotes on trying to eliminate bugs, but so far, they are all pretty dang expensive.  Jared was thinking about taking the hive on by himself, but fortunately he’s changed his mind about that. A lot of it can be DIY projects, but some of them (the bees) probably should be handled by people who really know what they are doing and have the proper protection from a zillion bee stings. We’ll figure it out though.

We’ve also been cleaning up the inside of the house; it was vacant for several months before we got in there, so things like the tile and carpets needed some deep cleaning (especially thanks to those bugs). In fact, they could even use some more, despite my on-my-hands-and-knees-for-several-hours cleaning efforts. heh. I also spent a couple hours scrubbing down the used fridge we bought off of craigslist.com. It’s a pretty new fridge, but the previous owners didn’t clean it out very well, so it was stinky, dirty, and even had some bugs inside it.

The only serious mishap that has occurred was trying to figure out the awning that goes over the back patio. It’s tricky- it’s a lot lik the awnings that go over camping trailers. Jared was struggling to figure it out and so I offered to help him. (My mistake, I am clumsy and not good with hardware stuff anyways). Somehow, the awning rolled up while I was holding the bars, and snapped my fingers between two of the metal supports of the awning. OUCH! We seriously thought my fingers were broken for a few days, but they look normal and are only a bit stiff and sore now, and I have full mobility, so we figure it magically only bruised the bones.

You can sort of see the evil awning right above the window here:

So overall, Operation: Take over the House is  in full swing and progressing quite well! I can’t wait til it’s ready enough for us to start really living in it…. I get so excited to think of that. 🙂 Life is good, we’re working hard at the house and job stuff, so we have a lot to be thankful for!

So…. after a very painless 45 minutes of interpreting and signing papers, we received all the keys and garage openers to our new home. I have to say, I had heard that buying a home is a terrible process and that it wouldn’t be the most pleasant experience, but the only problem we had was with our contact person for getting our interest rate for our loan. He was horrible at getting back to us. Other than that though, it was great. I really LOVED our agent, Meta- she is great at what she does, and she really loves it and works hard at it. She even got us “closing gifts”: a door knocker with our last name engraved on it, and a cute little silver platter that has a picture of a home and says “Bless this house” at the top of it. Good for using or decoration. 🙂

Naturally, we immediately had to go and admire our purchase. We are just so excited. I was just happy to see the place, but Jared was very good at examining every nook and cranny of the house AND yard. 🙂

These pictures were taken the night we decided to buy the house, but they can give you a fairly good representation of our new home.

Here’s the front of our lovely home.

This tree is now a beautiful maple tree and pretty flowers:

Here’s the backyard patio and in the corner is a cute little fountain…

And here are some of the lovely trees. See that little thing in front of the tree? It was a bird bath that reached to my waist or so…

And some inside pictures of the kitchen, decent-sized pantry, and entryway (with the nice tile work…):

And the cool lamp in the formal dining room and the fireplace:

That’s the most exciting stuff for now, since it’s not furnished…yet! Tomorrow we change the locks and I start doing a deep cleaning. 🙂

On another completely unrelated note, I am OFFICIALLY DONE with my first year of teaching! I am so pumped that I made it through. There were some rough spots, but considering some of the health issues I had and the completely different system I was trying to use to grade and teach (Marzano’s “Rubric” system), I think I did pretty well.

It’s going to be a busy summer with work trainings/meetings and moving/working on the house (especially the yard!) but I am so pumped and excited right now. We were truly lucky with how reasonable the sellers were and having Meta as our Realtor-  everything just worked out so well for us. Now… time for bed so I can be ready to clean the house tomorrow!