Braces by Alexander

On Tuesday,At 9:00,I got my braces on. Iwas a bit nervous at first,and I thought it would hurt. The first thing the orthodontist did was ask me what color I wanted my braces to be.I said turquoise.Then he put my braces on. Finally, he put the turquoise rubber bands on.

House for Sale!

Our house is officially for sale! Follow this link to see our MLS listing:

http://www.dabmls.com/day/maildoc/a001fn4658.html

Chris and Benjamin are look-alikes, too!

Even the hair is the same....and Grandma Weinrich gives Benjamin such a hard time about his hair!!!

Who looks like Daddy????

Well, I was packing up old scrapbooks in my neverending quest to declutter our house, and found some interesting pictures. Here is Jonathan now...

And here is Chris at about the same age.

Do they look alike or what?

Memorial Day Fun

Alexander jumps in...

So does Benjamin

Enjoying a ride on Mr. Larson's back

This is fun!

Look who has finally learned to swim on his own! We could barely drag him out of the pool.

Rain, rain, and more rain.

Well, the rain continues. Last I heard, Port Orange had gotten 30+ inches of rain since Sunday night. It is absolutely unreal. This is a street by my church. It's typical of some of the low-lying areas in town.

The lake by church overflowed and came into the yard, almost up to the playground and building.

With all this flooding, we went by our new lot. This is the stream behind the subdivision.

This is the retention area behind the houses. The stream is further to the left. When we looked at the lot, this whole area was bone dry. We figure that if 30 inches couldn't flood the houses, we're good to go. Nice to know!

Braces!

New lot

Here is the lot for our future house...The tree to the right will be taken down - it's in poor health. But the two trees in the back will stay.

No TV week

Well, I've had a week to digest the results of our screen-free week. We did well. I easily avoided TV, but had a harder time with the computer. I used it at work, and managed to only check email at home. Tempting, for sure. The boys did great - they stayed off of TV, computer, and Wii all week. Chris, too. So, what did we do/learn?

• We played more board games with the kids. We do that a lot, anyway, but made some extra time during the week. Usually games are a weekend activity.
• I read two books. Since I've been working, I have often said that I don't have time to read anymore. Well, when you don't spend 3 hours watching American Idol and Survivor (my only two TV vices), you have more time to read.
• I did miss facebook. I like seeing what everyone else is up to. On the plus side, I didn't have any guilt from wasting time playing "bejeweled blitz," my favorite game.
• We spent more time outdoors. Over the weekend, we ran a 5K and rode our bikes. On Sunday night, we went to the Daytona Cubs and had a great time.
• I didn't find extra time to exercise on my own. I should have. But I didn't.
• I could easily give up TV for long periods of time. Not so the computer. The only time I wanted to watch TV was when I finished Marley and Me and Twilight. I wanted to rent the movies. I just put them on reserve at the library and am waiting for them to come in.

We'll do this again in September. It's a bi-annual event. Join us for the week. By then, we may be moving into our new house, so we probably won't even miss the screens!

For all of you who are wondering, I thought it was about time to update everyone on our house adventures. It all started about a month ago, when I rediscovered our real estate agent Alice on Facebook. We bought our current house about 10 years ago, and since then she’s moved out of the area and we’ve lost touch. I found her on facebook through a friend, and it turns out she still does real estate in this area with her co-worker Jill.

So I casually mentioned that we’ve been keeping our eye out for a house with a mother-in-law suite. See, our current house is 1300 square foot, which is not much for a family of five (that includes an 11-year-old who wears a men’s size 9 shoe!) When my parents visit, it gets even smaller. They have to sleep in the living room on the sofa bed (comfortable, but NO privacy.) They’ve often mentioned they would go in with us on a house that includes a separate in-law suite. That will make their visits much easier on all of us, and they can come more often.

So, while they were visiting over the Easter break, we went out looking. Just looking. Or so we thought. First, we put a bid on a house in Sunset Cove that was up for short sale. It was quite a deal, but at the last minute the owners renegotiated their lease. We loved the subdivision, though, and it’s still being built. After looking at everything else, we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for.

I went running the next day, and out of curiosity, I ran through Sunset Cove. It is exactly 2 miles from our house, off of Madeline between Clyde Morris and Williamson.) I had no idea how many lots were still empty. I called Jill, and we walked though the Monroe model. It was impressive. It has 5 bedrooms. Best of all, two of them are master bedrooms, and one is on the first floor. My parents would have the 1st floor master, and the rest of our family would have bedrooms upstairs. There’s also a loft on the second floor, which would make the perfect game room.

We found the ideal lot. It’s about halfway down the street, across from the nature trail, and it has a big tree in the backyard. Here in Florida, we don’t get very big lots, but the back of our yard leads into a common conservation area. During the summer, it will be swampy (but who plays outside in the dead of summer anyway?) and in the winter it’s dry and ready for play. I can already see the boys playing football, frisbee, and soccer in the back.

On Wednesday, we went to the office and signed a contract. It takes about 5-6 months to build, so we still have time to sell our house. That’s the scary part. We’re working really hard to repaint and de-clutter. Yes, I know we spent spring break painting the boys’ rooms. Jill says those “outrageous” colors can stay. But now we have to repaint the living/dining room. Not many people are going to appreciate our green and purple walls. We’re moving some furniture and stuff into storage (conveniently located at Chris’ parents’ house) and rebuilding our back shed. We hope to price our house reasonably enough to sell it by September. If you know of anyone in Port Orange who is looking for a 4bed, 2bath house, let me know!!!