September 2007

Didn't do a whole lot in the month of September. Mostly, settling into the new house. I painted the girls' rooms. Brenna wanted a pink room...GRANTED. Keagan, since she cannot verbalize her choice (I didn't use the term vocalize, because she certainly can do that), got a green room. I also installed surround sound and a large plasma tv in the family room. The wiring for the surround sound speakers was a job. I must say, it looks professional. We also had a visit from Heather's friends. Michelle came out and brought her baby, Billie. Here are some pictures:

Michelle & Billie

You know these Bozos.

This is a picture of Keagan that Brenna took while we were driving somewhere. I think it's funny.

August 2007.

Just before we left for Aruba, we settled on a new house in Lancaster. We bought a new house in Manheim Township. This is the "Main Line" of Lancaster. It boasts the best public schools. The nicest homes. It's also where my buddy Chico grew up and went to high school.

We had met with the builder in March even before the ground was broken. After negotiating for about a couple weeks and agreeing to a price, we backed out of the deal. We were uncomfortable with a lot of the process. When we had bought in New Jersey, it was from a large builder. All the options were laid out and priced ahead of time. This is how our interaction went with this builder:

Us: Are you going to put in double ovens?
Builder: You could do that.
Us: Granite countertops?
Builder: Yeah, you could do that.
Us: Tile in the bathrooms?
Builder: Probably.

This uncertainty had us uneasy. Here we had agreed to a price that we and the builder wasn't sure what it included.

Anyway, the lot is a huge plus. There is a mandatory open space behind the lot. Our neighborhood does not have a home owner's association. The open space behind us is actually maintained by the development behind us that does have a HOA fee. The other benefit is the house is located in the best elementary school in the entire county. So, we walked away in March.

Fast forward to June. We get a call from our realtor. She tells us that she ran into the builder and the house is almost complete. She wanted to take us through it. She went through it with the builder and loved the house. We went through and saw that the builder had done a lot of upgrades that we wanted and some that we would have wanted, but probably would not have paid for.

Long story short, we agree to a price that is $5K more than in March. He had risen the asking price $10K. Here are some pictures of the house:

Front View.

Kitchen.


Stove top.


Dining Room.


Master Shower.

July 2007.

Sorry I have been neglecting this blog. We have been through a lot of change over the last 5 months. I am going to recap each month with a host of pictures.

We started a family tradition of going on summer vacation with my parents and Bill's family 2 years ago. Last year we went to Ocean City, NJ. The weather was horrible. It rained every day. So this past summer, I suggested that we go to Aruba. Heather and I first went to Aruba in 2003. We loved it. We have recommended Aruba to many people for several reasons. The weather is constant. It is always sunny and rarely rains. Food is tremendous. The water is absolutely beautiful.

So, I talked everybody into Aruba. My parents and my family stayed at the Radisson. Bill's family stayed about a half mile up the road at the Marriott. He cashed in his Marriott points and had a penthouse room with a panoramic view of the ocean. Very cool. Anyhow, it was a great week. In fact, my parents are going again in 2 weeks. Bill and Andrea are going back this summer.

Here are some pictures of the week:

Valerie, Keagan & Brenna on the beach



Dad, Keagan & Mom in the ocean



Brenna, Me, Keagan and Heather in the pool



Mom & Dad at El Gaucho (Argentinian Steak House)



Brenna, Heather, Keagan & Me at El Gaucho.

Dad's Retirement Party.

My dad retired from Local 420 Steamfitters Union on May 23rd this year. It was his 58th birthday. Bill and I had a retirement dinner for him at Morton's Steakhouse in the King of Prussia Mall. The food was great. Brenna and Valerie had a great time together (Keagan is still too young to party with those two). The dinner was nice. We had a couple bottles of wine. There was an incident however. There was this table of 4 which included a 60-ish couple and a 70-ish couple. Apparently, they were none too happy that we had a 1 and a 2 year old in the restaurant. They made several under their breath comments during the evening. However, at one point the younger of the two women yelled at Brenna to be quiet and sit down. So, Bill got into a little shouting match with them. Amazingly, Bill didn't use one profanity. He did manage to call the older lady a mummy after she called him an asshole. I am not sure, but I think this could be a first in the history of insults. Does anybody out there know of the word mummy being hurled as a insult in an argument? Here are some pictures of the night:

Brenna and Valerie

Dad, Keagan and Mom

Bill making Brenna and Valerie laugh.

Valerie, Brenna and Keagan.

My parents with my family.

My parents with Bill's family.

My parents with Camille and my uncle Bill.

Negotiating a New House.

Heather and I went to look at a house that is under construction. It is in a great school district and a great neighborhood. I have included some pictures below. We have made an offer but are waiting to hear back from the builder. We are hoping that in the midst of this housing debacle, we'll be able to get it at a great price.

Front of the House.

Three car garage.


Kitchen.

Looking from the dining room through the living room into the study.

Walk in master shower.

Chico's Wedding

In early May, we went to Chico and Amy's wedding in Turks and Caicos. It was our first international destination wedding (our first destination wedding was obviously, Las Vegas, Baby, for Jamie & Berna's wedding) and the first time we left the kids for an extended number of days. We had a blast. It was nice not to have to be on the kids' schedules. We enjoyed having time to ourselves. By the 3rd night, however, we were both missing them tremendously. Here are some pictures from the island:

Me and Heather

Chico and Amy

Evan and Michelle

Gorillamo, Drew, Me, Chico & Evan

Bill, Andrea, Heather and me

We have had a very busy spring. 3 weddings, a retirement plus we are both working full time. I will try to keep updating this blog, but time is limited.

Cathy's Wedding.

Heather's good friend from high school, Cathy, got married this past weekend. It was a good time and nice to get away from the kids for the evening. It was sort of a mini high school reunion. Heather keeps in touch with 6 of her friends from high school. There were people there from 4 different grades from our high school. I managed to drink a significant amount, including a car bomb. Here are some pictures.

Painting Easter Eggs.

This past Sunday, Heather and the girls painted Easter eggs. Brenna really enjoyed herself. She also had a surprise visit from Mommom and Poppop as well as Aunt Reen. Here are some pictures from the day.





Brenna also had a Moon Bounce party on Friday for Heather's friend's kid. Brenna had a blast. She went down the slide about 20 times. She also liked bouncing in the moon bounce.





Brenna and Keagan also got a picture with the Easter Bunny. It was impossible to get both of them to look in the same direction at the same time.

Big Decision.

Well, I have been neglecting this blog for about a month. We have been very busy. February did not give me much time off. We made settlement selling the old house on March 2nd. We also were negotiating with a builder out here for a new home. In fact, we were supposed to sign the contract and put down a down payment yesterday. However, I sort of got cold feet.

On Friday morning, Heather and I decided that we would stick out one more year in the townhouse. Heather really wants to take some time off of work to be with the girls.


If we bought a house now (prior to me becoming partner) and Heather stopped working, I think we would be stressed out a little. The financial situation would be too tight. So, we decided to stay put. This way Heather could quit. The other thing we decided is that we are going to do some traveling. We have no responsibility living in this townhouse. The kids are not in school yet. We have always enjoyed traveling. So, the house of our dreams is on hold for one more year.

We have already booked a week vacation in Aruba. This is our favorite Caribbean destination. We have been to Jamaica and Mexico. We will never go back to the former. Mexico was nice, but the beaches were rocky at least in the Riviera Maya where we stayed. Aruba is outside the hurricane belt and is essentially a desert climate. In fact, in August their average precipitation is just 0.2 inches for the whole month. We know that the weather is going to be nice. We always stay at the radisson.

So, this next year we are going to enjoy our little munchkins and travel a lot. We are planning on Disney World again, a ski trip to Utah and a reunion in Las Vegas. Our friends Jamie and Berna got hitched there 4 years ago. Every other year we use their anniversary as an excuse to go back. It's a cool fun city.

I will leave you some recent photos of the girls:

Adjusting to 2 Peanuts.

Well, Keagan is now 3 weeks old. Brenna is doing quite nicely with her, except for the occasional unprovoked, unforewarned and most definitely random swatting of her new little sister. She does help give her a bath. She has to kiss her every morning, even before she kisses her parents. Here are some recent pictures.


We went over to the house in NJ to pack up the remaining things this past weekend. Home inspection is this week. We'll have to run over one more time to grab a handful of things that remain in the garage. My dad helped dispose of a huge truck load of garbage. Legally, too.

Until next post.