A Busy July

Time in the summer always moves just a little too fast.  I feel as though I've blinked and the summer is already gone.  Just a week and half before heading back to the old grindstone and celebrating the "new year".  Because, let's face it, as a teacher the year always begins in August - not January. 

It has certainly been a busy, busy summer.  We had a couple weeks of down-time between our Montana vacation and....selling our house!!  We put our house up on the market at the beginning of March, and almost four months to the day we received an offer.  After few negotiations, we were ready to roll out on a house search of our own. 

We had been watching the listings online and, actually, didn't think there were a whole lot of houses out there that we would be really all that interested in.  We narrowed it down to five that we wanted to look at, and after those five thought we were ready to put an offer in on one.  We scheduled a second showing...and ... around 8pm the night before that showing we got a call that the house had been sold.  Ugh.

Back to the internet, then five more houses.  We found one that we liked, but it was pretty far from the school where we teach.  We said to heck with location, and we put in an offer.  The sellers weren't willing to negotiate their price, and we didn't feel it was worth as much as they did, so we declined their counter.

Back to the internet, but this time only two more houses.  This trip ended with success!  After few negotiations this time, we are on our way to a pretty neat house on the Westside of Cedar Rapids.  About four minutes (maybe five if there's traffic) away from work.  In a perfect world, putting a house up in March would lead to moving in June and having July and August to settle in before school starts.  This, however, is not such a perfect world and we'll be closing on both houses four days before we go back to work!  The house needs a LOT of painting (I think the previous owners may have been blindfolded when they 1. picked out the colors and 2. did the actual painting), so we will be busting our buns trying to get that part of the move done before school starts.  We actually get to stay in the house for about 8 days after closing, so hopefully we'll get some small stuff moved and unpacked before the big stuff gets moved in on the 20th.

When we move, I'll post some pics of the new pad.

In the meantime, here are a few photos of the girls this summer.  Warning: I have been woefully bad at remembering to take pictures lately.  And, the girls continue to be woefully bad at cooperating with the photo shoots when I do remember.

 We only made it to the pool once this summer (so far...I'm still hoping for another trip).  This was how Cora spent her time.  She absolutely LOVED the water.

Evaline, not so much.  She decided to spend her precious pool time playing on the porch putting her baby in a friend's carseat.  This girl is BABY CRAZY - constantly, 100% of the time in "mommy-mode" taking care of her little baby.

 They discovered that grapes taste so much better when they get to pick them off the vine themselves (as opposed to when boring, safety-first mom cuts them into quarters to avoid choking hazards...apparently they like to live a little on the wild side).

This is the best picture of the two of them together that we've gotten all summer.  Both have moderately pleasant looks on their faces, no one is talking, or screaming, or running away, or picking their nose.  The way pictures have turned out lately, you may see this one reappear on our Christmas card!