Finally some house pictures : )

Here's the front of our new home! (At least the best picture that we have of the front).

Here is the kitchen. It's tiny! The sink and cupboard that you see is as much counter space as there is! We're going to need to do something about that. The linoleum seems in good shape though. : )

The dining room. Sorry it's so dark! It's carpeted but good sized. The windows have wooden frames over them that are really pretty (these are also in the living room)! As you can see, when we were there the seller still had a lot of stuff still in the house. I'm thinking that we're going to use some of the space of the dining room to expand the kitchen somehow... we'll have to see how creative I can get and if I can find ways to do it cheaply.

Living room! (Another dark one). Off to the right is the room with the 3 windows (that look like a bay window that you see on the front porch). I'm thinking we'll use that as a study room/den or something.

Study room/den.

The staircase!!! I love the staircase! When we talked about getting a home I was so excited to have stairs and a basement and we got both! (I'm not quite sure why but I like stairs but I do). I also love the stained glass window on the landing! It needs a storm window but it's cool!

So this is kind of a weird picture but it's the master bedroom. There's a headboard and side tables built into the wall at the angle of the sloped roof (so we're not going to be able to use our bedframe from Grandpa Carter but that's ok). The wood at the top matches the windows downstairs. There's also 2 other really small rooms on the top floor.

The bathroom is actually quite large (but not attached to the master bedroom).
And last but not least... here's part of the unfinished basement. There's another room with the furnace and stuff in it and then there's an old coal storage room (like a lot of the old houses have) which is interesting. There isn't a 220 switch for a dryer so we'll either have to buy a gas dryer or get one installed. The one you see is a dryer with a 110 plug! I'd never seen anything like that before! So, the house also has a fenced in backyard with a garage/shed in the back with an opening onto an alleyway. There's a lot of work we'll have to put into the house (some of the pipes are leaking an need to be replaced and the roof will need to be redone sometime in the next couple years but it's not leaking now, and we don't know yet about the water heater or furnace) but we completely own the house and have some money to pay for some repairs!! We're so excited!

I quit!!

No, really, I did! I shall never again set foot in SupraNaturals. Well, at least I don't plan to. It feels good to be done with work. Maria and I kicked off our vacation by heading down to Zion National Park. We stayed a wretched night in the car (hey, it was free), but then we had a GLORIOUS day of hiking. We went on a hike called "Angel's Landing." After climbing quite a few switchbacks, it ended up on top of a bit of a mountain. But the hike didn't start there. There were some chains that we could hold on to to keep from falling to our doom down the deep ravine. Fun, eh? We went along a bit of it, but then we decided to turn back once re reached the first waypoint. Because it got worse. Much worse. You see, at this point, there's kind of a saddle, which drops off to 800 feet on one side and 1000 feet on the other side. We didn't feel like risking our lives were worth it, besides, we had an amazing enough view, as you can see:


Afterwards we went down, we went to go check out the Narrows. Unfortunately there was a notice saying that due to high flow rates, the narrows were closed for hiking. We stepped in the water. It was pretty dang cold, but maybe someday we'll go back and try it. I kinda hope we do someday.

We went on one other small hike that took us to "Weeping Rock" where water was literally pouring out of the walls as it trickled over a thousand years. It was awesome.

So now were down here in Arizona visiting my parents for a few days. It's hot down here. We're still trying to get everything arranged on the house. Finally we got the electricity turned on in our name, and the gas is supposed to be turned on tomorrow. The inspection should be on Tuesday, and hopefully we'll be able to close pretty soon, and then we'll be home owners!! We hope.

I'll let Maria tell you about how she chopped her hair off : )