We're Moving!

We have been given an opportunity to purchase a home from a friend, who is going to let us "rent to own". It was an offer we couldn't refuse. Okay well, we could have but we didn't want to. :)

Our new house is located in the Carriage Hills neighborhood on 62nd terr. Just around the corner from our friends the Bruns Family.

Here is the shortened version of how this home came to be ours.

Months ago when I meet Adrienne through church, she and I would visit and let our children play together. Shortly into our friendship her husband was laid off, like so many others we know, and it wasn't long before he found another job. They put the house they owned here on the market in June and moved to Pennsulvania. Just before they left, during our last visit together I had mentioned to her that I might be interested in renting her house in the event that she was unable to get it sold fast enough. Adrienne told me to go look at the house and that maybe Steve and I might want to buy it. I told her that was not an option for us right now but to please keep us in mind if she needed to rent it in order to relieve the stress of her mortgage payments.

I knew that if I went to look at the house I would fall in love with it and then I would be upset that I wasn't able to buy it. I have learned not to even look at things if I know I can't have them, so I never went to look at the house. Adrienne and her family moved away and I never thought any more about the house.

Adrienne and I stayed in contacted through Facebook and some time in August she sent me an email about the house that started out something like this: "I don't remember what you said your price range was ...", "house hasn't sold ...", "are you still interested in a rent-to-own ..."

I was a little shocked. I was honest with her and said that I had never even looked at the house and that Steve and I had never discussed it. I told Adrienne that I would go look at the house on Friday and talk with Steve about it and then get back to her. I couldn't wait that long. Jacob and I went right after I logged off of the computer that same day.

Just as I knew I would be, I was in love the minute I walked through the door. Jacob was just as thrilled as I was. He and I walked through every room and talked about what each space was going to be used for. There is a wonderful little nook in one of the bedrooms that we are going to use as part of our "School" area. We could hardly contain our excitement for the rest of the day.

I kept my excitement to a minimum as I let Steve walk through the house. I had brought our friends Jared and Sephie with us to get their opinion. They live in the neighborhood so I wanted to see how they felt about the house. We were all in agreement that this house was to good of a deal to pass up.

So, after attempting to discuss the pros and cons, Steve and I decided to go ahead and make arrangements with the Zeimers to "rent-to-own" their Kansas City Home from them. I say we attempted to discuss because if you know me, then you understand that my mind was already made up, I just had to get Steve to realize he wanted it too. :) Which didn't take much effort by the way.

We are moving in to our new huge beautiful home at the end of this month!! I am beside myself with excitement and stress. This is not the best of economic times and our family is definitely feeling it. I run my own photography business as most of you know and this year has not been as busy as I would have liked. So needless to say, we are not rolling in big wads of cash right now. However, we are going to make this work even if it kills me. Steve and I both have a wonderful feeling about this whole situation and have felt that this is the right desicion since the very beginning. We have no doubts!

Here are some images of the house.

The view from the street, Image provided by Google Street View maps. Thanks Google.

A view of the foyer and stairs leading to the second floor. Second floor has 4 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms.

This is a view from the foyer into the formal living room and looking through into the formal dining room.

Standing in the Family room. We will probably never use this fireplace but it looks nice! This room is going to house our used/new pool table for the next two years! I told Steve that if he went back for his Masters Degree that I would forfeit having a sitting room and a family room. Well he starts classes on the 27th, so now this room is the pool room. :)

This view is from the same spot in the Family Room as the last image I just turned to my right and we are now looking into the breakfast nook of the Kitchen.

Now we are standing in the nook looking into the Kitchen. I can not wait to get all my cooking stuff in here!!

This is the view from the Masterbedroom into the Master Bathroom. We have a dual sink vanity, 2 walk-in closets, a soaker jet tub, and a toilet with shower in a separate little room. Steve is so thrilled about having the toilet and the sinks in separate spaces. I'm excited about having a closet all to myself!!


This is the soaker tub.

This is the little nook inside one of the bedrooms. This is the room that Jacob and I have claimed as our School/Craft room! Jacob is very excited to get all his school stuff set up in here.

This is the back of the house. We have a very nice flat fenced in back yard. I am going to enjoy the fact that there are no plants to tend to. I'm not a big fan of gardening so having a low maintenance yard is going to be wonderful!

We are so happy and are planning to be in this house for a very long time!!

Opportunity

My FaceBook status on Wednesday afternoon read as such:

"Michelle Lewis has been given the opportunity to start a much more forceful workout regime starting tomorrow! Bye Bye flab ... Heeeelllloooo FAB!!"

Well that is how I am viewing the negative pregnancy test results that I got ... as an OPPORTUNITY.

It is no secret that Steve and I have been actively attempting to conceive baby #2 for the past 4.5 years. We have not taken any steps toward medical intervention and don't intend to. I am fully aware that there are several things in my life that I need to change in order to increase our chances of conception. However like a lot of people I am a creature of habit, and a bit lazy when it come to sticking with a routine.

I had allowed myself to get hopeful this month, which I have been very protected against for many years. I had experienced all the early symptoms and was soooo sure that I wasn't wrong this time. I have many friends who are expecting or have just given birth and the excitement just sort of carried me away.

So here I sit feeling disappointed, yet again... bitter at all the people who are able to conceive just thinking about having sex and frustrated with all the other emotions that are involved in this whole process. Which by the way are to many to write about. I am and will be fine. I am only human however and not seeing a plus symbol just really sucked. Today I allowed myself to be emotional and tomorrow I will move on. I do not wish to invoke any kind of sympathy, I just felt like explaining myself and sharing a little.

I am truly happy for each of my friends who are expecting or just became mothers. It is so wonderful and exciting! I wish I could be experiencing it again for myself with them.

Now to explain how a workout regime is my positive twist to this rather pissy situation. I 'm looking at it like this: I have a vision of what I want my next pregnancy to be like and the current state of my physical body does not fit in that vision, literally it doesn't fit ... I'm overweight. If I made my vision board to scale it would be scary. So, in order for there to be less of me to love, I need to start a workout regime and a better diet plan. This will benefit both my physical ability to conceive and my mental vision of how I want to look and feel while pregnant. As well as a long list of other health benefits.

Because I am not pregnant at this moment, I have the opportunity to be more forceful with my physical plan. I do not have to worry about the stress level on my body in regards to a pregnancy, that is.

Well, I have a membership to the YMCA and the one in Parkville is great. I am blessed to have a very flexible schedule and Jacob loves to spend time in the kids play area that they provide. So together Jacob and I are going to slowly work our way up to 1 hour 5 days a week. I have already meet with a trainer and have a machine guided plan that will give a great overall body workout, followed by mindless walking on the treadmill while I watch HGTV or the FoodNetwork! Jacob also loves to swim, so we plan on hitting the pool at least once a week.

I am not giving up on the idea of more children I am just choosing to focus on what I can do now to make the pregnancy even better for me when it does finally happen. :)

Bedtime Stories

I was on my way to the computer to get caught up on some client projects that I needed to finish, when I made a slight detour and stopped to say goodnight to Steve and Jake, who were already in bed quieting down before lights out time. The image below is what I found when I walked into the room!



They were so proud of themselves for picking on of the best bedtime stories ever.

Band Project

Shortly after the beginning of this year we purchased the game Rock Band 2 for the Wii. We love it. We recently had the opportunity to play Guitar Hero World Tour while visiting with family, and we decided that between the two games we enjoy Rock Band more. However the one thing we did like about Guitar Hero was the configuration of the drum set. It has three drum pads and two cymbal pads which gives you a more realistic feeling of drumming during game play. Despite the lacking cymbal pads in our Rock Band set we still like the game better for multiple different reason. However, the real reason for this post was not to compare the two games. The reason was to share with you our little project that made our Rock Band system even better.

When striking the rubber drum pads with drum sticks there was a distinct thwacking noise. Which at times could get very loud, especially when the drummer really gets into the excitement of playing a song. There are many different techniques the other have used to help deaden the thwack. We decided to go with the addition of thick foam placed on the drum pads. This is to turn the hard thwack sound of the wood stick hitting pad into more of a soft low thud sound.

Here is what we did.

Supplies Needed:

4 - 6mm thick by 8.5x11in pieces of Craft Foam (black)
4 - 2mm thick by 8.5x11in pieces of Craft Foam (red, yellow, green, blue) w/peel-n- stick back.
1 - Compass, the one used for making circles, not the one used for finding true north.
1 - Cutting board
1 - Exacto knife
1 - 1-2mm thick piece of chip board, we used the back of a scrapbook paper package. Sturdy cardboard would work also.
1 - Spray Adhesive, make sure it is safe for use on rubber and foam. Elmers has one.
1 - Large trash bag



Each pad of the drum set has a specific color that corresponds with a note in the game. We chose to add the colored foam for two reasons, 1) we just think it looks cool, and 2) it actually helps beginners and children to recognize faster which pad needs to be struck when the notes are on screen. We placed the four different colored peel-n-stick foam pieces onto the four black pieces of foam.

We measured our drum pad and set our Compass to make a circle slightly smaller than our drum pad,less than a centimeter. We created a template for the circles we needed to cut using the chipboard, to ensure that all the foam circles would be the same.

When we cut the chipboard we made sure to cut the circle out of the middle of the 12in x 12in board. This way we could use the piece with the big hole in it as a stencil/shield. We cut bot sides of the large trash bag to create a long flat sheet of plastic. We then cut a circle out of the middle of the trash bag. Using the spray adhesive we lined up the hole in the trash bag with the hole in the 12x12 chipboard, and stuck the two together. This created a drape that could be placed over the drum set and protect the electronic parts from the spray as we attached the foam to the rubber pads. We then used the circle template to cut our four colored circles from the foam pieces.

We placed the trash bag drape over the drum set, aligning the hole with the colored pad that corresponded with the correct colored foam piece. We sprayed the adhesive on the black side of the foam circle and then sprayed the drum pad. We removed the trash bag and place the colored foam circle with the adhesive side down onto the drum pad, making sure that it was centered. We did that four times,and presto we now have four new sound-muffling fully colored drum pads!!


We of course have already tested the improvements that we made to the drum set and they work great. There is no loss of function, meaning the pad sensors are still just as quick to respond when the pad is stuck. The thwacking sound is now a low thud and does not interfere nearly as much with the enjoyment of playing the game. We are very pleased with ourselves!!

Chicago

Missey, Sephie and I took a trip to Chicago in April of this year.

IT WAS AWESOME!!

Our hotel was great, it was an 8 minute drive to the nearest train station, and we did have to pay to park the van, but overall it was great. We had breakfast in the lobby every morning and the room was the perfect size. Missey chose an executive suite and I will try to make that my room style choice from now on whenever I travel. When you enter the room it is like walking into a living room, not like a traditional hotel room which opens into a small hallway. Executive suites give you lots of room to move around in.

Thursday night we made it into the heart of Chicago just in time to visit the Art Institute for about an hour before they closed. Such an amazing display of art. I am excited to go back and see the whole place.

This was one of my favorite pieces. The family of three reminded me of my own small family.


In China Town we had sum good dim sum.


I have always loved going to aquariums. The Shedd Aquarium was amazing even though the large ocean area was closed for upgrades. Sephie and her husband Jared are planning a trip with Steve and I to go back sometime in 2010. I am so excited! We found Nemo and some of his friends!


We stood in line at Gino's Pizza for an hour and 15minutes to get some authentic chicago style deep dish pizza. That wait was just to get in the door. After another 20 minutes or so we were seated. Then it takes another 45 minutes to prepare and bake the pie!


Holly Moley it was so worth the wait!


We visited the 95th floor of the Hancock building at night and looked out over the city! So beautiful. The image on the left is a view looking north up the shore of Lake Michigan, highway 41 is filled with the headlights of late night travelers. This image of the right is a view southwest into the city. This town is just as beautiful during the day from the ground as it is during the night from 95 stories up.


This may sound cheesy, but sometimes we all get visions of what a place is going to be like based on stories we have heard or movies we have seen. Well I had an idea in my head of what Chicago was going to be like ... full of activity, noisy from the trains passing by at regular intervals, heavy traffic and loud car horns, great food, beautiful architecture, amazing views, and great attractions. I love this picture, which I took as we crossed the street under the train line. It reminds me of all the movies I've watched that helped me to develop my expectations of how great this city would be. It also reminds me of how this city lived up to all of those expectations and even surpassed a few!!


We had a great time. I cannot wait to go back and visit many, many more times!

A little birdie told me

Our backyard family has grown by three! This picture of Mama bird feeding her little ones was taken on 5-2-09. We believe they hatched some time that early morning. Happy Birthday!



In just a few days they have changed alot. They now have feathers and look more like real birds instead of strange featherless creatures with beaks. One of them likes to sleep on its back with it's beak open.



I think Mama bird is getting used to me being around and taking pictures of her babies. She sat quietly and patiently in a nearby tree as I visited the nest today. She no longer tries to attack me.

We recently tilled our garden so she and her little ones have lots of fresh big healthy worms to eat! Enjoy!

Spring is here!

Nana found a Robins nest in one of our trees in the back yard. The nest is in a small pine tree that stands only about 6 feet tall. We have had a wonderful view of the mother Robin tending to her nest over the past few days. Today I decided to investigate the nest a little closer with my camera and zoom lens.

This is what I found.

And she has been busy!

If you look closely we think there might be four eggs. We are excited to keep watching as this not so little family grows. Our hope is to catch a few photos of the young ones after they hatch!

There is so much to see and so much fun to have right in your own backyard if you just look for it!