Tuesday, July 22, 2014

For Those Faraway People...

For those of you that live far away and would like to see a little bit of the girls in action, here's a few short videos... Enjoy!

First up, is Penelope and Hunter hanging out in the backyard in the spring, after all the snow had finally melted and they could actually run around the yard. 
 
 

Next up is another of the goofy little girl having some fun getting dizzy. 


Finally, here's one from this morning. It's a bit on the warm side today and so a little jump in the pool was the perfect thing to cool us down.


Friday, July 11, 2014

The Little House (and the long winter...)

In late October we moved into our little house. It wasn't something that we had really expected to happen but we are very glad that it did (I am anyways, though sometimes Ryan complains... mainly when it rains and water pours in the basement, but I think we have solved that problem). Having an aunt and uncle as realtors can be pretty awesome, as was the case for this house. We weren't actively searching for a house but keeping in more of a "if something comes up, then sure" mindset. Well this little thing came up... (the next few pictures were taken from a phone. Apparently, I didn't think a new house was worthy enough to use a real camera for photos). 

 

My uncle had let us know about it the very day it came available and, though it looked small, we had already decided that if it was even the same size as our apartment it would be worth it for the price. The mortgage is actually cheaper per month than what we were paying for rent. From the outside this house looks tiny, and in comparison to most it is, but the use of space inside makes it feel much bigger. Amazingly, it has 3 bedrooms (technically 4 but we are currently using one as a dining room), a good size living room, and lots of storage space in the basement and bedroom closets. So that night we put in an offer which was later accepted. Bam! Just like that, (and lots of paper signing and packing), we were moving. Good thing too as Charlotte was on the way and we weren't sure how that was going to work in our little apartment.

The little kitchen

A little Penelope and Ryan in the living room

A compact staircase at the back of the house, complete with hole in the wall.

One of the two upstairs bedrooms
Since moving in, my mom has discovered that little houses like this are called "Wartime Homes" and you can learn about them and see different plans for them here.  

Then we had an interesting first winter here. 
It was a very cold, very long winter. I personally like snow and think it's so beautiful and fun to play in, however, this year was almost too chilly to get out and enjoy it much.

Many days were too cold for the little one year old to be out for longer than 10 minutes or so at a time.

 

Even the dog thought it was too cold and would hide in the tunnel that Ryan had dug out in the back yard. 

Hunter in the giant snow drift fort
Hunter, Ryan and Penelope hiding from the cold in the fort
The winter did offer up some beautiful scenes though!

Clouds early in the morning
A winter full moon
A full moon shinning down our quiet street
Snow coating the trees
 There were times when it felt like winter would never end! We didn't think that we would need a snow blower, but we did get help a couple times. It would have taken a very long to time to shovel this out! 


Now I sit and look out the window to a much different view. 

 It needs a lot of work, but we are really liking this little place we now call home.