New York

Right after we moved to Michigan, Jared's mom and sister, Jessica, came out and watched our kids while Jared and I took a much needed vacation to celebrate Jared's graduation. We decided to spend a few days in NYC. Here are some pics of our trip.

We went to a Yankees game our first day with Mike and Kristen, Jared's brother and sister-in-law. (A big thanks goes out to them for letting us stay at their place for a few nights to ease the hotel costs, and for the maps they gave us so we could navigate the city without a problem.)

Our second day we went to see the temple.

 Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Times Square.

That evening we saw Wicked. We loved the show.

Here we are on the train and at Grand Central Station. 

For all you National Treasure fans
"Heere at the Wall. Wall St. and Broadway" and Trinity Church.

At Federal Hall, where George Washington took the oath as the First President of the United States. Also George Washington's Pew at St. Paul's Chapel, where he worshiped every Sunday.

Jared at the American Stock Exchange and the New York Stock exchange. And of course he had to get a picture with the Bull.

At the Empire State Building.

  We had a great time navigating the city's subway system, and we only got on the wrong train ONCE! We had a blast seeing all the things we've only seen in movies, and it was great to see some of our nation's history. We can't wait to do it again sometime.

Kids Sleep in the Strangest Places

Seriously, how can anyone sleep like this?

New Hobby

Back in February I picked up a new hobby. I was wanting to make some fun Valentines Day cookies, and stumbled accross a tutorial online for decorating cookies with royal icing. Here are some pics of cookies that I've done since.

Valentines cookies

 Easter cookies

I did these for the Relief Society birthday dinner in March. 

  

Purdue's mascot is a train, so I did these for a party that we had.

I need to find a hobby that doesn't involve food and tons of sugar :)

P.S. Heres some pics of the kids in their Easter Bunny Ears

 

Look Who's Two

Baby N, who is no longer a baby, turned two a few weeks ago. Here are a few pics of the festivities.

Say "Cheese"!

Blowing out the candles

 "Cheese" again

 Yummy cake

 Opening presents

Happy Birthday N! We love you!!!

Backyard fun

Our neighbor took pity on Jared the other day and let him use his riding lawn mower. The kids enjoyed riding with daddy.

 A few days later, they found a toad trapped in the window well. Jared rescued it, and the kids loved looking at it and playing with it.

 The Princess and the Frog

2nd Time's The Charm

We found another home and are very excited about it!  It passed inspection with flying colors...NO MOLD!  We close on June 1st!  It has a finished basement and the yard is beautifully landscaped.  Even though it is more expensive than the other home, our monthly payment will be the same because the taxes and HOA are a lot lower than the other home. 

Here are a few pictures...

Front of the House

 Backyard

Front room 

Kitchen

Gameroom (we will get the pool table)

 Master bath

Master bedroom

Thanks again to the Palmers for letting us stay for a seventh time...they could start a successful hotel chain!

Thanks to our inspector, Ric Davis, for saving us from the "money pit"and giving us the "all clear" for this home.

 Thanks so much to Ken Pozek (our realtor) for all his hard work to make this possible.

And most importantly, thanks to the Lord for always watching out for us and for blessing us more than we deserve.

House Update

Have you ever seen this movie?

Well dring the inspection of the house that we were so excited about in this post, I kept having visions of this movie.

Initially, we had a hard time scheduling the inspection because the bank had a hard time getting the water and electricity turned on. So about 2 and a half weeks after we made the offer we were finaly able to get the inspection scheduled. 

When we got to the home on inspection day, we discovered a huge hole in the ceiling of the dining room, and one in one of the upstairs closets. Apparently when the water was turned on, there were several of the pipes that were leaking, so they had to tear into the walls and ceilingto fix them. Then while we were in the basement, the inspector looked at the pipes, and told us that they had been installed poorly, and that they may or may not cause problems. He also found a really bad case of mold in the basement that was going to cost $6-12,000 to clean up. Since it was a bank owned property, we could have asked the bank to clean it up, but we don't know what caused it in the first place, so who's to say that it won't come back. So after hearing about those two things, and a bunch of other little things, like there was no hardware on the kitchen cabinets and drawers, we decided to let the house go and look for something else.  More on that to come