Whoa!

I know I SHOULD be blogging about all the visits we did this summer but it's just been so crazy moving into this house. We've been in it for a week and a half now and every day is filled with box opening, organizing, installing, shopping, craigslist-ing, more organizing, installing and box opening! I've gone to bed exhausted every night.

BUT, I will say that living in our very first home is amazing. Every where we've lived as a family and married couple has been small, especially in Korea. We were just always on top of each other and every noise was heard. But, for example, yesterday when Cade got home from school he disappeared to the basement for a half an hour while Alex did something in his room while I accomplished something of my own. We had a snack and then returned to our separate activities. There is still fighting but it is not as much and not so in my face. This is going to be a great place for us, I can feel it.

Dan is finally inprocessing after 40 days of leave and reports to the band tomorrow for the real fun to begin. We have Colorado plates, Colorado licenses and a Colorado address. I think this is home :)

1st day of 1st grade!

I'm going to interrupt the blogging of our road trip to post pictures of Cade's first day of school! It's been a whirlwind of a summer, and it felt weird getting him ready in our hotel and driving him 25 minutes to school, but that will change soon!

I would normally have printed out a cute sign for him, but no printer required a little handy work on mom's part.
































And then I wrote the wrong date... I could've have sworn today was the 17th, but the iPhone never lies.

 

Good luck Cade!! I know it's going to be a great year :)

Petrified Forest

Once we had exhausted our days in hotels that the military would pay for we decided to take a road trip. I really didn't want to stay in an extended stay hotel for 3 weeks before closing on our house. After much debate we voted to head to Arizona. Day one of driving took us to Albuquerque, NM, where Dan's sister Kristina met us for the night. She took some more pictures so I'll have to get them from her. It was nice to get our kids together with her kids, even if it was for one night.
 

Day two of driving led us right by the Petrified Forest. Since it wasn't far off the highway and military gets into national parks for free, we took full advantage!

The forest wasn't anything I expected. I guess I had always pictured it to be big tall trees that had died away so you would be surrounded by dead trees. But instead it is chunks of tree that have gone through this crazy process that turns them into rock. It was crazy to look at!

It was amazing how tree-like they still looked, but felt as hard as rock.

This is Dan in front of the agate bridge, a natural formation that has had supports added to it. No one is allowed to go on the bridge.

Other than the petrified wood, there were lots of peculiar sites to see, like this area where the rocks where white, purple, blue, and red layered, and in teepee shapes.

Then there was an area you could hike to and see petroglyphs on the rocks!

And lastly a 'scenic outlook' with deep red canyons and beautiful views.

It was a fun stop, though I was a little anxious to make it the rest of the way to Phoenix.

Take me out to the ball game!

Before heading on our road trip, we made a stop in Denver to enjoy some time with Grandma Kathy and Uncle Kevin at a Rockies/Reds game. The weather was perfect for a fun night!

Say 'Rockies!'

 

Dan is of course a Reds fan, and the Rockies put up a good fight all the way to the last pitch, but the Reds came out on top.

What a fun night!

Fly me home

So, I have a LOT of posts to do because we've done and seen a lot of cool things over the past 3-4 weeks, but we'll see how much I can get done. On Monday we move into our house and we'll not only be without internet for a little bit, but we'll be unpacking and getting our house set up! So exciting!!

First post is dedicated to some travel pictures. You will see the main guest is our two iPads that have made this transition bearable. The boys can play for hours and that came in handy for long plane rides, long house hunting trips and long car rides!

Here's the boys on the plane from Seoul to San Francisco.

Cade is watching the Hulk movie.

Alex playing temple run, one of the boys' favorite games.

Dan likes taking self shots :)

I just love this picture of the boys sleeping. After a long flight and a long day at the San Francisco airport, we got bumped from our flight (grrrr) and they put us up in a hotel. It wasn't long before these boys were out!

Yoshi is all buckled up for the shuttle back to the airport!

And for a few pictures from our flight into Colorado. I was sitting somewhere else with Cade and didn't think to snap any pictures, but Dan got some cute ones of Alex.

After this traveling adventure we didn't realize how much more of an adventure we were in for before starting school and getting into our house!!

I'm a big kid now!

We've been married nearly 9 years now and with every move we've had with our family, buying just wasn't a good option. After tiny living quarters in Korea, the prospect of a house with some space and a backyard sounded amazing. After some research we could see that it really is a buyer's market, kind of a golden era where the interest rates are lower then they've ever been, and the home prices in the area are fairly low as well. This meant we could get more house for our money. We needed to stay within our BAH (basic allowance for housing) and amazingly, we have.

We ended up going with a newly built house in a new neighborhood. (the streets aren't even on google maps yet) After talking with my mom about her boss who had just had a house built, a lot of the features that are included in our house go for a lot more in Denver. We feel truly blessed.

So, the specs:  3 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath, and the basement is being finished right now to become a great room. Fenced in backyard, 3 car garage. (or as dan says 1-2 car garage with a workshop for him!) Here are some pictures we took while my mom and brother came down to visit for a day.

Basement area to be finished

Master bathroom with a garden tub

Dan showing that he can stretch all the way out. Can't wait to take a bath in it!

Walk in closet off the master bath. Never had one of those!

Master bedroom

A view from the bedrooms upstairs down to the living area. Uncle Kevin was enjoying playing with the kiddos

View from the living area into the kitchen. Up the stairs are the 3 bedrroms, down stairs is a family room, and then below that is the basement.

Kitchen. To the right out of the picture is a corner pantry closet and the refrigerator.

Here's the family room that leads out to the backyard. Also on this level is a half bath, laundry room and door out to the garage.

Holy garage batman!

The backyard! Sprinkler system and rocks around the edges to keep water from draining to the house. The door that my mom and I are standing by goes to the garage. Can't wait to add a grill, some patio furniture and maybe even a trampoline!

And the front view! SOLD!

And you can you believe that along with the buying of the house we also found a car? We haven't even a been here a week, but that Honda Odyssey is our new baby. First minivan! They lady we bought it from was either super nice or super crazy because she just kept dropping the price all on her own, giving us a steal of a car. I just love it when things work out smoothly.

Now we just have to wait, as closing isn't until August 20th. It could be sooner if all the financing goes through fast, but they still have to finish the basement, so we'll see!

I never thought this could be us, and i'm excited and a little nervous to see how home ownership goes for us. Wish us luck!

What it's like

While we were in Korea I often found my life to be very limited. Not that there's nothing to do in Seoul, and if you read my other blog you know we went out and did a lot, but the way life flowed in Korea was a bit restricting. There were lots of times I chose not to go out and about b/c I didn't feel like taking the subway, or braving the monsoonal weather, etc. Other times things were limited for me. I'd plan to go somewhere (even on base) only to find that it's closed on Thursdays, or random Mondays. You really could never plan on anything being open when you think it would be and learned to called first (and hope the phone number was right, right Korea peeps?). Saturdays were the worst because it's the one day kids are home from school and you could go somewhere, but after a few Saturdays of fighting the crowds in Seoul it wasn't worth it to me anymore.

But in stark constrast, in the 4 days that we've been here we've managed to accomplish a lot during the day and still have time to go out to dinner and somewhere else afterwards. On base everything was closed by 7 or 8. After flying in to Colorado, getting a rental car and getting dinner, we STILL had time to go get new phones!

Here's a shot of me outside Target and it was 8:30pm! We'd had a glorious dinner at Outback Steakhouse and then got to roam around target as long as we pleased. (it was awesome, but oddly overwhelming by the way)

Nice face Cade!

I'm used to being overwhelmed at the Korean markets where there are aisles up aisles of vendors and alleys each selling their specialty. I didn't expect to get overwhelmed in the states but it has happened a lot. My first time in the commissary was a big disaster. We didn't have much time, and only had to get a few things like cereal and stuff for lunches since we're in a hotel with a fridge and microwave. But each section had so many types of food I'd never seen before. Do you realize how many cereals have come out in the last 2 years? Holy cow! Frosted Toast Crunch, Mini wheats with fruit in the middle, and dulce de leche cheerios? Whoa! I was running out of time but yet I wanted to look at each new item and indulge. You mean i can choose from 7 different kinds of hummus?  I only made it half way through the store before calling it quits and only buying things I'd ever bought before. I may need assistance the next time I go back, but that's okay because it's open... wait for it... every day from 7am-9pm!! Woot!

Just in case you're curious, the places we've eaten out since coming back are:

• McDonald's- we told the kids they were lucky because we were tired and a little bit lost and hungry. Though it was SO much better than the McD's in Korea! (sorry for all the McD's haters out there, we've always enjoyed it)
• Culver's- If you don't have one in your region you need to go to one whenever you come across one. Sooooooooo good.
• Outback Steakhouse- We went to the one in Korea our first week there and it was much more expensive and not nearly as good, so this was a great revisit. Yummm.... filet.....
• Cici's Pizza-  Love this place. Relatively cheap, though it was less expensive 2 years ago when my boys were 2 and 4, good pizza, divine cinnamon rolls and brownies.
• This isn't an eating out thing, but I found cream soda! It's actually kinda hard to find here too, but man is it good....mmmm....

We do really look forward to settling in our home and being able to cook for ourselves. We've been out of that kind of lifestyle for 13 days now.

Oh, and if you're wondering about house hunting and car searches, nothing official yet, but things are looking great. I just don't want to say anything prematurely! That's been overwhelming too, but in a completely different way! My poor kids have been drug all over Colorado Springs to view homes and test drive cars. Thank goodness again for those iPads!

We are truly blessed right now and feel that everything is lining up nicely.

And have I mentioned how beautiful it is here? Clean, clear air and gorgeous views to enjoy for a long time.