O Christmas Tree...

I had the pleasure of working at the Johnson Tree Farm this weekend. Farmer Rob (Johnson) and his family run the place. It sits on a beautiful patch of land about 25 minutes from our house. Farmer Rob is one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He's a very kind man, with a huge heart. He loves kids, and is giving high-fives to 5-year-olds all day.

The Farm is a very special place. Not only can you hunt down your Christmas tree, but you can also take a wagon ride around the property, feed the goats, rabbits, and chickens, or curl up with some hot cocoa in front of the fire. It's neat to see so many families, many who have made a tradition of coming year after year.

Although this might come as a shock to some, I'm a proponent of real Christmas trees. Nothing artificial in my house! We need little reminders of creation in our houses, and the smell and feel and sight of a real tree help with that. I suppose the best would be to have a live tree, but I don't know enough about that yet, so a formerly live tree will have to do.

Inspiration

Well, it's the day after Thanksgiving. We had the privilege of spending yesterday with our friends Cassie and Matthew and their family in Santa Cruz, and then capped the night off with the Waltons and their kids. It was a good day. Amazing food, and a lot of fun. Spending time with our friends and their families definitely made us miss our families all the more.

Last night, with the Waltons, we were discussing blogs. Ryan and Sam Walton have a blog that I enjoy reading. Sam mentioned that she has faithfully been checking our blog since July, every time, hoping for an update. Well, Sam, here it is! You have inspired us. One thing that was said last night was that "blogs are personal, not private." I think that's true. They can be like an open diary/journal. I feel like our blog has mostly been more of the "here's what we've been up to lately" type - at least when we're updating it. I'm going to venture into more of some thoughts and opinions that I have as well sometimes. I've never been a journaler, even after trying numerous times to start. Who knows, this probably won't last very long as well.

No thoughts or opinions right now, really. But, get ready, cause they're a comin'!

Busy, busy, busy...

Sorry for not posting anything for awhile. We are officially moved in, although boxes of stuff we don't want to deal with abound. We love it here, and have been meeting some of the neighbors. It's been good to be out of the "bubble" of Mission Springs, although we did love it there.

One neighbor, Gino, gets the award for "loudest neighbor." In Gino's spare time, he works on Harleys. From what I've learned, the way to see if a Harley is working properly is to rev it up continuously for a couple of minutes. The louder it is, the better it's working.

Carrie has finally been enjoying a little respite from school. A few days ago, she just finished up her final paper for her summer class that she was taking. So, for a few days, Carrie is as foot-loose and fancy-free as Carrie can get.

I've been getting ready for the fall at work. The summer is not as chill as I was imagining, with seemingly way more work than there is time for. I know it will all get done, but there seems to be so much to do!

We did have a great time in Pennsylvania with Carrie's family, as well as attending Robin Haber's wedding. Matt and Amy (Carrie's sister) and family were able to come up from Florida, so all of the family was there. A couple of days by the pool, some breakfast burritos, a few nights of Man vs. Wild, and various projects rounded out our time there.

Here are some pics for you to enjoy:

Matt & Maya on her first backpacking trip!


Maya & Carrie taking a break.

SOLD!

As of last Friday, Carrie and I are officially home owners! The house that we posted about 2 posts ago (the yellow house) is now ours. We closed Friday, by Friday night had all of the carpet torn up, and as of last night, removed the kitchen linoleum. Our new address is 290 Blair Street, Felton, CA, 95018.

You can view photos of our house/project by clicking on the Flickr thing on the right hand side of this page, just under our links. Try it out, let me know what you think. When you click on it, it will take you to my Flickr site, and then you can view the images as a slideshow (located on the right hand side under "jeremygeels' photostream").

Oh, and as you'll also see in the photos, I bought a scooter. Since Carrie and I only have her car and we are moving off of the Mission Springs grounds, I needed another mode of transportation. I know, it's pretty flashy, but it gets good gas mileage, Carrie can ride with me, and it looks old school.

How to Host an Open House

With all of these open houses we've been going to, it makes us really excited to eventually hold open houses at our house, so we can demonstrate how much we've learned. Here's some of what we learned:
1. A knife-weilding skeleton placed in a chair in the living room can add that nice "homey" feel.
2. In case people have to use your bathroom during the open house, provide them with great reading material, especially magazines showcasing nude women.
3. A knife on the back of the couch is also a nice touch.
4. Dirty clothes strewn about, maybe throw in the occasional dirty Q-tip as well, helps the potential buyer get a realistic picture of life in the house.
5. A few posters of pot smokers never hurts.
6. If we end up having tenants, encourage the tenants to actually be in the house during the open house, lurking behind closed doors, waiting to scare you.

Get back on that horse...

Well, it's been quite a week. So we put an offer down on the house in the previous post. This was our very first offer and pretty nerve-racking. Lots and lots of signing and intialing. Lots and lots of money. We found out yesterday morning that someone else had put in a little higher offer which was accepted.

In the same breath, our realtor then informed us of another house that had just come on the market in Felton, which is a little bit closer to Mission Springs. We looked at it yesterday and then put in an offer on this one. Not as much character as the other one, but bigger, and less expensive. More work needs to be done on this one, however. We'll find out about this one potentially by tomorrow (Friday) morning.

House Hunting

Over the past couple of months, Carrie and I have started to search for our dream house. We have been very fearful of the housing prices in California, but have friends that were able to pull it off, so figure there must be a way to make it happen.

We started off our journey by speaking with a real estate investor who is on the Mission Springs board. He worked with good friends of ours, Rob and Janelle, in the purchase of their first home. He encouraged us to go for it and said that even with our comparitively meager salaries, we could do it. The realtor we are actually working with is the mother of my assistant director. So we feel like we have some great people on our team!

We were trying to decide between condos and houses. You get a lot more condo for your money than a house, but you do have association dues every month. I'm fairly comfortable with redoing inside stuff, but structure issues and adding on rooms is a whole new ballgame - so that makes condos more tempting. But, we'll see. We just looked at a house that is 2 beds, 1 bathroom on a good-sized sunny lot and are pretty excited about it. We're considering putting an offer on it! Here's a couple of photos:

And the Hits Just Keep On Comin' - Carrieism pt. 3

"You sound like a drowned rat!", says Carrie to Jeremy after he tries to whistle a fanfare.