Read post below before reading this one...

Here are some more pix:

Exterior front:

On the Main Floor....

Living Room:

Kitchen:

Dining Room:

Hall:

Bathroom:

Brennen's Room:

Upstairs...

Stairs:

Landing:

Kindrid's Room:

Bathroom:

Master Bedroom:

Basement...

Family Room:

Laundry/Scrap Room (!):

Guest Bedroom:

Bathroom:

Extra Room:

Hall:

Backyard....

As you can see, someone living here has great taste! We'll paint Brennen's room, but don't really plan to make any other major changes at first (Kindrid informed us that she's always wanted an orange room!)

I can't believe this is "my" house! What a sweet blessing!

:O) Happy Day!!

Christy

Oh! Oh! Oh! We got it!!!!!

They accepted the offer we made on the cape cod house!! Hooray!!! I'm so excited!! Of course, there is the inspection (we're getting it tested for radon, Ann!) and the appraisal, but we should close on June 30th! Yayyyyyy!!!

Here is a very general floor plan - keep in mind I'm not an architect or anything so it's rough but gives you the idea....

When I have time I will post some more pictures. Thanks for your prayers!!!

Love,

Christy

Plug 'em in...

Hi,

Long story short...we may be going to try one more offer on the house we didn't get last weekend. We'll look at it again at 5:00 today. I will let you know how that goes. My fingers are figuratively crossed! :O)

Brennen spent a good chunk of yesterday plugged in to his new Indy Jones game. It's challenging, but he did conquer the first level today. He and Kindrid are pictured here with Daddy's laptop working on earning money for Kindrid's pig, "Ally," Webkinz so she could "buy" it things like a potty (that got belly laughs from both of them), a TV and a stove. Thanks to the F. family for the Webkinz! Thanks to the K. family for the borrowed name of Ally!! Hope Ally doesn't mind!!

I will let you know if we do move ahead again on the first house or decide maybe to offer on the second one we found this last weekend. :O)

Love,

Christy

Bits of this-n-that...

A whole day since I posted...I can hear the weeping and teeth gnashing from here! :O)

This is a link to our RV park which looks like it's going to be home for a while - even if we find a house very, very soon it will still take a month or so to finalize all the details.
http://www.caspereastrvpark.com/

Life in the RV Park...

...The good: the pool, laundry gets done in one session in the laundry area, housework is minimal, the playground, lots of places to ride bikes, the bunnies, the feeling of being perpetually on vacation, the simplicity of menus and cooking our camper requires, more time with the kids/family time due to us sharing smaller living spaces, no lawn to mow/gardens to tend, the children becoming each other's best friends since they are together so much :O)

...The bad: no laundry in my own home, a certain amount of anxiety in bad weather, dirt normally spread over a regular home by an active family is concentrated into about 200 square feet, feeling the "earth move under my feet" (I'm with you here, R.!!) due normal instability in a trailer, our camper mattress :O(

...The ugly: very little privacy, very little privacy, very little privacy. When on the phone with a friend (thanks for calling, B.!!) last night I headed over to the laundry to put a load in the dryer. The little boy there with his momma followed me around saying, "Hey, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing?" At least he is blatant with his invasion - usually it's much more subtle [and usually unintentional] but when your home is six feet from the next person's home, you definitely provide [and are provided with] some entertainment. The folks next to us have a rig the same size or smaller than ours in which reside three adults, one nine-month old and a dog! They are apparently full-timers. They are very nice but we often hear them, the baby cry and smell the smoke from the cigarettes in a big way. It's been interesting to try to teach the children that we give people their privacy and even pretend we CAN'T hear/smell/see them even when it's very obvious we can! And, in case the folks next to us ever read this, I want to say again how nice they are and how totally unintentional the privacy "invasion" is. :O)

We looked at houses again last night. We ruled out the two-story green one that I had a link to in the last post. The dining area is just too small with no way to make it bigger. We looked a long time at the other - sorry, still no link available. I like it a whole lot. Todd's not sure. We looked at another house he looked at a while back that needs lots of updating. Todd really likes that one. I'm not so sure. Isn't that the way it goes? :O) Not sure at this time what our next step will be.

Brennen is REALLY excited that the Lego Indiana Jones Play Station game is released today. He is buying it with his own money and has no other plans but to play that today. :O) [His mommy might have other plans, though.]

Yesterday Brennen and Kindrid judged each house they saw by whether or not it could support a rock polisher, a machine Brennen is going to build to automatically shelve polished rocks and a place for folks to come in and buy them at $10.00 per rock. (!) He and Kindrid have figured the math so that if they sell ONLY 100 rocks/day they will each earn $500.00 a piece. "But we won't sell them every day, Mom, we'll have to take some days off to hunt rocks." And, "Hey! If we home-school we'll have more time to look for rocks." And, "I'm only going to sell the rocks that look like there is gold in them so people will buy them." This last bit led to a discussion on honesty and Brennen admitting that he wasn't going to tell folks it wasn't real gold. This, in turn, led to a tearful declaration on his part that, "FINE! I will lower the price to $9.00 a rock. BUT MOM [much louder wailing here] then I can't do the MATH because it's NINE not TEN." The whole deal also led to both Todd and I having to take a stand on allowing strangers into our home for rock shopping. He finally agreed that a stand out front of the house will be OK and the Internet MIGHT work. "But MOM, that's a lot of envelopes and mailing stuff." Always gotta keep an eye on the overhead! :O) Anyhow, if you are in the market for $10.00 a piece polished rocks, just let me know. I know a budding entrepreneur that I can hook you up with!

BTW - Kindrid intends to buy American Girl dolls with her cut. Her wailing upon lowering the price was, "But I wanted to buy millions of them, not just 4 or 5." Now, if you have a girl-child any time in the last 15 years or so, you know how much each individual doll costs. Any girl having 4 or 5 is a blessed little girl indeed. Not sure how we are going to break it to her that NO house we buy will have enough room for millions.

No end to the fun!!

Hope your weeks are off to a great start!
Love,
Christy

Lotsa Lookin'...

Hi!

We looked at A LOT ofhouses today. I liked this one:
http://www.casperidx.com/listing.php?mls=20082210&site_id=990

and really liked another one that has no on line listing. :O(

Headed to the RV park pool with the kids. :O)

Sad-Super-Saturday...

Good news or bad first?

Always the bad so we can leave it with the good as a pleasant taste in our mouths...

After an offer and several counter offers, we did not get the house. :O( It was just a matter of not being able to meet on a price in the end. In the process, though, we found out that they really need to be out of the house by the end of this month. They are having an open house today. In my secret heart I'm totally hoping they get not interest, start feeling antsy and call us back to accept our last offer. :O) It aint over in my mind until it's over!! :O)

The good news is the rest of the day we spent exploring the mountains and range lands to the south and west of here and saw some absolutely beatiful country. I didn't take many pix but include a couple here of one place we stopped and walked around. Brennen is going to end up bringing the mountains back to the camper one stone at a time. He is all about the rocks right now. I need to get a book on the geology of Wyoming for him.

So, guess what we are going to do today?? Yep! Visit Open Houses until we drop. Todd's been working with the listings and a map. You can tell he's had lots of experience at this in the past couple months. I'm sure we'll find something that both suits our needs and has the character we both so enjoy in a home.

Hope you all have a great day! Appreciate your prayers as we seek a house!

Love,

Christy

PS If your name begins with "J" and you were whining about me not posting the verdict yesterday it was because we were without internet until late last night. Life in an RV park has it's perks, but reliable internet aint one of 'em! :O)

PPS Learning how to get the pix from the camera to the computer so I took this shot of the kids playing in the master bedroom/playroom in the camper. :O)

Offer...

Hi,

We wrote an offer on the house tonight. It took a long time and now we have to wait and see if they decline, accept or counter. We hope it's one of the last two options. I'll let you know how it goes! http://thegroup.wyoming.remax.com/Listings/AllPictures_r4.aspx?ETID=100&PID=48202524

BTW - here are some other links you might like to glance at:

Todd's hospital: http://evrh.ernesthealth.com/index.html
I know, I know! He isn't on it yet...I already nagged him.

Casper: http://www.casperwyoming.info/

We went for a drive tonight out past some ranches and almost up into the mountains. We saw lots of antelope, a deer and LOTS of bunnies. :O) The kids were enthralled with the open range and cows being able to go wherever they like. They thought the cattle guards were especially cool.

Brennen is determined to climb a "foot hill" and Kindrid can't understand why we wouldn't take the rutted track leading up into the mountains at dark in the Toyota Corolla. (My dad is probably wondering the same thing....love those memories, Pa!) For the children and me, it's tough to understand we are going to get to live here. I so feel like I am on vacation and, come Sunday, will be headed back to Peoria and work and life there. :O)

A grand Grand Opening...

Elkhorn Valley Rehab hospital celebrated it's Grand Opening yesterday in the evening. Todd was emcee and there were speeches from the first patient that was discharged there, the mayor, the CEO of Ernest Health (the company that owns Todd's hospital), the CEO of the local hospital and a prayer by a Salvation Army guy (Ernest is affiliated with Salvation Army).

The kids were super good and really enjoyed the food - ESPECIALLY the chocolate fountain. Here are some pictures....

House...

Hi All,

We looked at the house again last night. The inside of the house is perfect and seems to be in wonderful condition. The space and layout are perfect for us. Outside there are three main issues:
1. The driveway concrete seems to have settled and there is a 5 or 6 inch difference between the driveway and garage concrete with the garage floor being above the driveway. The Expedition wouldn't think much of that as a challenge, but the Corolla is going to hit it, well, like a concrete wall!
2. The house has cedar siding which needs to be re-stained or whatever it is they do to it and the deck (which is lovely and huge) also needs re-doing very soon. This is an understandable expense, but not one we want to deal with after coming up with down payment, closing costs etc.
3. Although there are two possibile sites, there is currently no RV parking.

Todd is waiting to hear back from some concrete folks and painters about how much both those items will cost to deal with. The RV parking issue can wait awhile. Depending on what we hear back on costs, we may or may not be making an offer on this house. I absolutely LOVE the inside!

The kids are playing "let's buy a house" right now. Brennen was THRILLED that we found a "Hometown Buffet" restaurant to eat at last night. Casper just went up about ten notches in his estimation!

I can't get used to seeing the mountains all the time. We went to the mall yesterday and passed an entrance - looking out we could see a breathtaking view of the mountains. Brennen and I just looked at each other in amazement. It truly is beautiful here and I can't wait to get the house hunt done so we can dedicate more time to exploring our new home.

We are off to do laundry and visit our storage unit for some needed clothes and food.

Lots of love,
Christy