Home Sweet Home

You may notice my posts are a bit late- sorry. Better late than never! As our year in Chicago finished out we could hardly contain our excitement to be back to a place we loved so much and have so many friends in. But perhaps even more thrilling to move into our very own house!

I still can't believe we managed to buy a house. It was tricky finding weekends to head down and check stuff out- in fact Michael was able to actually see the house only once before we bought it (I went back a second time with the kids). We were pretty much in love with it when we saw it. It was just what we were looking for, comfortable, quiet neighborhood, good schools. Its a bit older than we like, 50 years, but to be honest by St. Louis standards it's still a baby. It was rough getting all the paperwork done long distance. I can't tell you how many hours I spent in the library scanning documents and emailing them to our amazingly wonderful, spectacular, super awesome real estate agent, Kim Welch. Seriously peeps, if you're in the St. Louis area and need an agent she's pretty stinkin' great. Some of those documents were irritating, like the ones that demand you sign and email back within 24 hours...which was hard to do when my husband was on a 30 hour shift! But I got it done, cause I'm awesome like that. Inspections passed without too many problems and negotiating the price was very interesting. In the end I think we got a nice deal, and thanks to the bad economy we got a great interest rate to boot. Yeah! Such an interesting experience and now we have a house to call our own! Feel free to "ooh" and "ahhh" during the following tour:

Front. My folks think we did alright with the house (granted my dad's a general contractor and picky about this kind of thing). My parents were surprised we would buy a house so ANCIENT, but to be honest, it was one of the youngest ones we looked at. They also think, though, that the front of the house looks a bit mobile-home-ish. I guess I can see that...but I don't care.

Front room. The curtains they left in here actually matched our decor so we kept them up...score!

Trevor's room. Its a little small, but just right for him. We have since painted all the pink circles blue to make it more masculine. I'll be showing pictures of that one of these days...

Still Trevor's room.

More Trev's room. The previous owners were quite stylish. I was a little sad to take down that "Thank goodness for little girls" thing, it was so cute! But, ya know, not the best thing for a boy's room.

Kitchen. If there were one thing I would alter about this house I would find a way to add a pantry. I've managed to fit everything I need up there, but a pantry would be nice. We've also since painted the kitched a boring, but more suited khaki/beige color that works with my decor. Thanks honey for letting me me paint it! (And for assisting me in that project!)

Front room again. The front room opens up into the kitchen. I like how its so open, I just wish I had a better way of hiding my kitchen mess when guests come over....I still love it, though.

See, Lynette is in the front room, with the kitchen/dining area behind her. Behind that half wall with the orange and green paint is the door to the carport, as well as stairs to the basement.

Lynette's room. Isnt' that pink and purple with butterflies just darling? It would be perfect for a girl's room in anyone's house...except mine. I can't stand pink, especially when it's coupled with purple. It makes me want to throw up cotton candy. I think I might have some psychological issues with pink, or at least an allergy. The first time we saw this room Michael thought, "that would be perfect for Lynette" and I thought "oh, boy that's gotta go!" Can you guess who won? Oh yeah, me baby. Don't worry, though, I paid a great deal in back massages to my ever so complying husband. Details on this room's transformation later.

Master Room, sorry for the blurry. I don't love hardwood floors in the bedroom (my feet get so cold!) but this hasn't bothered me as much. And it is a nice look.

More of the master. Could definitly use more closet space. I have my wardrobe divided up into this room, Lynette's, and the front closet. How ridiculous is that! It is a lovely closet, though.

Lynette and Trev breakin' in the new house.

Cut little coat hanger, huh?

Bathroom upstairs. Sorry for the blurryness.

And the basement. Oh how I love this basement. This is our entertainment area where the computer, t.v., and ALL of the kids toys go. Its so nice to have the toys downstairs. It makes it so much easier to keep my house clean! I cannot believe how much easier it is! And this place is like twice the size of our last apartment. What a difference. Love it! That being said I currently have a lot of work to do to clean up my basement as I write this...

Basement bathroom. Love it. I don't think the previous owners ever used it. I can't wait to have guests over to show them "their" bathroom to use while they stay. So excited!

The back porch. We already love this thing. This is what I had in mind when I got Michael that BBQ set. We really enjoyed this porch this summer.

View of the back. I don't have a picture of it here, but our yard backs up into this lovely little wilderness area. There's just a bunch of trees framing up the our yard, and it is not uncommong seeing a family of bunnies out in that wilderness trespassing in your yard. The silence out here is stunning. No ambulances blaring, or school buses screeching, or loud neighbors yelling. Just crickets. And wind. It's intoxicating.

The kids checking out our front bench.

My old Gidgit gettin' comfy. I doubt we'll have anymore problems with people stealing its hubcaps our here.

Old Man Approaching

Two weeks before the big move my big man turned 30! What you say? Whaddaya mean he only looks 16? Yes, yes, we know we know- this poor man has gotten enough Doogie Howser wisecracks to last him a lifetime. But yes, Michael is now 30 and even though everything in our house was packed up we did out best to make it worthwhile for such a milestone.

From the folks Michael got a red-rider-bb-gun....oops I mean a GPS. He loves it- that being said since he's a walking GPS I have definitely used it more than he has. I've come to find he wanted it most not to find his way around but to stop me from calling him in the middle of the day screaming "I'm lost!"

And the big finish....


Could it be?...

Yes! A grill set from his beloved wife.

We went out with out dear family/friends The Chandlers at our hands-down favorite place in Chicago. The Bongo Room. We had to wait 45 minutes to be seated at 10 in the morning but it was so, so, so worth it. The Bongo Room serves groumet breakfast food. To die for hashbrowns, killer croissants, and absolutely heavenly pancakes. The menu changes frequently so there's always something new to try out.

Here's Trevor trying his pancakes with vanilla sauce and bananas. We had to beg him to share.

And Lynette's pancake was this vanilla sauce with caramel sauce drizzled on top with bananas and nuts. Michael enjoyed was Blueberry pancakes with a lemon ricotta topping. And mine was a pancake with bacon bits cooked inside, topped with bananas some sweet topping. It was AWESOME. Love this place.

Our day ended again with the Chandlers, cake, and birthday song. Such a great day. I can't tell you how much I love this man. He worked so hard this last year it was really a great way to finish it out by celebrating with him. Happy Birthday Babe!

All Aboard Train Restaurant

For Lynette's closest buddy's birthday, no place was better suited to celebrate it at than All Aboard Train Restaurant. This kids loves trains and this place is decked out in them. There are several motorized trains to see and play with. The kids were in heaven.

This birthday boy couldn't be more excited.

Your food was served out on a train, and when it was your birthday they played a special birthday song as it chugged along.

The kids were enthralled with this play area. It had several trains and things moving around. There were buttons the kids could push to make things go, turn lights on and off, and make the train whistle. We could have spent all day there.

A group of buddies. It was REALLY hard to tear them away from the trains long enough to take this picture. In every shot at least one of them was looking back at the trains.

This little girl way too happy to be riding this train. D rubbed off his love of train onto Lynette, she's been hooked ever since.

One more BIG hug from the birthday boy.

Last zoo post...promise.

I'm sure you're sick of zoo posts, but this blog is intended more for recording the doings of my family, so here they are...again. I told you we went there a lot.

Brookfield Zoo is one of the finest in the nation and we felt very fortunate to visit it so often. One of my very favorite things about this zoo is it has not one, but two playgrounds. BRILLIANT idea. So often when you go to the zoo the parents walk for miles and the kids just sit in the strollers. The playground is a much needed break for both parties. Usually we ate our lunch and then the kids played. It was great.

My little climber.

Don't you love it when they play nicely?

The brand-spankin' new Great Bear Wilderness. We got to enjoy for only a month before we moved away. Though there are none present at the moment, Bison graze in the field around this archway. Their land actually goes over the archway and sometimes you walk right under them.

Measuring up...

The Bald Eagle

A very lazy grizzly.

This photo is dusky because its actually shot through a large pane of glass. No zoom was used in this photo. He really was that close. The first time we came here we saw a polar bear that had just rolled around is a big dirt/mud puddle. We honestly thought he was just a wierd lookin' brown bear for a while.

Ah the hippos.

Pygmy hippos. My favorite.

Hop, joeys, hop!

Our Favorite Thing

You may have noticed by now that we went to the zoo a lot last year. A LOT. There's a reason for this, it was nearby, it was excellent, and we decided that it was worth it enough to get a season pass. So far be it from me to let that go to waste. I could practically give tours there. It never got dull to me- it certainly beat being at home, and we all loved it

Anyway, one of the best times we ever had there was when we took our close friends/cousins along with us. Much fun was had by all.

We played on the carousel- the only time I allowed my kids the splurge of spending additional money there.

Pretended to be animals- and learned a bit about the zoo history while we were at it. I learned from this board that one of the parrots I had the pleasure of seeing was actually there when the zoo opened, back in the 1930s. Cool stuff.


We monkeyed around a bit.

The kids, and adults, were fascinated by these ADORABLE little monkeys. I don't know what they are but they had a lot of energy and were super-duper cute.

This gibbon family provided a lot of entertainment. The black one was swinging all over the place. It was amazing how he could just fly around, hundreds of feet above the ground. Show off.

These gorillas are amazing too. Though it didn't happen on this outing, I need to tell you about the grossest thing I ever saw. In about a 5 minute timespan 4 of the gorillas all started urinating, while one of the gorillas caught the urine in his hand and splashed it around toward the crowd (thankfully it didn't hit any of us). As if that weren't bad enough another gorilla starts pooping, catches the poo in his hand and then EATS IT. So so so so gross.

Lynette and D giving us a demonstration on how gorillas move.

The dolphins. Oh I love the dolphins. So calming, and I LOVE that its one of the only places where the adults can sit and relax along with the kids. While we were there a dolphin show started up, it was fun watching it from below.

We checked out the gift shop. It is so hard to tell him "no" when he looks so darn cute in that hat!

Please don't judge me by my daughter's appearance. Yes, I did her hair, but it was a hot day, she was running around and this is what you get. Luckily, it doesn't affect the amount of fun she had riding on the carousel. Tigers are her favorite because she IS a tigress, she informed me of that almost daily.

These two are the best of buddies. They really love each other.

These two enjoy each, but really needed a nap more than anything.

So you may have thought that our favorite thing about Chicago was the zoo and you would be close. But you would be wrong. Our favorite thing about Chicago? These guys. Love you Chandlers! Miss you tons!