mission accomplished

We picked. This is not our house but the front looks like this one. Our shutters are midnight green, and I think these are black. Our siding is this color and our brick is a little different.

This is our backyard, or near it. We actually have a lot a few houses down, this one was already picked. I think when it's not winter it will look real pretty with all the trees.

We have four bedrooms and a laundry upstairs, which will be nice. We also have a finished basement where we hope to put many fun things for the kiddos to do~ air hockey table, or pool table, a TV perhaps :)

This is the elementary school where the little children will go to school. The high school is about another mile down the road, and the community college is between them so S can take classes.

Library. Small but serviceable.

The view driving over the bridge.

We should close some time in July. Now we just need to sell our home.

It's been a busy week. Lots of decisions, have you ever noticed that more choices are really more stressful than less. If your choice is a or b, you choose and move on. If your choice is anything you want....you have to really think and weigh and agonize.

We really had a price in mind, which was completely unrealistic and unavailable here in the great state of MD. So we (I) had to really switch my mindset and look for something that fit the family well and that we could do financially ( you know, if we don't send any one to college, or buy anyone shoes to wear or....:). I hope we made a good choice.

Yesterday we went to the design center. It was kind of fun. But those $$$ just kept adding up. Do you know what they consider "standard" for bedroom lighting?? Electricity in the wall so you can plug in a lamp. We ungraded to a ceiling fan/light outlet on the ceiling: cha ching. Standard for lighting fixtures in the house: ugly, shiny gold backing with a light bulb sticking out. Upgrade: cha ching. Standard tile in the bathroom: 4inch white squares. very institutional. Upgrade. We tried to stick with the standard as much as possible, and in fact stayed there for most things including the carpet mostly because all of the choices they had were soooo ugly, and after we just put in nice carpet in our home (for much much less) we just could not pay for so little improvement. We did upgrade the wood, and the mantel (to a wood stain instead of a white paint) and did some upgrading in the kitchen, where I think it will pay off in resale some day and where we will enjoy it. And the basement is an upgrade from unfinished.

...guess what your paint choices are: ugly flat builder white or ugly flat builder other shade of white. We chose other shade of white. Beloved will be busy painting for the next year :)

I understand that they do this so you will upgrade and pay more...but come on!

Other than house stuff we've driven around looking at the water, and where stuff is. We've eaten crab soup, and crab burgers, and crab on salad. We went to a movie, saw "new in town"~ don't bother. It was not the worst movie ever, kind of cute, but nothing to write home about. I did think "thank goodness we're not moving to Minnesota", while watching it. We've also frozen our buns off here but at least we're not in an arctic snow drift. Sure, the salt water is frozen and sure we left a water bottle in the car and came back the next morning to an ice cube in bottle, and there are snow flurries and ice and frigid winds but no snowbanks, or ice fishing going on.

Last night we went to the temple. We drove onto the grounds and saw a family of deer grazing, it was so peaceful. The temple is Beautiful, we will enjoy many more trips back. We got lost, it is huge:)

Today we are going to stop by the Smithsonian for a couple hours before we catch our flight. It will be fun to see a smidgen of what's there and begin our exploration.