Home!

We're home. We had a great trip! I wanted to avoid the same old, same old I-5 corridor, so we chose to drive through Idaho and Utah. It was gorgeous! I would definitely do it again. However, I didn't do it again when coming home. I looked at the weather forecast for Salt Lake City and saw that on Tuesday, when I would have been there, it was supposed to have snowed the day before and still be snowing a bit, and it wasn't supposed to get above 30 degrees. Snowy and icey are not my favorite ways to drive long trips. I didn't even know about any of the passes on that route, I just made the decision to go through California. It was actually nice! While here in Oregon, fall is about done, in California there were still beautiful trees with colorful leaves. And in Southern California, where I usually wince from seeing the air, it must have rained good and hard because it was actually beautiful there too. The only glitch in the trip (and going home I was the only driver--Paul flew home on Saturday night) was that 250 miles from home I pulled into a rest stop and saw that there was smoke coming out from my hood. Turns out (with the help of a trucker who came to diagnose) that there was a crack in the seal of my oil cap. It was allowing oil to get spewed out on the engine, thus the smoke. I drove to the nearest town and spent some time at the auto parts store. They didn't have the cap I needed, but they spent time looking for a seal for it that could be jimmied into place. I got home just fine on the slightly too small seal in my oil cap.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We got to tell everyone about our new house, and we got to meet our new niece. She is adorable, of course! It was fun watching her little personality open up as she got to know us a bit. She's three months old now.

We made nut roast from the PETA website for the third Thanksgiving, and it was delicious! It's great to have a family that's so accomodating to our quirky food habits. ;-)

Spent some time in Tucson's old town, on 4th Ave. That's where all the funky people hang out. :-) Had some great pizza at Magpies, and browsed through the co-op. We laughed at the claims in the windows of a (closed) salt crystal shop--seems that salt crystals can cure just about any problem known to humankind. And we went into our favorite bookstore in Tucson, that we discovered last trip--Antigone Books. No, we didn't buy anything, but Paul and I both have new titles on our hold list at the library. We really enjoy looking through bookstores that are small and selectly chosen--if a bookstore has some of the same tastes as us, it's really easy to find something we really want to find.

If I were to choose the top reason why we make the effort to go back to Tucson every year for Thanksgiving, it's Paul's grandparents. They are in their 80s and can't travel anymore, though every time we see them they promise they'll make the trip out to see us where we live now. They haven't visited us since we lived in the San Diego area--it's just not all that feasible for them to do so. I know they want to, they want to see how and where we live. So I feel obligated to go to them. They were a huge influence in Paul's life as he was growing up. They've given so much to him, and in turn to me, and the kids, and I feel it my duty to give back to them.

While I was driving back, Paul called me one evening to tell me our realtor had called. Our new house had been appraised at 59k *over* what we are buying it for! Wow, what good news is that? We are getting a good deal--we knew that before, but we know it much more now.

So, now we're back and I have a jillion things I need to do: laundry and unpacking, of course, but also packing for moving, calling services to change the address, cleaning the house, etc. So I probably won't be checking in here too much in the next couple of weeks, as move-in day is one and a half weeks away! Eek!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey, everyone, I haven't written here in a while, and I'm not really writing here now, just giving a quick update. We're headed out today, after church and after our general assembly after church, to start driving to Tucson for Thanksgiving. We'll be with Paul's parents and grandparents and uncle and aunt, and his brother and sister-in-law, along with their new baby whom we haven't met yet, will be there! Exciting!

While the *long* trip to Tucson is a bit daunting, I'm looking forward to the new route--instead of going that dreadfully boring I-5 corrider through California, we're going on the other side of the mountain range. We'll be driving through Idaho and Utah. I'm looking forward to seeing some new scenery. I haven't been to the Salt Lake since I was 10 or so. It's too bad it's too cold to swim in it.

Everything is going very well with our new house. It passed home inspection really well this past week. We're still on track!

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! See you back here soon!

Zac's blog

My Zacky would like you all to know that he's updated his blog. So go look at it now.

zac's silly blog

Bats!

Ooh, I wish I'd had this video for Halloween! It would have been perfect. Paul went to St. Nicholas Ranch this week for a clergy retreat (we lived there for three years) and someone told him about this youtube video. It is a sad fact that the gorgeous little rustic chapel is no longer in use. When Archbishop Anastasios visited the ranch, he spent much longer in the barn chapel than he did in the big, beautiful new monastery church. But many people are uncomfortable with the wildlife that live in the barn chapel and some refused to go in there. There is a group of bats that have their nursing colony in the barn, and many of them live behind the icons, above the altar, etc. even though we tried lots of things to discourage them from living there, even trying to seal off the chapel part itself so they could live in other areas of the barn. But every spring they come back, and every fall they leave. The barn is over 100 years old, some say closer to 150 years old, so the collective memory of going there to have their babies is probably quite strong in the bats.

Anyway, here is the video! It was made by some absolutely crazy camp counselors. This is my first attempt at embedding anything in my blog...we'll see how it goes!

Correction

For those interested in helping us move....the seller has possession through the 10th, so we'll be moving in on Dec. 11. That's a Monday, which I know isn't good for some of you....but the weekend isn't good for us, and that's just what the seller asked for, to have the weekend to move out.

Election Day Song

And now, for your election day...uh...pleasure--and just to remind everyone what a debacle this administration is--here is John McCutcheon's great song set to a video of real footage clips of what's been happening.

Let's Pretend

Okay, so the song was written and recorded before Saddam Hussein was arrested, so that part isn't pretend anymore....but that doesn't detract from the rest of it.

Kitchen

I'll post one more photo because you just have to check out this kitchen! Nissa, can you imagine that bread and apple pie being baked here? All that and lots more! It's just a beautiful kitchen. That was one real requirement for me, that it have a nice kitchen. It didn't have to be *this nice* but I'll take it!

Our House!

They accepted our offer! It's officially going to be ours! Yippee!

Anyone want to help us move on December 10?

update

They didn't accept our offer, but counteroffered a higher price, plus asked us to pay more in out-of-pocket closing costs. We'll go and meet with April on Monday and try to hammer out less in closing costs and send another counter-offer, trying to meet them halfway. Paul says he thinks the house is ours, it just depends on how much dibbling we need to do for the "when" part. Sigh....this is emotionally tiring!

Our House?

We made an offer on the house today. We are all excited, but nervous! I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, just thinking about it and worrying.

We'll know by 7 pm on Saturday evening whether they accept our offer.

house

Okay, Mimi, I think you were right! Just when I was getting the most discouraged about house hunting was right before we were to find what's probably the most perfect house we could find. It's actually a LOT nicer than I thought we'd ever have! The inside has been thoroughly remodeled and looks like a new house, even though the house was built in 1922. It's in a pretty good location, though still further from the church than we wanted. But still, it's in an area with lots of resources--a big park and community center with a swimming pool within walking and biking distance, library a mile away, New Seasons (nice locally owned grocery store) a mile away. A MAX station is just a couple of blocks away, which will take us directly into downtown or to the airport or to the Hollywood district or whatever. Can you tell we're excited? The compromises seem like the right set of compromises to make. I looked at the demographics for the neighborhood last night, and it's 45% non-Caucasion. One thing I've really missed about San Francisco is the diversity. Well, there's diversity!

I have to add that April is the one who found this house. She came through for us this time!

We'll probably make a decision within the next day or two, as to whether to make an offer.