Independence Day BBQ Fun

We spent July 3rd at a BBQ in the country. Cady had a great time playing in the water and she really enjoyed the tri-tip. She's getting good use out of her new 1-year molars. Here she is running around the yard. She was on the go ALL day!
Here she is with Kenzie. This is the $1.00 chair we found at a yard sale earlier in the day. It was perfect. We'll take it to the parade tomorrow. And in case anyone is wondering, yes, we reapplied sunscreen 3 times.

These two had a blast at the end of the day, playing in the playpen. They would stand up, fall down, and laugh, over and over again.

All Clear!

We had Cady's follow up appointment on Friday, and she got the "all clear" from the doctor. Her ears look great. That last antibiotic must have done the trick, thank goodness!

Cady's new bag...

We picked up this little elephant rolling backback this weekend. She LOVES rolling it around. We put some books and her pink bird in it last night.

Very cute on a very ugly couch...

So, when we moved to the cottage on the Christmas tree farm, we didn't have any furniture. We had stayed at Mary Dean's place for a month, and then at the Residence Inn for a month, there was no need for furniture. Now, since the company is going to pay to move all of our stuff up, we figured it didn't make sense to go back to LA just to pick up a couch. We went to the Salvation Army instead. We don't think this couch was ever really used. It's in fantastic, like-new condition (new from 1980 something). It also has a hide-a-bed, which is great when we have visitors, since our cottage is only one bedroom. We also picked up a couple of dressers, one of which is really cool, probably from the 1950s. It will be getting a makeover later, and will go with us to the new house, probably in Cady's room. But enough about the ugly couch you're going to be seeing in the photos (we are looking for a slipcover).

Cady fell asleep on the couch last night and Chico jumped up about 5 minutes later to be by her. He likes her a lot when she's sleeping. He likes her a little, when she's awake. Sometimes, he doesn't like her at all and snarles at her. That's usually when she's coming at him full speed ahead with something that makes noise or poses some sort of physical threat to him. It's understandable since she's bigger than him now.

Cady at 1 Year & 1 Month

The 7th of another month has passed, Cady's officially 13 months old! Here she is on the 7th of June. We had just come back from looking at some more houses, just in case the one we're trying to get through the short sale process doesn't happen. Cady's done with her first ear infection, and is back to her normal, happy, active and talkative self. Her appetite is back too!

This is her tunnel & tent combo. She loves crawling through the tunnel and watching Chico go through the tunnel. We got this when Grandpop was still in town at an "End of the World" yard sale down the street. I also got a great pair of cowboy boots.

This is her new, really, really, big book of animals. She enjoys opening and closing it, and turning the big pages. She also likes the purple necklace you see in the book with her. She puts it on, takes it off and makes noise with it on the floor or the door.

Good Riddance

Meaning:
An expression of pleasure on being rid of some annoyance - usually an individual.

In our case, not an individual, but a rental property. Today we officially closed on the boat anchor, I mean house, we had in Ohio. The buyer, underqualified, and most likely to be default in a year or so, nickel and dimed us up to the very last minute. We're curious how he's going to afford putting new air conditioning units in the building, when he struggled to put 3.5% down on the house.

We are glad to be done with the nickel-dime buyer and a real estate agent who doesn't know her head from a head of lettuce. We're displeased, but will be writing letters to the real estate board in Ohio, as well as to the manager of her office. Not that we expect anything to happen, but at least we will be doing our part.

Now, about our new house, or what will hopefully be our new house. It's scheduled to go to auction next Thursday. Not good! The seller's agent is trying to postpone the "trustee sale" - which is where it would actually transfer back to the bank. If the agent's not successful, the bank will likely take posession of the house and put it back on the market in 60-90 days as a bank-owned property.

With that, we'll be leaving the Residence Inn this weekend and moving into a lovely country cottage. The owners are very nice, and we're looking forward to being their neighbors. We've signed a three-month lease, and hope that's long enough to find something permanent. If not, we'll probably negotiate more time at the cottage.

Our Girl is ONE!

We had a wonderful time at Cady's first birthday party. We had it at a beautiful park by a river, it was the perfect setting and we couldn't have asked for better weather! We had raspberry lemonade, cucumber-lemon water, wine, tomato-cucumber-feta salad, macaroni salad, a variety of sandwiches, cookies, dried papaya, chocolate dipped pretzels and cake. Here she is opening her presents!
And eating cake!

Here are the birthday girls with Jenny.

We're going to do Cady's hand print on canvas every year on her birthday. Here was the process on birthday #1. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. Next year, we'll do a practice print first :)

We're still waiting on our house. We are supposedly in the final stage of the short sale approval process, once we get approval in writing, we can get on with our inspections and get a closing date set. Keep your fingers crossed for us!