Vacation (again) / Open House / Work

Joe is on vacation again, having to use up some time before he looses it. I don’t know how we missed all these days- it sure would have been nice to have had some extra time after Cole was born, but it is a nice and surprising break. 

If I don’t get to blog much this week, that is why.  🙂After having a few rough nights with Cole, Joe took Ryan out this morning, and Cole and I took a long nap.  He has gotten 4 front teeth this weekend, and has been miserable.  He slept about 3 hours total yesterday, so he is just wiped out!  He had a fever this morning, but just woke up from a nap, and seems like he is feeling better, so I hope tonight is better.

We all slept in on Sunday. We almost went to the zoo, and after asking Ryan what he wanted to do, he kept saying he wanted to go see Grandma (Joe’s mom).  We aim to please, so we went out there for lunch, but Grandma wasn’t home.  Grandpa was, and while Ryan was eating lunch, he kept looking out the window to see if she was coming home.

After lunch, Ryan and Grandpa, went outside and started messing around- Grandpa let Ryan sit in his truck and “drive,” so Joe and I took Cole on a long walk on a walking trail. 

When we got back, Cole had fallen asleep, and Ryan was crashed out on the couch, so we hung out for a while.  Grandma came home, so Ryan got to see her, and sit on her lap.  Then we went and got pizza.  It was a fun and relaxing day. 

I like this “vacation at home,” it is fun not to have to be in the regular routine.  I read in the paper that a local restaurant that we like is having a free entree night, so we are going to go get some yummy free noodle / rice bowls tonight.  Can’t beat that!

We do have to do our taxes this week, but with Turbo Tax, we are optimistic it won’t be too “taxing” (pardon the pun), and then we are going to do some work on seeing what kind of mortgage we qualify for, etc. 

We have needed a bigger place since Ryan was born, but for various reasons (maybe a future post?) we have stuck around in our current place- but now are getting really serious about moving. 

We went to a few open houses on Saturday in a neighborhood we are now 99% sure we want to live in, and there was a house that we fell in love with.  It would be ideal for us, so we are going to finish our taxes and then proceed with seeing if this will work out. 

We want to keep our current house (it is a duplex) for retirement income, so it gets kind of intimidating thinking about having two mortgages, but we have done some work with paying down the mortgage over the last few years, so we have been working towards this, but it is exciting, fun, and a little nerve-wracking to finally be at this point. 

We don’t want to get to excited yet, but it is nice to know that we have at least decided on a neighborhood, and if this house we like sells, there will be another one.  We are in a good position in that we don’t have to sell our house- we can just sit and wait for something that we really want, and then go for it.  It seems like it always works out this way though- when you aren’t totally ready, that is when you find something you like, so all we can do is just go from here.

Finally, after not having an outside (paying) job since February 2005, I start my first day tomorrow, at a very, very, part time job.  It is bookkeeping for a mom that just moved back to our area who has her own sling / baby carrier business.  It will be a few hours, every other week for now, but that is just perfect for me.  It is very flexible so that is big plus, and I will be able to come in whenever it works for me, including weekends, so this is a great chance for me to get some mental stimulation, (not that the boys don’t stimulate me, but I mean some business stimulation), take a small step back into the working world, while still being able to keep the ideals that are very important to Joe and I with raising our children.  

Joe will be able to stay with the boys if I go in on the weekends, or I can leave them for the few hours with their Grandma.  I am excited, and eventually I would like to continue to build my bookkeeping business, but for now, this is a step in that direction.