67 As of Tuesday, that is the approximate number of houses that we have seen. Well, actually, that I have seen. While Dylan and Mike saw most of those with me, there were a few open house days where Dylan and I went to a few stops before Mike was able to meet up with us post soccer and last weekend we had a sitter over to play with Dylan while we went and looked at a few places. But, for the most part, all 3 of us have trekked through 67 houses in two months. We made one offer (that we knew wouldn't be accepted) and have one house still in our heads that we're contemplating making an offer on. But, other than that, it has been 67 of it's "not our house."
Oh, and that 67 is approximate, meaning there were probably more. We didn't actually try and start counting them up until last weekend. It was then that we counted 54 listing sheets we had collected. We didn't have any of the listing sheets from our first weekend out of open houses, where we went to an ambitious 10 open houses. Then, we went to 3 more houses on Tuesday. I know there are other houses that we don't remember and don't have the listing sheet for so the number we've seen is likely more upwards in the 70s.
The house hunt started at the end of April, which means we've been at it for two months. Two months of seeing houses during my lunch break, seeing houses after work, seeing houses with 3 different agents in multiple towns, going to open houses on Saturday's and Sunday's and countless hours of Mike and I hunting separately and together on line.
At first, we knew exactly what we wanted. An old home with great curb appeal, character, preferably a turret (what I can say, we both think turrets are super cool), within walking distance to some sort of town center and that has been renovated or is priced well enough that we could renovate before moving in. As you probably know, we have spent A LOT of time, money and effort over the last six and a half years completely renovating our house. It's updated, it's modernized and it's to our taste. While we love the end result, our lives are a little different now. With a kiddo in our house and our free time limited, renovations are just not something we want to live through right now. So, we've been looking for that and what we've realized is that they're just not redone to our tastes. It's hard to have to pay top dollar for something "done" that we don't really like all that much.
After searching for the perfectly renovated older home needle in a haystack, we decided to broaden our horizons a bit and look at newer homes or (gasp) new builds. This was a HUGE turn in events for me. My opinion on new builds has always been soulless, generic, boring, blah! No offense to those out there with lovely new homes, it was just never floated my boat. But here's the deal. It's almost impossible to find a floor plan that will work with our family with our older home criteria being met. We haven't given up on that old home just yet, but we're starting to explore the idea of a new home but only if we're involved in the process early enough to be able to choose all the finishings in the place. I still haven't walked into a new home and got a "yeah, this is our house" feeling but I haven't walked into any older houses in the last 65 plus that we've seen and said that either. So, we're just trying to weigh all the options and figure out what we want to do for our family.
However, there's one little problem. I don't care anymore! I am SO incredibly burnt out on this process that I walk into every house and say "enh!" No excitement, no strong feelings about any house one way or another. Either my emotional response is totally broken, I'm not going to have an emotional response at all since my logical side has completely taken over, or the complete burn out has taken over leaving me to not really give a crap either way. My theory is that it's the last option so I'm taking some time off. Mike's still happy to go out and house hunt and we both have to like the house anyway, so I'm letting him take a first pass at any options on our plate. Since we decided that on Tuesday, Mike has gone out to see 2 houses. And, you know what? I'm not jealous at all.....I'm SO glad that I didn't have to go as well!
Hopefully this break from it all will last and I'll have the mind set to go out again and enjoy the hunt. It's kind of sad because house hunting has always been a hobby of mine and this has just taken all the joy out of it. I mean, I used to go to open houses for fun and 90% of what I watch is HGTV - house hunting and home decor is something I used to like having on my mind. Now, though, I want to have nothing to do with it. Sigh. We'll see how many days I'll successfully be able to take off from the search. In the meantime, though, I need to find something else to watch on TV because the only thing left on my tivo queue is House Hunters!
6/22/11
Branson Day 4 - Park Play and Goodbye
On Saturday, June 4th, we were spending the last of our time with Jody's family before we left to fly back to Boston. Our condo had a VERY strict policy of being checked out by 10 am (seriously, there was a $200 charge if you hadn't) so we got up, ready, packed and out of our hotel. We handed in our keys to the front desk at 9:55 and made the 1 mile drive to Jody's condo. For the next few hours, we took in the extreme heat and played outside.
Once we were all thoroughly burning up and starting to get hungry, we went inside for the traditional cousins on the couch picture. I had to include a series to show how tough it is to get 2 little ones to cooperate for long enough to get a decent shot.
With our bellies rumbling we headed to the restaurant down the street that was "home of the tossed rolls." True to their sign, they threw rolls across the restaurant to you. It was entertaining. Then it was time for us to start our trek home. Though sad to leave the gang, we were looking forward to getting home to cooler temps and more regular sleep schedules.
It was quite a long rest of the day home. First we returned our rental car, took the long shuttle ride back to the terminal (with Dylan catching some zzz's) only to realize our car seat hadn't made it onto the shuttle with the rest of our luggage, waited outside security until the next shuttle came with the seat (Dylan had woken up by now), and made it through security just in time to board our airplane (the airport suggests to arrive 30 minutes before departure...if only it was so easy at every departure). Branson's not the easiest of locales to fly to so, of course, our flight wasn't direct. We had a couple of hours to burn at the Baltimore airport so we had some dinner, Dylan entertained himself watching some of the fun things in Brookstone and then got changed into his jammies.
By the time we boarded our 2nd flight out at 9:30, Dylan pronounced "airplane all done." I felt that way too but alas we weren't done until we were home. The jammies didn't induce the sleep we thought they would on the hour flight but he did finally fall asleep during our final descent. When waiting to deboard (you know, with all the room you have to stand and move around in your plane seat), I somewhat ungracefully transferred the sleeping boy to the pack I where him in to easily transport him when we're traveling. This, of course, woke him up and started him crying. All the folks around us started at us like I was torturing the child. I mean, come on! He's 1 year old and it's 10:30 at night...what did these people expect him to do?!? Maybe it was the long day taking it's toll on me, but it really irritated me to be judged by all those stupid people and it took me some time to shake it off.
Anyway, after finally getting off the plane, collecting our belongings, catching the shuttle to our car and making the 30 minute drive, we FINALLY arrived home! Dylan transferred very easily (and happily) to bed as did we shortly thereafter. We really had a fun time playing with Jody's bunch but man our travel days were not the easiest or shortest. When are they going to invent teleportation already?
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| Swinging with Uncle Jody |
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| Cousins Swingin' |
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| Seriously Cute Reece and Presley |
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| Jody Testing Out the Durability of the Play Set |
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| Presley Taking a Turn on the Swing with Dylan (Dylan didn't share his swing with anyone that morning...he was staying put.) |
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| Ryker Pushing Dylan |
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| Marcy and Reece Playing Shuffleboard |
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| Dylan's Hiding |
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| The Winner! |
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| Wiggly Ryker |
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| Two Wiggly Little Boys |
It was quite a long rest of the day home. First we returned our rental car, took the long shuttle ride back to the terminal (with Dylan catching some zzz's) only to realize our car seat hadn't made it onto the shuttle with the rest of our luggage, waited outside security until the next shuttle came with the seat (Dylan had woken up by now), and made it through security just in time to board our airplane (the airport suggests to arrive 30 minutes before departure...if only it was so easy at every departure). Branson's not the easiest of locales to fly to so, of course, our flight wasn't direct. We had a couple of hours to burn at the Baltimore airport so we had some dinner, Dylan entertained himself watching some of the fun things in Brookstone and then got changed into his jammies.
By the time we boarded our 2nd flight out at 9:30, Dylan pronounced "airplane all done." I felt that way too but alas we weren't done until we were home. The jammies didn't induce the sleep we thought they would on the hour flight but he did finally fall asleep during our final descent. When waiting to deboard (you know, with all the room you have to stand and move around in your plane seat), I somewhat ungracefully transferred the sleeping boy to the pack I where him in to easily transport him when we're traveling. This, of course, woke him up and started him crying. All the folks around us started at us like I was torturing the child. I mean, come on! He's 1 year old and it's 10:30 at night...what did these people expect him to do?!? Maybe it was the long day taking it's toll on me, but it really irritated me to be judged by all those stupid people and it took me some time to shake it off.
Anyway, after finally getting off the plane, collecting our belongings, catching the shuttle to our car and making the 30 minute drive, we FINALLY arrived home! Dylan transferred very easily (and happily) to bed as did we shortly thereafter. We really had a fun time playing with Jody's bunch but man our travel days were not the easiest or shortest. When are they going to invent teleportation already?
6/21/11
Branson - Day 3 (Part II) - Marvel Cave\Little FIsh
I hope to wrap up our Branson trip posts this week. With the time suck of looking for a house, I've had none of that leisure time stuff to focus on my blog. I know, I know, I need to get my priorities straight, right? So, without further ado, here are our fun cave pictures from Branson.
After the fun of the morning playing in the ball pit, the group split ways. Presley, Ryker and Marcy went off to explore other areas of Silver Dollar City while Jody, Reece, Mike, Dylan and I headed to wait in line for Marvel Caves. Apparently, this would not be my first visit to the caves. However, since I was a wee little thing, just 1 and a half-ish years old, it would be the first time I'd remember my trip to the cave. As proof of my first visit there, my Mom sent me the group picture that they took for every tour back in the day:
Although we did line up on the same platform where that picture was taken, we just got our introduction to our tour guides there, some basic info on our trek and then continued on into the cave. Today, they take a picture of just your party inside the first big room in the cave:
When you first enter Marvel Caves, you are in a VERY large cave "room" that they call the cathedral room. It is quite impressive to come in from the top of that room, see the formations in the distance that millions of years of cave activity have formed, descend many many stairs to the base of that room and then see the light peeking in from the outside. Dylan was very excited to see the first formation from afar and deemed it to look like a dragon!
While we were waiting in line for our tour, Dylan had a bit of a melt down (thanks to not having good night sleep or naps for days at this point) and we almost abandoned the trip. However, once we were on the move (and stayed on the move), he was fine and actually really enjoyed the tour. We always ended up at the back of the group and only caught the tail end of what the tour guide stopped to tell folks, which worked out fine for wiggly Dylan since we were never forced to stand still for long. Plus, Jody and Reece had already had a tour earlier during their trip that week (with a more experienced tour guide) and filled us in on all the interesting stories.
There were more than a couple of times I got pretty nervous with a toddler (holding his lovey) being just on the other side of a railing to a very long drop off. I definitely kept a tight hold on him (when I wasn't actually holding him) and also grabbed onto his lovey ("yaya") several times as well. If that lovey had been thrown over into the deep abysses, we would have NEVER seen it again! That loss would have been even bigger than the loss of Mike's IPhone on the roller coaster earlier that day.
After our fun cave tour, we met back up with the rest of our gang and called it a day at Silver Dollar City. We went back to our respective hotels. Then Mike, Dylan and I headed over to Jody's hotel and headed to the pool to cool off. Dylan was more interested in showing off his guns and moving the patio furniture around.
All the other kids (and dads) had fun cooling off as well. I'm not much of a pool person so I mostly followed Dylan around while he played with the patio table. Then, it was burgers on the grill and watching Tangled at the condo.
This was our last full day with Jody's gang and we only had the next morning left to hang out and play with them.
After the fun of the morning playing in the ball pit, the group split ways. Presley, Ryker and Marcy went off to explore other areas of Silver Dollar City while Jody, Reece, Mike, Dylan and I headed to wait in line for Marvel Caves. Apparently, this would not be my first visit to the caves. However, since I was a wee little thing, just 1 and a half-ish years old, it would be the first time I'd remember my trip to the cave. As proof of my first visit there, my Mom sent me the group picture that they took for every tour back in the day:
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| Marvel Caves 1978 Burch Family Trip The red arrows indicate where our groups was standing...spread out all over the place. Top Row - My Pipaw Burch, my Mom holding brother Jamie, my Mimaw Burch, my Dad with me in a backpack. Bottom Row - Jody standing with the other kids. |
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| Me, Dylan, Mike, Reece and Jody |
When you first enter Marvel Caves, you are in a VERY large cave "room" that they call the cathedral room. It is quite impressive to come in from the top of that room, see the formations in the distance that millions of years of cave activity have formed, descend many many stairs to the base of that room and then see the light peeking in from the outside. Dylan was very excited to see the first formation from afar and deemed it to look like a dragon!
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| Light Peering Into the Cathedral Room |
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| Looking Down - That Line is the Covered Path WAY Down at the Bottom of the Cathedral Room |
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| The Dragon! |
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| Me, Dylan and Reece in Front of the (Not Seen) Dragon |
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| Looking Up to the Top of the Cathedral Room |
There were more than a couple of times I got pretty nervous with a toddler (holding his lovey) being just on the other side of a railing to a very long drop off. I definitely kept a tight hold on him (when I wasn't actually holding him) and also grabbed onto his lovey ("yaya") several times as well. If that lovey had been thrown over into the deep abysses, we would have NEVER seen it again! That loss would have been even bigger than the loss of Mike's IPhone on the roller coaster earlier that day.
After our fun cave tour, we met back up with the rest of our gang and called it a day at Silver Dollar City. We went back to our respective hotels. Then Mike, Dylan and I headed over to Jody's hotel and headed to the pool to cool off. Dylan was more interested in showing off his guns and moving the patio furniture around.
Mike was able to get him in the pool for just little bits here and there though.
All the other kids (and dads) had fun cooling off as well. I'm not much of a pool person so I mostly followed Dylan around while he played with the patio table. Then, it was burgers on the grill and watching Tangled at the condo.
This was our last full day with Jody's gang and we only had the next morning left to hang out and play with them.
6/17/11
Branson - Day 3 (Part 1)
On the 3rd day of our Branson vacation, we went back to Silver Dollar City. It had been the plan to spend most of our time together there as it was a great place for everyone to get to do something they enjoyed. So, we bought season passes as it was less expensive then buying two one day passes. Most of our time that second day was spend in Geyser Gulch. There were water pistols that the older kids liked playing with and the young boys, well, they were in ball heaven!
Last summer, we went to Storyland in NH where Dylan enjoyed playing the Loopy Lab. Geyser Gulch had the same concept of ball play and he and Ryker just had a blast. We had to have been in this area for over an hour! For a good part of it, Dylan was enthralled with the ball vacuum:
The woman that worked the area and kept it all functioning had a great plan to a) give the boys to get a fun surprise and b) get a great photo op for me. She filled her big net with foam balls and then positioned it right over Dylan's head and then......
The next part of the day was my favorite part of the park - Marvel Cave! Stayed tuned for tomorrow's post on that.
Last summer, we went to Storyland in NH where Dylan enjoyed playing the Loopy Lab. Geyser Gulch had the same concept of ball play and he and Ryker just had a blast. We had to have been in this area for over an hour! For a good part of it, Dylan was enthralled with the ball vacuum:
The woman that worked the area and kept it all functioning had a great plan to a) give the boys to get a fun surprise and b) get a great photo op for me. She filled her big net with foam balls and then positioned it right over Dylan's head and then......
He thought it was pretty funny! Then it was Ryker's turn for the surprise!
Also a big hit with him!
The next part of the day was my favorite part of the park - Marvel Cave! Stayed tuned for tomorrow's post on that.
6/16/11
Vacation Crashers - Branson Days 1 and 2
A few months ago, I started polling my family to see if we could figure out a time to have a family vacation with all of us. It pretty quickly became apparent that it wasn't going to happen this year. Schedules just weren't colliding. One of the limiting factors was my oldest brother's vacation time with his brand new job...or rather, lack there of. All the vacation time he had was allocated to trips, one of which was a trip he'd planned for his family in Branson, MO. A couple of weeks before their vacation was to start, we decided that we would just crash their vacation so that Dylan could get some quality time in with his cousins. So, very early the morning after our Red Sox VIP experience, we headed to the airport to crash their vacation.
This was the first trip we'd taken with Dylan that 1) wasn't direct, 2) we bought him his own ticket and 3) that he could\would sit focused on watching a movie for a good period of time. #'s 2 and 3 contributed to making the trip down pretty uneventful (yay!). Once there, we found the shuttle to our rental car place, headed over, got outfitted with some wheels and went to meet Jody at the resort we would all be staying.
Once we got to the address of the place we had booked, we tried to locate Jody and Ryker who were waiting for us at the front of the resort. Following their instructions to where they were, we couldn't find them. After a few frustrating minutes of driving around, we finally figured out that we had booked ourselves in a different resort! Doh! Apparently there are a several "Falls Creek" resorts of slightly different names in Branson. Although a big bummer at first, it ended up being not so big a deal. We were only a mile apart and were able to get to each other to meet up easily enough.
Jody's family was going to a show that afternoon so we hung out with them until they had to leave for that. Our check in time was still a ways off so we drove around Branson a bit, took a snooze in the car then went and found a store to get a few groceries for our time there. Then we were able to check in and settle into our hotel. Dylan enjoyed playing out on our screened in porch while Mike and I unpacked the suitcases.
Once Jody's gang finished the show, we met back up with them to head just across the state line to Arkansas where my great aunt Ted is in a nursing home. Her youngest sister, my great Aunt Elizabeth, and her daughter, Jerry Anne, met us all there for a visit. My grandmother's sisters are some pretty cool ladies that I rarely get to see so it was wonderful to spend some time with them and give them some hugs. After we left, I wanted to kick myself (very hard) because I completely forgot to take in the camera to take any pictures of those lovely ladies. Major fail! We called it a night then, caravaned back to our hotels and settled in for some much needed rest.
On day two, we met up pretty early to caravan over to Silver Dollar City, a big amusement park. The youngest were presented with sheriff badges as we entered the park, which they both enjoyed wearing a lot.
We wandered around a bit and made it over to where the sheriffs could ride some rides while the bigger kids (Jody, Mike, Reece and Presley), headed for some thrills. I had the honor of taking Ryker and Dylan on their first ride. Unfortunately, it was torture for the both of them. While waiting to start, Dylan was a wreck and Ryker and I both tried to calm him.
Once we started, Dylan's tears stopped and he seemed to enjoy it. Ryker screamed in excitement....or so I thought. Soon, the screaming turned into blood curdling and he was shaking and freaking out a bit. I had to try and calm him then! Phew! Just can't please them both at once!
We tried a couple of other rides in the area with a bit more success. Dylan seemed pretty happy with the butterflies and caterpillars while Ryker had fun on the ladybugs (Dylan was too short for that one).
Actually, Dylan was too short for most of the rides...poor guy. He SO wanted to ride the big swings but was a couple of inches shy of the height requirement. He also wanted to ride the tea cups and the elephants (much like the Dumbo ride at Disney) but had the same height issue there. I guess I should have put some platforms on him that day and spiked his hair! Due to the fact that he wasn't it all that great of spirits (already suffering from too little sleep on vacation and not enjoying the southern heat), I stayed with him most of the day. He and I wandered and found ways to entertain ourselves while others were on rides. My biggest entertainment was lemonade slushes...they helped to endure the heat. Yay for them!
There were a couple of rides that we all were able to enjoy together. We went on the Flooded Mine where you shot at targets for points:
And then followed that up by a super cheesy scripted train ride. Other fun Dylan was able to partake in was the carousel:
And the big playground area where he and Ryker enjoyed tromping around:
It had been a late lunch and the heat had gotten to us all so we decided to go to another ride we could all go on together. It just so happened to be a water ride - Riverblast! Even though Marcy opted to stay "ashore", we blasted her with our water guns so she didn't get left out. The kids LOVED this ride. Even more fun than riding it was running around getting shot by the water guns as spectators for the ride. We hung out for some time because Ryker and Dylan (and even Reece and Presley) were having such a fun time with it.
This was the first trip we'd taken with Dylan that 1) wasn't direct, 2) we bought him his own ticket and 3) that he could\would sit focused on watching a movie for a good period of time. #'s 2 and 3 contributed to making the trip down pretty uneventful (yay!). Once there, we found the shuttle to our rental car place, headed over, got outfitted with some wheels and went to meet Jody at the resort we would all be staying.
Once we got to the address of the place we had booked, we tried to locate Jody and Ryker who were waiting for us at the front of the resort. Following their instructions to where they were, we couldn't find them. After a few frustrating minutes of driving around, we finally figured out that we had booked ourselves in a different resort! Doh! Apparently there are a several "Falls Creek" resorts of slightly different names in Branson. Although a big bummer at first, it ended up being not so big a deal. We were only a mile apart and were able to get to each other to meet up easily enough.
Jody's family was going to a show that afternoon so we hung out with them until they had to leave for that. Our check in time was still a ways off so we drove around Branson a bit, took a snooze in the car then went and found a store to get a few groceries for our time there. Then we were able to check in and settle into our hotel. Dylan enjoyed playing out on our screened in porch while Mike and I unpacked the suitcases.
Once Jody's gang finished the show, we met back up with them to head just across the state line to Arkansas where my great aunt Ted is in a nursing home. Her youngest sister, my great Aunt Elizabeth, and her daughter, Jerry Anne, met us all there for a visit. My grandmother's sisters are some pretty cool ladies that I rarely get to see so it was wonderful to spend some time with them and give them some hugs. After we left, I wanted to kick myself (very hard) because I completely forgot to take in the camera to take any pictures of those lovely ladies. Major fail! We called it a night then, caravaned back to our hotels and settled in for some much needed rest.
On day two, we met up pretty early to caravan over to Silver Dollar City, a big amusement park. The youngest were presented with sheriff badges as we entered the park, which they both enjoyed wearing a lot.
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| Cute Little Sheriffs |
We tried a couple of other rides in the area with a bit more success. Dylan seemed pretty happy with the butterflies and caterpillars while Ryker had fun on the ladybugs (Dylan was too short for that one).
Actually, Dylan was too short for most of the rides...poor guy. He SO wanted to ride the big swings but was a couple of inches shy of the height requirement. He also wanted to ride the tea cups and the elephants (much like the Dumbo ride at Disney) but had the same height issue there. I guess I should have put some platforms on him that day and spiked his hair! Due to the fact that he wasn't it all that great of spirits (already suffering from too little sleep on vacation and not enjoying the southern heat), I stayed with him most of the day. He and I wandered and found ways to entertain ourselves while others were on rides. My biggest entertainment was lemonade slushes...they helped to endure the heat. Yay for them!
There were a couple of rides that we all were able to enjoy together. We went on the Flooded Mine where you shot at targets for points:
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| Marcy and Reece |
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| Dylan's Ready to Fight Crime |
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| Chillin' With My Goat Bud |
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| Look at that, he's got a tail! |
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| Goat Close Up! |
Mike, Dylan and I went back to our hotel\condo to shower and freshen up then met back over at Jody's for taco night. The kids all watched Tangled (Dylan's first time to see the movie) and played together well. A long fun, very hot day wore us out and we slept well that night!
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