Bummin' on the farm

Well it's been an interesting weekend. Mommy had to work all weekend, and we had a showing at our house on Saturday morning then an open house Saturday afternoon. These showings were going to cut right into Azalea's naptime, so we packed up the Santa Fe and heading to the farm in Hawick to see Grandma and Grandpa (and great-grandma/pa). I checked the weather on Saturday morning, and it was supposed to be sunny and lower 70s in the cities that day, so I didn't bring a jacket or much for warm clothes. Foolish me! We got here and it was cloudy, windy and in the low 60's. Of course Azalea wanted to be outside, but we wanted to make sure she stayed warm, so grandpa found a stocking cap and a small shirt for her to wear over her other clothes. It made her look rather homely. Then we she came back inside, she wanted to wear the hat for the rest of the night. Silly girl!

Finally some pictures to post!

Happy Easter everyone! We're sorry we didn't get around to see many family or friends this Easter, but it's been a busy time. There's been lots of work, both at the hospital and at home, to do lately. We did, however, have a fun weekend. Saturday we were able to pay a visit to the newest member of the May family, Jen and Lucas's baby Logan Benjamin May. He was born on Thursday. Things went well and baby and mommy are doing great. Congratulations guys! Foolish me, though, I didn't bring our camera.

We started out today (Sunday) with a fantastic breakfast put on by our church before the Easter service today, then a great worship service and message from our New Heights (church) crew, then out to the park in the afternoon for some playground fun. It was sunny out and pretty warm, but Azalea insisted on wearing her gloves and hat... silly girl. I did manage to take her hat off when we got to the park, but she insisted that the gloves stay on. She had lots of fun climbing up and going down the big kid slide. We got a few good photos to share from the playtime.

There's been no activity on the house this week (since Tuesday anyway), but I suspected that given the holiday weekend. Hopefully this coming week is better. I just got done thoroughly cleaning the main level (again), in case of an early week showing. We're thinking of looking at some houses out in the Willmar area pretty soon, which should be kind of fun and exciting. We'll keep you posted!

She loves her new care bear (Cheer Bear). Thanks Great Auntie Pam!
She keeps wanting to go down the slides head first... daredevil. I guess this one's OK since it's so small.

Finishing up the afternoon with a stroll.

Another week gone by

It's been another crazy week. Laura is still sick with a bad cold. It was bad enough that she couldn't go to work again this week. She was in need of some rest by the end of the week, so headed out to her parents so they could help out with Azalea. Since my family left me I decided to do a mini marathon session with work and did 2 night shifts in a row on Friday and Saturday.... good times.

We had our first house showing on Saturday. The feedback on the showing wasn't too great. It sounds like they thought our townhouse was simply on par with the others in the area on the market. We have another go at it tomorrow (Monday). Hopefully that showing goes better. We'll keep everyone posted. If you know anyone who may be in the market for a townhome in the southeast metro, or just want to check out our listing, it is MLS # 3665097. I kind of like this site, here's a direct link http://msp.themlsonline.com/search/3665097.html.

Buddies

Trying on mommy's shoes.

Another rough day.

MessyFace

I apologize for the lack of picture posts recently. I don't think we've even snapped any since we got home from Hawaii. Here's an old one... Azalea enjoying a lasagna dinner a while back... mmm!

Wrapping up the week

What a week. Azalea started out the week with a nasty cold.... nose running like crazy and a pretty nasty cough. Because of it she didn't sleep well at all (and therefore neither did we) for about 3 nights in a row. It was kind of exhausting. Now Laura's caught her bug, and feels pretty miserable. To make matters worse, she had to work Friday-Sunday this week. She's pretty tired. I had a few really sick patients to see this week on top of my normal educational duties, so it was a bit busier for me this week as well. Abbott Northwestern got a bolus of patients from Fargo on Friday too. They called an "orange alert" which is done with large influxes of patients due to mass casualties, natural disasters and the like. Basically it's meant to get medical staff in the hospital quick to cover the flow of patients. Things were a bit hectic at the hospital.

We had an appointment with our realtor today (sunday), so scrambled to get the house looking as nice as possible for the pictures that will be used for the listing. Laura's parents came down mid-week and helped us out a lot with cleaning and watching Azalea. We were very grateful for the help!

We met with our realtor today, and he told us the bad news in the area (a bit worse that I thought). Basically he showed us what comparable homes in the area have sold for in the last several months, and it's not good. He also showed us similar listings near us, and what each is listed for. With this info we settled on a listing price... and it's definitely lower that I would have hoped. The only good news is he gave us very good feedback on the condition/appearance of our house, and actually bumped up his suggested listing price from what he had in mind before seeing the house. We filled out some paperwork, he snapped some photos, and apparently our house will be on the MLS sometime tomorrow. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we struggle through the process of selling. It could be a long road.

Another week gone by

The weeks are flying by. We stayed busy last week with the house. On Salturday we went up to Deerwood to hang out with family and to celebrate Azalea's cousin Tika's belated one year birthday. It was a good time. Azalea likes to hang out with her cousins. There was one point where she and Bela were sitting on the floor watching TV and Azalea had her arm around Bela like they were buddies. It was pretty cute. Unfortunately we could only spend Saturday up north, and had to make the drive back that night.

We are meeting up with our realtor this Sunday to go through the specifics on listing our house. I'm hopeful that we'll have it listed early next week. It's sort of depressing to see all the townhomes around us that are listed for cheap. I don't think we'll get even close to what we bought our place for 5 years ago when we do sell. Oh well, as long as we get a discount on the next place (which should be an upgrade) we'll be doing OK.

Laura's in her 3rd trimester now (due June 7th). She's been pretty uncomfortable lately, achy and really worn out. Azalea and the duties around the house haven't been helping. Keep her in your prayers during this stressful time.

Time for an update!

Well we obviously made it home. Since we got back it has been pretty busy, so it's been difficult to update the blog. Here's some pics from our last day or two on Kauai. The last few days the weather actually got kind of unpleasant. The trade winds really picked up, and there were 30+ mph winds for much of the days. It was a little hard to enjoy the outdoors with all that wind, but we still had a good time. The trip home went fairly smoothly. We left Kauai at nearly midnight on Thursday night, so Azalea (and I) slept most of the way to Phoenix. The trip from Phoenix to MSP, though, Azalea was awake the whole way and got a bit unruly at times. She screamed a few times, and we got some nasty looks from our "neighbors" on the plane. All in all though she did OK and it could have been a lot worse, so we're pretty thankful.

Now that we're back in MN, there's been lots to do. Laura and I have both been working a lot, and we're trying to get our house ready to put on the market. We got our closet project done, and it turned out pretty nice. We've been cleaning and organizing, and are just about ready to list our home. It'll be an interesting few months while we try to sell. Hopefully we can keep the house presentable despite Azalea's (or my) attempts to trash the place.

A hike we took on our last day on Kauai. The winds were so strong, that when we walked along the beach you can see in the back of the picture (across the bay behind Laura) we were basically getting sandblasted on our bare skin. It actually hurt a bit.

Azalea decided she liked to push her stroller more than ride in it.

Our second to last day on Kauai we went to the legendary fern grotto. It apparently was a lot more magnificent before the bad hurricane which hit Kauai in the late 90s. The interesting thing is the ferns are growing out of the rocks and hanging upside down. It is a big cave-like area, and is a bit more interesting than this picture probably makes it look.



Us at the fern-grotto.

Some Hawaiin music provided for our little tour of the grotto.

Our last sunset in Kauai... not a bad one.

Outside the airport in Lihue... ready for our big trip back.