Christmas in Seattle

It's that time of year again Boys and Girls!
We loaded up the car Saturday morning and headed  North for a weekend of lots of family, friends and holiday gifts. Saturday evening we spent a jolly old time at the McNeley families residence for their annual Christmas party. Great to see everyone....and Santa made an apearance too! For the record Annison HATES the man in the suit! :) Wouldn't even come close to sitting on his lap....a loud screech is what we got instead of a cute picture! LOL

Sunday was a day of rest and gifts with Grandma, Papa and the Smith family. Annison was spoiled rotten...we were too! :) Thanks guys

Here are some of the photos that were taken on our little mini Christmas getaway...

first gift

ready to help

Forever friends :)

Picture 3 : Hates Santa!!

Picture 2 : This was when we all witnessed the horrible screech

Picture 1 : Santa had a gift for Annison

Our new home

Steve, Annison and I are very pleased to announce we are MOVING! Just across the field, that is :)
For those of you who don't know the story of our house, read on.....


In May 2006 my brother, Kasey purchased the home from our neighbor, Clarence. The home was bought more as an investment to Kasey then a home he would ever plan to live in. Clarence's wife passed 9 years ago and they never had any children, so we have always been family to him.
After the tragic passing of Kasey, the house has had great meaning to me. I took over the payments in Oct 2006 in the agreement Clarence was to live there as a renter until he choose to move.
As the years have passed the stairs in that beautiful home have been hard on Clarence's knees. When his sister came to visit a few months ago and fell, things started to change for the future.
2 weeks ago Clarence moved to a very nice retirement facility in Vancouver. Annison and I visited last week and he showed as all around :) He seems very happy and eager to make friends.

Steve and I are so overjoyed and feel so blessed to finally have a home to call our own. We are in the process of making some small changes to the house before we move in. Each room will have a splash of color on each wall by next week, new hardware is on its way for the cabinets in all the bathrooms and Kitchen, house cleaners are coming today to clean/sanitize the house and carpet cleaners come at the end of the month. Hopefully we will be making the big move the first weekend in December!

Clarence left Steve and I most everything inside of his house and barn. So basically the house came fully furnished. We are so very very lucky to enjoy all of his belongings in the near future and finally get to put away all of our wedding gifts! :). Its a great feeling to have this beautiful space to call our home!

The pictures below are just a few of the upstairs. I will take more today and post them later.
This 3,500 sq home has a gorgeous view of the Columbia river and Wind Mountain. It has 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms a large living room upstairs and downstairs, spacious dining room and kitchen.

Here are some of the photos I have taken the last 2 weeks.

Enjoying the view

Kitchen: while I was going through everything and cleaning

After

One of the bathrooms
They all have wall paper on them....next winters project

Our bedroom: in the cleaning process

Annison's first meal at the bar

Dining room: some of the kitchen stuff

Upstairs living room: in the cleaning process

back of the house

Front with view

BOO MOO!

Trick or treat!

Little Miss Annison was a cow this year and got a lot of complements on her costume. Steve and I had a big dinner early, dressed our cow up and headed out around 5:30 pm. Unfortunately Moo had only gotten a 12 min 2 o'clock nap in so getting her in and out of the car seat was a huge task and lots of tears. First house we hit was our neighbor Clarence's then off to Great Grandpa Jerry and Great Grandma Mary's, Mike, Julie and Cam's house and a quick run to Aunt Carol and Uncle Gail's. There we took some fun pic's of the Cousins together in their costumes (Taylor twins 3 mo) and one last stop to Grandpa's. Nana was gone this year but we sent her some pics and raided the cookie jar.

Made me laugh living out here in the country how surprised Clarence was to see a child in costume on his door step as he hasn't seen one in close to 20 years. It sure brought back memories of when I was little :) 

Here is our moo




A kitty for breakfast



Ready for candy

First stop

All in all it was a great time. Our little moo I think had a good time too!

Fall is here

The leaves are starting to fall off the trees here in Home Valley. Annison and I went on a walk to visit our neighbor, Clarence yesterday and ran onto these beautiful leaves in his yard. I captured a few good ones while the sun was still shining.

After we visited a while we came home and made brownies for daddy. Baking in this kitchen means a great deal to me as I baked with Nelta when I was very little. She would be so proud!

yum yum!

We love brownies :)

Pumpkin Patch 2011

The three of us and some friends visited the pumpkin patch this weekend in Hood River. We had great time together and the kids (9mo, 7mo and 3mo) seemed to all enjoy it as well. After while we headed back to our house for a BBQ and carving. Here are some of my fav's taken at the patch :)

Going for a ride

Please don't leave me here!

We all own B.O.B's :)

Cheese!

Annison's pumpkin

Just a few more fun ones :)

Love bug

Went to Cafe sip and play with Erin. Annison really enjoyed the play area

Daddys new truck!

Rod Run car show was sooooo loud!!  :)

The last sunny day. Season is over....tent is coming down this weekend.