Friday, May 31, 2013

Spring

We had a very busy spring. The biggest thing was that we purchased a new house. The month of February consisted of me and Alemitu driving about 3 hours a day looking at houses . . . followed up by Adam in the evening on the way home from work. I think we drove through (and rated) every, single neighborhood in the upper right quadrant of Phoenix. We were looking for an older home in the city. After some hit and misses, we settled on a house in an older, well known Phoenix neighborhood. While the neighborhood is located in the city, it is super quiet and serene. All the neighbors are friendly with each other, and it has its own newspaper, blog, etc. The area is surrounded by mountains, so the temperature is a few degrees cooler with usually a slight breeze. We fell in love with this area, and it is an area not too far from where Adam grew up.


After finding the perfect house, March consisted of shopping, shopping, and more shopping . . . making decisions regarding contractors, remodeling, paint colors, and Sabrina's job. In the months of April and May, we spent just about every free moment at the new house. It is 35 minutes away from our prior house. Alemitu and I would spend our days there, then we would drive back home to pick up the boys from school, and then drive back to the new house and stay until bedtime. By the end of May, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. And yes, I am that mom that let my boys skip school the day before school was out . . . because I. Just. Couldn't. Get. Up. (Adam questioned this decision, but later I got a reverse 911 call from the school stating it was on lock down until 4:30 that afternoon. I told Adam it must have been mother's intuition, and not the fact that I. Just. Couldn't. Get. Up.) On moving day, I couldn't even squeeze my hands together in a fist because it hurt so bad. Everything hurt. Even my knee caps. And what made it even more depressing was that after we finally moved in . . . we had to re-paint and get out of our rental house. I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life.

The boys entertained themselves while we shopped by taking lots of crazy pictures.
We are now all moved in, and we are continuing to do some small renovations. In a few weeks, I will post some before/after pictures. Our house was built in 1969 so there is plenty of stuff left to remodel over the next few years. But for now, we love our comfortable home -- even if parts of it doesn't have things like baseboards or door handles right now.
Our backyard
View from our front yard, looking down the street.
Below are some pictures of some other things we did this spring:

Adam took the kids to a outdoor expo one Saturday. They came home with a BB gun. Oy Vey.
 
 

My family came to visit.

We barely survived the end of school. At the end of April, Calvin wrote that his favorite activity in April was "read a book outside". When asked why he liked it, he wrote "I do not no why." That is Calvin's personality in a nutshell -- 100% honest. Because I was barely surviving myself, I thought this was a perfect answer and let him turn it in. The good thing is that his teacher enjoyed it also and later put a smiley face by it. (The X you see is a bleed through from the backside.)

I work so much for Adam's company, and also stay home with the kids. Adam told me I should take a break from the salon for a few years, but we settled on working Saturdays. My clients have become my friends, and I share a suite with on of my best friends. I couldn't walk away from all of that. So this is perfect!!
The boys ran more than 2 miles in an Apex Fun Run at their school. They collected pledges, and were super excited about this race. On race day, both Adam and I were there cheering them on. They both ran the majority of it and completed more laps than Apex expected. We were so proud of them.

Alemitu was so exhausted going from house to house. This is her, having completely crashed, at our rental house. The painter (who we ended up hiring) walked all around her and she never stirred.
We went to visit some friends one Saturday evening. Alemitu and Sophie are both super divas, and it was fun to watch them play with (and tattle on) each other. These friends have twin boys born a few days after Wes and Calvin. They also have a daughter from Ethiopia that is 1 month older than Alemitu. 
After the boys finished school, we did spend a few hours at the pool each day during the last week of May.