AND the winner is....

Here's the new home! She is still a bit "undressed" at the moment, please pardon her appearance!
Here's the side view. We have the corner lot and our property goes all the way to the road. At this time the land behind the house (you see the woods, and then eventually there is a field) is not planned to be developed. Maybe in the future, but we'd still have a BIG buffer of woods and there is so much other developing before they'd even get to that - it would be years from now. By then I can build up quite the evergreen natural barrier (since apparently when a house is directly behind mine it tends to make me feel a big lack of privacy).

So, here we are.
We picked the smaller of the two school choices we had.
See those two windows at the bottom of the house? Those are "daylight windows" which lend themselves to a finished basement. WHEN you come to visit me you will likely have that view! (hee hee hee) The house is a five bedroom, so we do have a guest room. Still, our plan is to finish the basement pretty quickly so we can have a guest room with a bathroom down there and a playroom too. Then the fifth bedroom will become my designated studio! Whoo hoo! It may need to be a partial office too, but it is still an improvement over my (much loved) scrapbook closet!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Lets see, what else....
There is a really gigantic pantry in this thing, like you never saw one so big! The downstairs has one long room from the front to the back of the house with a vaulted ceiling (so big around here). It is technically the living room and the dining room, but we will keep it all family room. Then there is an eat in kitchen with a slider to the patio, a wonkin pantry, and a laundry room (vs. laundry closet... man I'm movin on up!) and a half bath. Upstairs are the five bedrooms, not too huge but adequate and two full baths.

We really love the lot we got. It is HUGE (for MI but CT people would not think so) by the development standards (great for resale) and is on the corner. The street you sort of see in the second picture (what makes the corner) is not really a street at all but a snow plow off. Around here there is a LOT of snow in winter (but not "sticky snow" or so I am told) and in the new developments there has to be a designated place to push the snow. That little road (which ends at the tree line) is for snow. When there is no snow there it is designated as our tennis court!!! Somehow I also think that Max will love the giant snow piles formed there. Let's hope they don't make me a nervous wreck.

Well, now you are updated!
We have been enjoying not house hunting for a change!

One strange side effect though was that the purchase of the home triggered a home sickness effect in both Jeff and I. It was a sort of sad weekend. I think the finality of it is hitting home. Still we purchased wisely with resale in mind so I don't know why we felt the change, we just did. And with both of us down - whew, it was a loooooonnnngggg weekend.

We are very excited to be purchasing so early in the houses life. We get to pick siding, cabinets, counters, flooring, the works. Cool.

Now, you may wonder when she'll be done.......... November! Yes, that is the rather large down side to this one. I really miss my stuff. I will need to buy the kids more clothes (we didn't pack for school or winter - no winter coats, boots, etc.). Still I think the three months will fly by once the kids are in school and have their normal hectic schedule. And oh yes, I will be driving them to school and picking them up every day until November 15th. Should be a thrill. Didn't I move here to drive less?????? Yet we are registered for school now, Abbie has started soccer, and we are on the final three week countdown. I have never been so ready for school to start, ever!

I miss you all.
Take care and enjoy the rest of the summer! :)