House Hunting Continues - No More!!

"Perfection! This is what happens when Crate and Barrel meets Pottery Barn! Meticulously maintained and highly upgraded single level 3 bedroom plus office/den (could be 4th bed.), Vaulted Ceilings, upgraded flooring, maple cabinets, stainless steel appliances, ceiling fans,custom lighting, custom paint, and many more quality details! The backyard is awesome with fenced pool, grassy play area, and large covered patio! Need storage? This 3 car-garage is just what you need for all your toys! Great location, just minutes to Desert Ridge, Kierland, the 101 and 51, only 20 minutes to downtown, yet surrounded by all the Scottsdale area restaurants and shopping!"

Here's the front view of the house. It's a one story nestled in a quiet neighborhood. The owners have taken great pride in maintaining this home. It's meticulous in every way. Starting with the very first impression you get as you approach the house.

The kitchen is to die for. It's very clean and neat. The feel of this house screams "RELAXATION"! The best part of all is when we move in, we pull out the lawn chairs, put on our swim suits and start enjoying this house immediately. DH & DW could not find one thing, I repeat, not one thing between the two of us that we would change. This is a feat not easily accomplished. Not sure it actually has been accomplished till now.
Hence the offer we made on this home.
We think that if family & friends were to visit now, we couldn't get rid of them! They'd want to pay some rent and stay forever.

This is a sitting area for conversation. As you cook in the winter months you can enjoy the fireplace. We both heard Christmas music playing in our heads as we stood in the kitchen area looking at the fireplace. These pictures truly don't do the view justice.
This is a view of the backyard pool area. It has all the things we're looking for. Grass, covered patio, landscaping, pool, and an area built in the corner of the block wall for planting flowers. Nothing is set in concrete yet, but it's our first step to beginning the rest of our lives in beautiful sunny Arizona.

Mall Shopping, Scottsdale Style

We've known about a mall in Scottsdale called Fashion Square and thought we'd check it out. It's a shopping center that the "WHO's WHO" of shoppers frequent regularly.
After waking early due to neighbors getting ready for a Memorial Day get-together, we headed via the freeway to the mall.
One of the anchor stores is Neiman-Marcus and they have Many other high-end stores. Several of them left DW drooling! Kate Spade and Jimmy Choo! Whoo-Hoo!

We wandered around the mall and found a Louis Vuitton store. We thought we'd meander through and see what the store had to offer.
Well, after seeing a $395 pair of flip-flops, we couldn't stop giggling about it! On our way out of the store, a group of four 20 youngen's were asking the price of a Louis Vuitton golf bag. We overheard the clerk tell the group the bag sells for $9,300. FOR A GOLF BAG!
SERIOUSLY!
They have sold two in the last year..... SERIOUSLY????

Unfortunately (or fortunately!), the Tiffany store was closed for the holiday.


The mall had a 2 story wall of rain that was absolutely memorizing!

This mall is crazy insane and the people watching is over the top!
After having enough of the mall, we decided to see what else was in the area. We walked a few blocks away and there were many other shops in the area.
There is a canal nearby which is near Old Town Scottsdale.

There was a very neat sculpture near the canal that was in honor of the Pony Express.


So we wandered around Old Town and found that quite a few shops were closed for the holiday but there were enough open that if you needed a trinket or a piece of art, today was your day!
We found a quiet oasis with a small, beautiful fountain in a little courtyard.



We found these clowns in the window of an art gallery. Wouldn't they look GREAT in your house??!!
DW thought this sign at the entrance to a parking garage spoke VOLUMES about driving in Phoenix!

On our way home, we decided to wander through a neighborhood and see what was there. Here's a view from the road looking toward some homes on the water.

YES, there's water in Arizona!

Hilton Squaw Peak Resort

Today, some friends asked us to join them at a resort for some relaxing water fun.
Here's a fountain at the entrance to the resort.

We had a blast today with great conversation and good laughs as we floated on our innertubes down a lazy river through Hilton's Squaw Peak resort. Lot's of families enjoying the sunshine and warmth.

Here's a view of the start of the lazy river. With the heat returning today, the water felt wonderful.

Here is a photo of DH & DW overlooking one of the many pools this resort has to offer for relaxing.

At the end of the day, we all felt the intensity of the sun and decided enough is enough. DH had to have his photo taken with a Lobster blow up floatie before we left. It was a great day!!!!

THUNDER STORMS - AZ STYLE

Here it is the first day of the three day weekend and we are freezing our butts off! Wednesday of this last week it hit 110 degrees. Today we mustered a whopping 72 degrees and a storm to boot. AZ storms are quite unique in the fact if it decides to storm, the punch and furry they unleash is quite astonishing. The lightning is fierce and the concussions of thunder that follow are awe inspiring to say the least. Mother nature does have the upper hand in life!

Here are some photos showing what rolled over our house and glued us to our windows.

This photo shows the slow moving storm as it approached our house. You could feel the cold wind associated with this storm as it brewed. The winds started to howl around the homes making the storm's presence known.

This photo shows the storm as it passed over our home. It moved ever so slowly and growled like a saber tooth tiger. Mind you, this is the first "STORM" we have had since our arrival in August of last year. We have always wondered what the fuss was about when it rains, but we now understand. We were glued to our back patio door watching it roll across as if we had never seen a thunderstorm. Kinda like kids in a candy store so to speak. It was impressive. The storm blocked the sun and made it look like night. This photo was taken at 5:37 in the evening.

House Hunting Continues

We looked at another four houses tonight and found one we really like. However, it doesn't have a pool and is a bit more expensive. It is bank owned and we think could be bought pretty reasonably. We can add a pool at a later date as the backyard has plenty of space.
DH & DW are mulling it over and have the weekend to decide. We'll take time to do another drive by and to weigh the pro's & con's.
Just so everyone knows, it's BLASTED COLD HERE TONIGHT!!!! Argggggg! Supposed to be a low of 47 we think. NOW whoever sent this cold front our way should be ashamed of yourself! THAT wasn't funny!!! Hope all is well & we miss you all!

RANCHERS RESERVE BEEF CHUCK EYE STEAK

We stopped at the local grocery store because we had an urge to grill some steaks. We looked over the meat section when a butcher approached and asked if he could help us find anything? We said we were looking for Fillet Mignon. He chuckled and said I don't know of a single butcher who would take that home and serve it to his family. DH & DW kind of looked at each other in amazement. We said "REALLY, why is that?" The butcher explained that the Chuck steak has the same texture as a fillet, but much more flavor and you certainly can't beat the price.

We were amazed to pay under five bucks for a pound and a half of beef. He said try them and if you don't agree, come back and I will reimburse you the price of the chuck steaks. "GAME ON" We thought for SURE we had a free meal coming to us.........
We came home, wrapped some bacon around the steaks and threw them on the grill.

The butcher was right on the money! These steaks were delicious. Only the smallest amount of fat had to be discarded. They truly were flavorful and tender in every way. To think we can buy these steaks for little to nothing.
Eating good in the neighborhood. :-)

DICKIE'S DOGS

After a long morning and early afternoon of House Hunting, DH & DW visited a quaint little restaurant called Dickie's Dogs for lunch. DH was directed to this place based on his love of Coney Island "Chilli Dogs" that he enjoyed as a child in Duluth, Minnesota.
He had mentioned his love of Coney dogs to a co-worker, Hank, & was pointed in Dickie's Dogs direction. DH and some co-workers took time out from work 3 weeks ago and visited Dickie's Dogs for lunch for the first time and DH was hooked!
Today, DH took DW to Dickie's Dogs for lunch in Scottsdale, AZ and we had a fabulous lunch!
DH has FINALLY found the 1st Street "DULUTH" comparison!

DH will be spending many lunches at this quaint little restaurant!
DW was impressed with the food-the cheese dogs and fries are AWESOME but what most impressed her was the fact that every employee AND the owner, Dickie, were absolutely meticulous in making sure the tables and overall restaurant were clean! Not less than 30 seconds after a group left their table, someone was over to wipe everything clean! It was great to know that they took pride in their business! We appreciated it!

Is this the future home of the "HARPINATORS"

This is a continuation of the previous blog regarding house hunting!!

DH & DW did finally find something that interested them more than they thought it would. This home kind of struck a chord with the both of us. We are STILL talking about it this evening and we're not sure why. I guess it has soooo much potential for us and with a little hard work we could see living here for a very good long time. It was a refreshing moment for the both of us to think we might have found the one. We are not jumping right in and saying this IS the place. But it does make one think of the "what if" ideas.

This is a photo of the front of the house when we arrived. Compared to the photo on the internet, it was exactly as it was posted. It's a corner lot with a HUGE backyard and it has a pool with a water feature to boot. However, the interior has carpet through out the whole house with the exception of the kitchen area. We would have lots of tile work to do if we purchased it.
This is the pool area. It's not filled because the city of Phoenix has helicopters that fly over neighborhoods and write tickets to home owners that don't maintain their pools. Our understanding is it's a pretty hefty fine. The reason is that they don't want an explosion of mosquitos hatching and raising havoc with home owners. We have been here since August of '07 and haven't been bit by a Mosquito yet. We would like to keep it that way. However from our previous post, I see some neighborhoods in the future having a HELL of a time with the skeeters.

This photo shows the other half of the back yard area. It truly is a large backyard that would allow our four legged darlings to have plenty of play area.

This would be our view from the master bedroom. French doors to the large back patio and a full view of the backyard. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Here's a photo of DH looking at things in the Kitchen area. The wallpaper would HAVE to go, but that's what makes this property so appealing to us. With a little work, it could be a GEM!! We welcome any comments you might care to share.

"TO BE CONTINUED"

House Hunting Begins!!! Oooooh Boy!!

"Few repairs and clean up in process

AWESOME 3 Bedroom plus Loft (could be 4th bed) and Play POOL all Upgraded to the MAX! Beautiful Gourmet Kitchen with Granite Counters, Raised Panel Maple Cabinets and Stainless Steel Appliances. This Kitchen is BEAUTIFUL. 18in Travertine Tile Flooring throughout and carpeting 2 years new. All Baths have TRAVERTINE Counters and Bath Tub Surrounds with new Sinks and Brushed Nickel Fixtures. The Back Yard offers a Cooling Play POOL, Great for the HOT Summer and Entertaining. This home is fully remodeled. My Seller's Loss is Your Buyer's Gain. PRICED $40,000 below the neighbor with no Pool!"

This is what was printed on a sell sheet that was on the Internet. Well, we thought it sounded just like what we are looking for. DW & I set out with our realtor today and had to choose 6 homes out of 45 to look at. Well, we compiled our list, agreed to the homes we wanted to look at and went off on our expedition.

The above photos are what are posted on the internet sales sheet. Granted, this was our first home we stopped at on our homes tour. We arrived at 10:00 a.m. for the showing. The place looks nice with a nice sized pool but nothing over the top. We are not looking for the "CASTLE" of homes, just something landscaped with a pool in the back to hang out and enjoy. When we arrived at the property, we GASPED and looked at each other in disbelief of what was in front of our eyes. This couldn't be the home we saw on the internet could it?? We were in TOTAL shock and thought "Oooooh Boy this is going to be one long morning"! We were here so we walked through it anyway. We made an offer and they excepted it. Hope you all can fly down and help us with the landscaping. It shouldn't take too long to fix it up. LOL! Just kidding. We didn't put an offer in and we ran as FAST as we could off to the other properties!

Here is the photo of the house when we arrived. I can't imagine being the neighbors on either side of this house having to look at this every day. When we pulled up, both DH & DW noticed one of the next door neighbors peek through their blinds to see what was going on. If it were us, we would have been saying BUY IT!!!
Puhhhh LEeeeezzzzzzzzzzzz!!

This is the photo we took of the back yard. Now in looking back at the photos they have posted on the internet for this property, we are STUNNED they can still have those up. What a complete disappointment to show up and see this. We hope you all can understand what we were feeling seeing this as our first choice........ Sigh! Off to the next property "THANK GOD"!!


Here's the photo of the next place we stopped to look at. Seems ok at first, but wouldn't you know it, right before we get to the entrance to have a peek, we see this!

Oh My God! How can this be possible?? Yep that's Bird Shit!!! Apparently they "Cop A Squat" here in the desert also. Who da thunk! LOL!

Here is the FABULOUS pool as they mentioned on the internet. Sigh....................
After leaving this STUNNING beauty, we were off to the next property.

In doing so, we passed this lovely home that we didn't have on our list. It has been added so we can pursue the details. It looked VERY nice with beautiful landscaping. Hopefully we'll get a peek at it VERY soon. We can't post anymore photos on this particular blog. We will post another so you can see the one home we really did like and would possibly put an offer in. We think we can buy it right!!

Yes, it rains in AZ!!

Today started as a normal day at work for both of us. There were a few clouds in the sky on our drive to our respective offices and the wind was quite gusty.
In Glendale at DW's office, the clouds kept building until mid-afternoon when she heard lots of window blinds zip up to open the view to outside.
DW literally ran to a window and narrowly missed knocking over a fellow employee!
It was actually raining!! And not just a sprinkle! It poured down and very quickly filled the gutters of the parking lot and the landscape rock around the building!
One of the department managers ended a meeting and commented that judging by the number of people standing at the windows, it must be raining!
Rain here in Phoenix is such a rare occurrence outside monsoon season in the fall, that everyone stops what they're doing to relish the moment when the skys open!
By the time DW left work, most evidence of the rain had disappeared except a few gutters along the parking lots.

Unfortunately, we did not receive any of the rain at our house, but monsoon season is coming!
Here are a few pictures of the rare clouds in the sky taken from our backyard.

Here's what the strong winds have done to some of our backyard decorations.



If you saw our blog from October 21, 2007, you can see what the winds here can do to outdoor decorations. Today wasn't as bad, but there was still a little cleaning up to do.

Car Trouble

This morning was interesting. We were both ready to head to work when out of the blue, our Envoy wouldn't start, not even a click from the engine!
DH, being the mechanic he is, was at his lovely maiden's beck and call.
He popped the hood, removed bracing, covers and shrouds that protect the battery area and off we went to the nearest auto parts store to get a fresh new battery.
DH installs the battery only to discover that the cover for the battery won't fit.
The parts store gave us the wrong battery!
After many expletives from DH, we returned the battery for the correct one. With a few turns of some wrenches, some more expletives and a bloody knuckle, with the turn of the key the Envoy sprang back into life. Off to work we go for another sunshiny, warm, beautiful Arizona day!

Birthdays!

Some overdue news regarding an early arrival!
DW's older brother and his lovely wife were expecting their 2nd child to be born around May 12. Well, the baby had other plans!
He decided to make his rather speedy entrance into the world just in time for the snowstorm in northern MN on April 26, 2008. He almost didn't wait for the doctor!
Jonathan Thomas, it turns out, wanted to be here in time for his mother's birthday which was the next day! What a Birthday present for her!
Mother and baby are doing wonderfully and have been home for one week now.
Here's a picture of him.

Older brother, Alex-soon to be 3 years old, is adjusting to his new brother and wants to help constantly!
And DH's brother's son recently turned 1 and is doing Great!
Lots of Birthdays all around and we wish everyone many more Happy Birthdays!

"AMERICA'S GREATEST PAST TIME"

We were invited to attend a Diamond Backs Baseball game today at Chase field here in Phoenix. When we first arrived in Phoenix last August, DW got tickets to attend one of the games. We thought it was great.
Today was no exception. Brett & Patty (who we met through mutual friends) invited us. Brett had the tickets and a parking pass that allowed us to park right next to a walkway above street level to cross right into the stadium. It was "SWEET". We didn't have to deal with all the "NORMAL" people meandering the halls stopping and going and stopping and going.
We had lunch in a semi private area where probably 40 people at most were enjoying themselves. Not knowing what to expect next, we went down a private elevator to the concourse level. We walked a short distance from the elevator to the section where we were sitting. The seats we had were AMAZING! We were 16 rows up from the field. We could see EVERYTHING. Countless foul balls down the 3rd base line came our way and we each had an "avoidance plan" which mainly consisted of ducking down as low as we could to avoid being hit!
We had a GREAT time and look forward to attending many more games with these two wonderful friends of ours. We wish all of you in Minnesota could have been there.
We did notice at looking at the scoreboard that Minnesota won today. "Go Twins!"
Below are some of the photos we took of the game. We hope you all enjoy.

Here is the location of where we were sitting and the view of the field. They were fantastic seats.

Today was "KIDS" day. If you look in the photos above, you can see the line of all the kids that were honored as Little League players today below the large video screen. It was funny because all the little kids exited the field up the rows on either side of where we were sitting. We didn't know this was the case at first, but when we left to get some nachos before the game started and tried to get back to our seats, we had to wait quite some time till all was clear to return.

Here's a photo of the field and crowd.

At one point, we had a fireman meander past us. The gentleman in front was to keep him from falling forward & the gentleman behind was to keep him from falling backwards. They guy in the costume was having a HELL of a time traversing the stadium steps. We kind of felt sorry for him. He looked like he had been climbing Mount Everast when he passed us. Slow and lethargic.
To sum the day up as a whole, this is how it would be. Compliments of the gentleman sitting directly in front of us.
"LIFE IS GOOD"!