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"!

Minnesota has sprung to life in AZ!

On one of our previous blogs, we posted photos of some seeds that were sent to us by our dear MN friend, Elizabeth.
All will be happy to know that we have flower growth in AZ from MN!
We can't wait to see how they do in the weeks to come. Thanks again Elizabeth!! We look forward to sending you the blooming photos when they get established. How fun & exciting! Perhaps we can spread some colorful yellow flowers here in the desert.
"DANDELIONS ANYONE"? LOL!

The "HARPN8R"

Today it's official!!
DH has become the one and only "HARPN8R" in Arizona!
DH got his personalized plates today which he has been anxiously waiting for weeks now. Many of you who know DH have known he has been called this for some time now thanks to his brother Charles. A great friend whom we won't mention in this blog but perhaps we should, Oh just check out the Gracious Acres Blog which is a link from our blog home page.
Let's just call him Chet. His name sounds REALLY close to Chet, but actually starts with a "B" kinda like Bah-rette? Hehe!
DH actually got a tattoo of a drawing Bah-rette asked one of the artists we both used to work for to draw.
Long story short, DH has wanted to make sure that story lives on.
Here is the official photo showing the "HARPN8R" Plate. "Thank's Charlie and Bah-rette!" I couldn't have done it without ya!!