Driving accross NC...

We had a great, week-long visit from Grandma Platt this week.

The girls made doughnuts and biscuts with her, and she made some great dinners while here - - boy I miss Sunday afternoons at the Platt 'mansion' for dinner!

We also took a nice long 5 hour drive accross NC on the holiday Monday. From Raleigh-Durham to Burlington, to Greensborough, Winston-Salem, and up the mountains to Boone (for Daniel Boon - I think), and back again.

Unknown to me, Boone is also the home of Appalachian State University. You know, the I-AA football team that beat mighty Michigan & took the Nat'l championship?

It's a small, but pretty nice campus, but it was WAY too cold to spend much time out of the van. We took a small 'jaunt' by the tennis courts, and about 3-minutes into it our ears were frozen!

It was a nice drive to see what else is around that we haven't had any time to do since being here.

Laura got a new camera for her birthday. It's one of the nice SLR 10.1mp digitals (the ones that look like 35mm). She wanted to get back into her old photography hobbie, so she wanted a really good camera. We can't believe what good & detailed pictures it takes.

She took this fun closeup of Keri with it to try it out.

I'm not sure if it will show as detailed on the blog, but on this fun picture of Keri, you can actually see the little, usually invisible hairs on her skin under her nose!

Here are some more shots of the kids she had to take the first day.

The Hair and Nails!

It's been a hecktic time trying to get everything settled in preparation for moving to our new house, so the blog has suffered.

But, I promised a picture of the "makeover" Laura got in celbration of selling our Utah house. Really, she just got her hair done (with highlights) and some nails for the first time.

I really like the look!

SOLD!!!

We officially sold our house today!!

We got another offer on our house, and it was a cash offer so not much chance of falling through due to financing woes! It was a Japanese investor. It was looking so solid, but the amount of documents that have to be signed due to relocation about killed it yesterday. We had just one final document to go, and the guy was making comments like, "maybe this just isn't meant to be" because of all the documents. We were so stressed last night because of that.

But he finally got the last doc back to us today, and now we have a signed & executed purchase & sale from the relocation company, so it's now a done deal!! If the guy backs out before closing, it's still the relocation company's house.

When we first heard about the offer, we called our realtor here & went hunting. We had a few in mind & looked at those. We had one picked out, but figured we had some more time so we went to a few she had printed off from her search.

The last one we went to was pretty much Laura's (and mine) dream house. It's painted just the way she envisioned painting, it has a nice sized yard - not too big, not too small - and it has a land buffer behind it that is forested with nice woods and a creek! Absolutly move-in ready. We won't even have to redecorate or paint or anything.

We put an offer in the next day and after just a little back-and-forth, the terms were settled & accepted ($10,000 under asking) - so we're under contract on it too!

Take a look at the pictures & such if you want here... they don't do justice to the back yard at all.
http://www.prucarolinas.com/Listing/ListingSearchResults.aspx?Search=78e1356f-3ce8-406d-a279-8f0739a6e8fd&SearchType=&ListingType=1&ListingDistrictTypeID=&FirstLetter=&Sort=6

The very back is lined with azaleas that will all bloom in the spring & it will be awesome!

And this is a virtual tour...
http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?t=1214320&prt=20

We don't close until Dec. 14th, so wish us luck in being patient while being so excited to get out of the apartment we've been in (it's nice, but gets cramped with the kids fighting in this close of quarters).

We should be moving in on the 15th (we hope). If anyone can make it to help us move in, that would be great! :-) - no really, the moving company should do all of the heavy work. We'll just have to unpack & put things away.

Anyway, that's why there haven't been many blog entries lately - stress!! - we'll talk to you all later!

Next entry is Laura's celebratory funky cool hair-do (can you say frosted highlights?) and nails!

Scarecrow Sarah

I was downloading the pictures off of the camera and noticed this from this fall.

For those that didn't know, Sarah was in a community play with the Gene Fulmer Rec Center. She was the Scarecrow in a modified Wizard of Oz. She did an awesome job!! Had a solo song (someone else sang too - just so that they had a singing part, but it was really all Sarah with her booming voice & great scarecrow-like gangly-leged moves)!

Hear are pictures we took of here & a freind that came to see her.

The pond near-by

There is a nice pond near our appartment (Laura passes by while walking Lydia). It has ducks, geese, swans, frogs, fish, and all sorts of things in or near it so the girls are just enthrawled with it. They love to take some bread down & feed the ducks and swans.

Here's a few pictures from the area:

Keri took this one with her phone today.

This is Laura's great photography.

The girls having fun!

Brennen's Birthday

Well, it was Brennen's birthday on Tuesday. We pre-ordered Guitar Hero III for the Wii from Walmart.com as his present. The kids at seminary gave him a huge birthday card (full poster-board folded in half), and a whole bunch of candy.

We had an ice-cream cake since he doesn't like regular cake all that much. We lit some really tall candles that Laura got. Brennen tried to blow them out before Laura could take a picture. When I finally let him, he pretend-sneezed to put them out & it looked pretty darn real. Then, Laura was late on the snapshot becaused of that - and then the batteries were low so she couldn't get it to go again while he 'posed' blowing them out.

Luckily, Keri had videoed it all on her phone. Here it is for your enjoyment.

Here's the late photo...

And a rare smile from Brennen...