Our first home

kid not for sale!

2004 when we bought our house.
the front yard and fence that we have completely re done.

moving in with gross mirrors and yellow walls.

awesome wallpaper. the future Bens room.

pink dining room. because that is really cool apparently.

the room previous to Siena arriving. nice and orange.



Some of our repairs over the last couple years.

mom finishing laying our new sod as the sun goes down.

totally re done flower bed and nice doors.

Siena loving her bright room.

Dave decorating Siena's room for the nursery.

Ben's room. He loves looking at all the baseball cards put around his room.

It has finally come time that we find a bigger house. This has been our first house. Dave and I were married in September and we bought this home that December so we have been here almost our whole married life. I have loved this house and the neighborhood and am really sad to leave. We have been here 6 1/2 years and I think that is the longest I have ever lived in one home. Most of all I brought my babies home to this house. We decorated for them and walked the halls a million times trying to get them to sleep. We have a lot of good memories here. They learned how to do many things here for the first times. They also are the reason we are getting a bigger house and I have to keep reminding myself that they need more space. We have loved this home so much and are so grateful for the good place that it has been. We bought right at the beginning of the big market boom. We found this place after looking for a while and I knew we had to have it right away. It was in a good neighborhood and it had a yard. Our requirements for a home when we were first buying was that it had to have a place for a kitchen table and a king size bed. Those were the only things we owned and a couch. You wouldn't think that that was too much to ask but it was kinda hard to find a place. We came the next day for the open house and then made an offer. I think 6 other people did too. The lady remembered us and liked us so we worked some deal out and bought the house. The yard was a mess. The dining room was pink and all the walls in the rest of the house were orange and yellow. She had wallpaper all over. It was a mess but we had no idea what we were doing we were just happy to have a home. We fixed it up a lot before the kids came along. I can't even say how much I love this house and how sad I am to leave. If only I could make it bigger.
So after going to open houses for a couple months we decided it was time. We fixed up our home and cleared out all the stuff. We found a great realtor and put it on the market late Friday night. Saturday morning we got a call from someone that wanted to see it. A guy was up from Norfolk, va and was looking at houses all weekend. Ours had just come on the market and he wanted to see it. He loved it and Sunday morning 9 a.m. we got a call that he made an offer. The offer was good and we accepted it. The only thing was that he wanted in in a month and we didn't have a house to go to.

I quickly started looking at homes with our realtor. It was stressful to me and because we had been looking for months at open houses we knew a little better of what we wanted. We have found one in Springfield Va. So hopefully it shouldn't make Daves commute too much longer. It is in a nice neighborhood with a short walk to a nature center. It has good schools and we are really excited. When Siena and Ben were looking for houses with us their only requirement was Siena wanted a purple room and Ben wanted a basketball hoop. We found one with a purple room and we have 2 basketball hoops that we are taking so our kids are happy. We are too and hope it will be a great place like this one has been. Best of all there isn't a lot to do to the house it is nice and will have tons of space for us to grow. So my hope is that we will be there forever and not have to move ever again... I can hope.

Fathers Day

Dave is a great Dad.We had a great day and tried to spoil him all day long. We made a golf cake for him that the kids loved. They were so excited eating it. They especially loved the trees (mike n ikes). Happy Fathers Day we love you.

I signed Ben up for this ball class at the Rec Center. He loved it. I was a little hesitant because we did one with Siena a year back and it was pretty unorganized. This one was completely different. The teacher was great and Ben loved her. It was called gym jam and we were in the big track. They played all sorts of ball games (and you wonder why Ben loved it) and obstacle courses and such. They learned to take turns and work together, it was wonderful. I highly recommend Ms. Jewels if you are taking a Rec Center class around here. She does this class and a cooking for kids class, it sounds really fun where the kids actually get recipes and make something.

Last day in Cleveland

The Christmas Story House. Pretty randomly it is in Cleveland. It is in this really weird neighborhood. You can take tours but you have to pay so we didn't go.

I will finally be done with this trip. Monday morning was Scarletts 2nd birthday. We started the day at the pool and it was so warm. Almost too warm to swim in. The kids loved it. Becca brought glow sticks for the kids so they danced around the room with those until they started fighting each other with them. We were going to spend the day at this awesome park they had there but it decided to rain. So we went out and bought cupcakes and ice cream and found a Chick Fill A where we could have a little party before we parted ways. The Chick Fill A ended up being in a mall but we still went. We brought all our stuff in and had the party anyway. There was a guy dressed up as a cow there and my kids hated it. The birthday girl loved it. We had a great time. Siena said it was the best birthday party ever! I think Siena needs to get out a little more but I am glad she had fun.

We love the Stones and are so glad we could see them. Next time we will go to Chicago but we loved Cleveland and were impressed that they guys planned the whole trip.

Kirtland

cute kids found a field to play in when they got tired of the tour. The poor missionaries that gave us the tour it was too long for us.

The room of the school of the prophets. Many revelations were revealed here.

they would put oil in this lamp when a man came to court his daughter they could put a lot of oil in or a little bit of oil in depending if they wanted the boy to stay long. I thought that was funny and that we may need one someday.

the kids exploring the flour and sugar barrels.

Joseph Smith and Emma's bedroom. cute little beds

Whitney Store where all the goods were sold. Apparently they owned a lot of things in the area.

inside the store.

The first LDS temple built

finally a cute picture of the kids!

I didn't know the front doors are green. They never show this view.

We did a church tour that I had never done before. We went to the site where the first temple for the LDS church was built. The temple is about 25 miles east of Cleveland. It is now owned and operated by the Community of Christ the former Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so you can take tours of it. It was very interesting to see all the differences and to be in such an important part of our church history. After we went to the town where the church members lived and worked.

Cleveland Zoo

not liking the frozen fish

exploring

a little too close for comfort.

It seems like we were there so long we did so much. On o ur final day we started the morning at the Cleveland Zoo. They have an amazing zoo. It is big and they have so many animals, I think it's even better than the National Zoo, sorry. Becca and I decided that all Zoo's are built on a hill on that is a really lame idea. Afterall kids are the people that come to the Zoo and the moms and dads have to push them up these huge hills. We started at the top where we had to zig zag up a path to the top of the hill. It was exhausting so it was good the boys were around. We got to the top and there was Cheetah right in front of us. It was so close to us. Then we went to the ape house/aquarium. Yes that sounds a little strange but they were combined. All the animals were very entertaining and they even had a shark. Siena thought it was going to escape the tank so she didn't get too close. The Zoo had different areas/parts of the world and we saw these cute Koala Bears. We saw Giraffes too which they don't have at the National Zoo anymore so it was fun. Siena and I waited in line to go in the Butterfly house. It was hot and humid but there were beautiful butterflies inside. Siena took all the pictures in there. One of our last stops at the Zoo was the Sea Lion pool. It was the coolest thing. For $1 you got 2 fish that you could feed the Sea Lions. We thought our kids would love it and they were excited until they held the frozen fish and they wouldn't throw it in. Scarlett was brave and did them. The big Sea Lion was the only one going after them and he would come up and beg for them. Very fun and I am glad we were there at the right time because I guess they only do it for an hour during the day.We were very impressed with the Cleveland Zoo.

Lake Erie

yes I am in the lake with my clothes on.

The kids loved Lake Erie. The adults thought it was disgusting. It is so dirty. You can't even see the ground as soon as you walk in to the water. The kids loved it though. They could walk out really far because it didn't drop off at all. We started by just playing in the sand and then the kids would go deeper and deeper and finally after Dan and Scarlett got in I had to go in with my kids. I decided I wouldn't change into my bathing suit. I am actually glad I didn't. Siena's bathing suit is trashed from the lake and my bathing suit was new so it would have been trashed too. I know I look kind of dumb in the lake with my clothes on but I fit in with the locals, there were tons of people just walking into the water. Not that I really want to fit in with the locals there, that place is a little crazy. Anyway the lake was fun and I give myself mother of the day award for going in that yucky lake. I think it's the farthest in water Ben has ever been. I think I was smart to go in the water because I missed the whole guy sitting next to us at the beach trying to water proof his ankle bracelet with duct tape and all the people smoking around us.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Ben loved this hotdog. I think it was used for the Phish concert that they rode in on it. You can see that it had four seats that could open in the hot dog part.

I think the big attraction to Cleveland is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was fun but as you can see we couldn't take our cameras in to take pictures of the exhibits. The boys were really looking forward to it and Becca and I were just hoping to keep the kids entertained long enough for the boys to enjoy it. 20 minutes in to the museum I got yelled at by a security guard because Ben touched Elvis Presleys car. Really was it that big of a deal. He went under the ropes surrounding it and brushed up against it. So that may be our only claim to fame that Ben touched Elvis Presleys car. It was a Cadillac and had his initials all over the car. Apparently he bought them for all the people that worked for him and one lucky lady who happened to be at the dealership the same time he was. Lucky lady. Siena really liked looking at the cool sparkly costumes and Ben liked looking at the guitars. I think the kids did pretty well. We lasted around 3 hours but the boys could have lasted a lot longer.