About Me

My photo
We were married in September 2005. We're best friends, and we love traveling and exploring new places. We like sci-fi movies and watching the history channel. Our little boy was born February 1, 2010. He is named Jeff Jr. or JJ. Our daughter Moira was born July 28, 2011. We have a cat named Munchkin. Jeff is a career military officer, and Karen works for a family services program for the Army. We live in Monterey, California. We are making this blog for our family and friends who we miss and want to share our life with.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Amsterdam

Posted by Picasa

Windmilll

Posted by Picasa

Dad D & Jon

Posted by Picasa

Windmill museum

Posted by Picasa

In Amsterdam

Posted by Picasa

June 2009 - Mission San Luis Obispo

Jeff was supposed to deploy to Iraq in September 2009. He has not deployed. He did some training down in San Luis Obispo. Here are some pictures I took while he was training. The mission was closed to tourists, its local church. The grounds were beautiful!
Posted by Picasa

Mission San Luis Obispo

Posted by Picasa

Mission San Luis Obispo

Posted by Picasa

Mission San Luis Obispo

Posted by Picasa

Missin San Luis Obispo

Posted by Picasa

Jeff's rock garden

Posted by Picasa

Mini-rose garden

Posted by Picasa

August 2009


The canna Lillies grew!
Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa

August 2009


We had more tomatoes than we could eat!
Posted by Picasa

May 2009


Jeff made these planter boxes for me. I love them!
Posted by Picasa

May 2009 - Succulent Garden

Posted by Picasa

May 2009 - yard

Posted by Picasa

Back yard drainage


The slope of the yard is towards our house, aren't we lucky? We put in a french drain in May. It was a fun day for Jeff!
Posted by Picasa

it was a long drain

Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa

Jeff with the ditch witch

Putting in our French drain system in the back yard
Posted by Picasa

Monday, March 02, 2009

Our New House!

This year we had an amazing Christmas present, the keys to our first home!

We started looking for houses in September when it looked as if the market was turning in our favor. I can't tell you how many houses we looked at before we found our home. The home is two years old on the northeast side of Salinas. The home had been foreclosed on in September 2008, and as near as we can tell, was lived in for less than a year.

California does a slightly different closing process than the rest of the country. We have a two part process here. We signed all the loan documents on December 12th and then the seller signs the documents in another meeting, after we sign. The seller, a bank, had so many homes in their inventory, it took them nearly two weeks to send a representative to sign the documents. We finally got the keys on December 23rd! It was an amazing feeling to unlock the door to our own home.

Its gorgeous! The master bathroom had carpet on the floor, so Karen's parents flew in to help us redo the bathroom with tile. Finished pictures of that are coming soon.

We are so happy to have our own home. We still walk around sometimes and can't believe this is our place. We are so happy with the layout, the size and the neighborhood!

Our House!

Posted by Picasa

Sitting room at entrance

Posted by Picasa

Entrance - stairs to second floor

Posted by Picasa