Our New House In Spokane!

Okay, I sort of promised I'd tell you about the house, so even though I'm exhausted and would really rather go back to bed, here goes! First of all, it has a basement! And a backyard!!! With a fence around it! Love it, love it, love it! It's pretty small. Much smaller than it looked in the pictures, although the bathroom is actually bigger than it looks in the pictures. Still small, though. It actually has four bedrooms, even though it's no advertised as having four bedrooms, cause they can't officially classify the fourth one as a bedroom, because it has no windows. It's in the basement. There's a small, kind of recreation room downstairs and the washroom on the other side for the washer and dryer. There's even those big utility sinks like my mom has in her washroom! So handy! And next two the washroom is like a pantry area, cellar type thing! There's all sorts of shelving and things built in for storage. It's got some neat, storage features that are really impossible to explain. You'd have to see it, and some of you probably will, eventually :) We're planning to put all our entertainment stuff in the recreation room. The tv and all of the video equipment and what not. We'll probably put a lot of the kids toys down there as well. Honestly, the bedrooms aren't much bigger than our bedrooms in the trailer, but with the downstairs, it'll make all the difference, cause all their playthings won't have to be in the bedroom with them. There's also a small, 3/4 bath downstairs. It's a sink and a toilet with one of those single standing shower stalls. It's not fancy, but it'll work. Jeremiah doesn't require much, so I would imagine he'll use that one a lot, since he's already downstairs anyway. Upstairs in the main part of the house, are, of course, the other three bedrooms. The girls will still share a room and we'll most likely use the extra room as a guest room/office type thing. We'll decide more once we get everything up there and start situating ourselves. The kitchens not real big and there's hardly any counter space, but we're thinking of putting a folding table in the dining room with the toaster, and microwave and all that to free up some space. Also Josh is thinking of either buying or building one of those rollaway bar type things, for some more counter space, cause there's literally like only a small square of counter space on either side of the sink. It does have a dishwasher. A fairly nice one from the looks of it, so that's great! Of course, a small dining room that has a blackboard! I may have to explain to the kids what that is :) Yes, personally, I would prefer a white board and will probably replace it with one eventually. We have a whiteboard at home, which I'll probably put somewhere else and save that space for another one maybe. I don't know. We'll just have to see. I know we'll probably change our minds a zillion times before we decide for sure how we want to use each space. We have some patio space outside, which is very nice. The living room has a gas fireplace which is really nice and has a lovely inlaid (I think that's how you say it) picture of three horses running, which my youngest daughter is especially going to love!!! She absolutely loves horses! I must admit, I kind of liked it, too. I am totally in love with that gas fireplace as well! Awesome! I've always loved the way a fireplace makes a home feel cozy, but never liked the mess it can make, or the whole idea of an actual fire in the house or even one I have to light. I have this very unreasonable fear of fire. Apparently from my childhood. From what my sister has told me, I guess she and her friend threatened to burn me (literally) if I told on them for playing with matches and candles and such in my dad's pull trailer thing out in the field with the cows, when I caught them doing that. So anyway, I'm terrified of fire to this day. I'm a little better than I used to be, but I'm still uncomfortable with even well controlled flames nearby. Anyway, all that to say that the gas fireplace is the perfect solution to all that. That has to be my favorite feature of the whole house! And then, of course, the small bathroom upstairs. It really isn't big enough for doing make up and what-not, so I'm going to have to put some kind of make-up station in my room and eventually in the girl's room, too. Just thought of that. Wow! Of course they have all kinds of built in storage space right outside the bathroom and bedrooms. The closets are tiny, so we're going to have to do some extra things to make more room for clothes, but we've got some ideas on that anyway. Working on it. It'll be fun. An actual house!!! With a basement and everything! Oh, yeah, and there's a nice big shed outside as well! Oh, and one more thing! The ad said no pets, but we inquired about that and they're letting us keep our cat, Jewel! We were thrilled about that. We weren't looking forward to having to say goodbye to one who has become a member of the family in her own right! So, the family will not be split apart :)

Jewel

You guys have heard about my cat, Jewel, I am sure. Well, this is Jewel. I guess the girls decided to give her a "bow." I don't think she likes it too much, but she puts up with so much from the kids, sweet thing!