Vegetables are apparently poisonous to 12-year olds

Who knew?

We have now experienced pretty impressive tantrums from 3 out of our 4 nieces. Oddly enough (or maybe not so oddly for those of you with more kid experience than us), the youngest has proven to be the pound-for-pound champ of fit-pitching in our house so far.

I dunno, maybe we should have gotten the big one.

(ceiling is 9 feet tall)

DR Pics

Here are some pics from our trip to the Dominican Republic. After the stressful nature of the last few months, we figured we were due for a nice relaxing trip, and that's what we had!

Facebook

After a lengthy "negotiation" period with friends, I have finally joined Rhonda on the Dark Side of Facebook.

As I sort through my emails trying to figure out how to use this thing (whispers loudly), I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS DECISION! /Ron Burgundy mode>

Dominican pics on the way later today...

DR is OK so far

Got down here without any issue. Getting through the airport was a breeze- this was the easiest country to "enter" we've encountered so far. Resort is beautiful. Getting ready to take lots of pics and have a few Presidente Beers. Well, it's only 8:24 AM, so that last part may have to wait a couple of hours...

Carolina life so far

We're still a bit shell-shocked, but beginning to settle in.

Some good things about living in Greenville:
* Proximity to family and old friends - Over the past few weeks, we've been to Franklin to visit M&P, they came down to visit us, we spent a weekend in Charleston w/Dad/Judy/Michelle/April/Anastasia, Rhonda's been to Tryon several times, Courtney and Katheren have been down several times separately and apart to spend the night, and Jason/Shauna/Kayla/Amara spent a weekend with us. It's especially nice having Courtney and Katheren able to pop in just about any time. Courtney's spent the most time of any company, and is remarkably easy to manage for a youngster.
* A small, but blossoming, beer culture - There's only one Portland (AKA "Beervana", AKA "Munich on the Willamette"), but there are a few spots to quench your thirst here. The Blue Ridge Brewing Company and the Greenville location of Barley's Taproom (best beer bar selection-wise in the state) are in the middle of downtown, a 25-minute walk/5-minute drive away.
* Pimento cheese - I'd forgotten this was anything more than a mayonnaise-laden orange goo at the grocery store, but the "real deal" is chunky, spicy and delicious! I'm addicted (and apparently, quite easy to please). I'm making it my personal mission to find the best version in town, and am planning to work on a recipe at home, too. Shrimp n' grits merits mention as well- love this stuff.

Some of the not-so-good-things about living in Greenville: Well, it's not Greenville's fault, but another old house means a never-ending list of chores, renovations and updates. Most recently, I spent a lot of time over the past week laying down insulation in the attic. It's about as much fun as it sounds, with long hours in a hot attic spent in long pants/shirts, gloves and a dust mask that keeps the dust out of your lungs, but not out of your eyeballs. Fall-through-the-ceiling accident count: 0. Dead bird count: 7 (I replaced the screen on all the attic vents, which should hopefully prevent unwanted winged visitors in the future).

Sometime soon, I'll tackle insulating the crawlspace. We also decided to pull the trigger on some new windows. We may be broke this winter, but will hopefully be toasty.

Attic before:

Attic after:
Rhonda, Courtney and Katheren finished painting the guest bedroom (we'd been saving it so Katheren could help). Now we've got ourselves a rainbow much like we had in the old house. Still haven't gotten all our pictures on the walls, but it's begining to feel a little more homey, if not quite home yet.

The girls' handiwork:

Off to the Dominican Republic on Thursday for a few days of well-earned (at least I like to think so) R&R.

Things you don't see in Portland, Vol. 1: Firearms Fundraiser

A candidate for the office of SC Adjutant General (the guy who runs the state National Guard) held a fundraiser on Saturday where 500 folks "paid $25 for barbecue, a clip of bullets for target practice and the chance to win a semiautomatic AK-47."

Couldn't he picked have picked a more appropriate gun to auction off than the assault rifle of choice for the 'bad guys'??

BTW, the shooting range is 5 minutes away from our house, for anyone who wants to squeeze off a few rounds when they come to visit.

Jack's got a new buddy

The steely resolve of a man is no match for the tears of a woman, and thus I found myself outvoted 1-to-1 on the issue of whether we should get a new kitten. This is Oliver, who's had no trouble making himself at home so far. Katheren helped us pick him out at the humane society and he's been with us for about a week (Kat also holds the distinction of being the first overnight guest at the house). Jack obviously gets along with him just fine. George, apparently uninterested in giving young Oliver the smackdown he deserves, tolerates repeated pounces, grabs, bites and tail tugs, knowing that naptime will come soon enough.

I'm still adjusting to my longer commute (30 mins vs 5) and work environment (much more of a typical/sterile office than I was accustomed to in Portland). Lots of friendly familiar faces, though. Rhonda's been keeping herself busy unpacking and with lots of little improvement projects. It's been raining for several days straight down here- looking forward to things drying up a bit so we can get out and explore town (and share our findings).

The Drive is done!

Didn't have net access for day 3 (and our home internet doesn't get set up until Wednesday), but we got in around 8:45 last night. Total mileage: ~2,800. Total road hours, including lunch/gas/stretch breaks: ~48.5. Coming down into Texas from Colorado on day 3, we had an unplanned stop of 1.5 hours due to a big accident that closed the road. In all states, we had delays due to construction (are all the states spending their stimulus $ on road projects?). Other than that, the trip went very smoothly, all things considered. And we slept like rocks last night in our own bed!

The Drive, day 2

Another busy day today. Ogden->Lamar, CO- 723 miles, and again ~12 hours. Mediocre-bordering-on-crappy dinner at the Cow Palace in tiny Lamar, but otherwise a nice day with plenty of interesting scenery. Got off the interstate for a nice long drive on the High Plains Highway (Hwy 287), which will take us into the OK panhandle and down to Amarillo tomorrow. From there, we'll catch I-40 eastward. Tomorrow should be a relatively easy day (planning only ~620 miles/10 hrs).

The Drive, day 1

We are pretty busted (12 hours on the road will do that to you), so just a quick update about the first day of the trip:
* 732 miles, Portland to Ogden, Utah.
* Jack loves riding, but George was calm and did fine, too.
* The truck is JAM PACKED full of stuff (don't ask- yes, we know we supposedly moved already).
* Picnic lunch at a rest stop, very solid dinner at Patricia's Homestyle Mexican across the street from the hotel. Recommended for sure the next time you're passing through northern Utah! Not recommended is having a beer while you're here, as state law dictates a cap of 3.2% ABV (that's a bit like a broken pencil; it doesn't have a point).

If tomorrow goes as planned, we'll cover a similar distance and end up in Lamar, CO.

Getting closer

It's a good thing our social calendar is filled up with lots of goodbye events this week. The movers arrived with our stuff in Greenville last week, so we're living a fairly spartan lifestyle at the Portland house right now. We've got our trusty air mattress (which has seen several nights in Portland, flew to Greenville for a week, and came back with us for these last few days). We've got 2 lawn chairs (which also serve as our dining and sitting chairs inside). And we've got a moving box for a makeshift table.
Fancy, huh?

This is our last full week of work. Rhonda has to work the weekend, and my last day is Monday. We'll be hitting the road sometime next week. We got some of the unpacking done Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, but have plenty to keep us busy for a while once we're settled in for good. I'm scheduled to start work in SC on 9/9.

Dad came up for a few days to help with a few odd projects and, most importantly, getting the house painted. His power roller really came in handy. Below are a few before/after pics. The only room we didn't paint was the middle bedroom (AKA "Catheren's room")- Catheren wants to help paint that one, and you'll hear no complaints from me!

The whole house was this beige color before.We livened up the living/dining room with a warmer brown.

Master bedroom.

Front bedroom (AKA 'the Mancave', because that's where the TV is going).

Even after unpacking, some of the house will look a bit empty for a while. We don't have enough furniture to fill it yet, but we want to live in it for a while before deciding on specific pieces of furniture we need.

Packing is done!

No thanks to George, who's always thought boxes make sweet playhouses. We have quite a bit of stuff to load up for the roadtrip the first week of September, but everything is ready for the movers. They're due to arrive early Tuesday morning, and the auto transport guys should be coming by sometime Monday. These boxes may not look like much, but they represent a healthy amount of labor invested over the past couple of weeks (you don't realize how much crap you have until you try to pack it all!).

It is HOT out here

Check out the high temps in Portland over the last few days:
103
106 (just missed the all-time record by 1 degree)
106 again
98 (forecast for today)

But it's a dry heat (kind of like an oven). Should be 'cooling down' to the low 90s for the weekend and then into the low 80s next week. That's good news for our buyer, as we're doing our best to keep the backyard plants alive for her.

Quick update on our move status

Once we get settled in our new home, we should be able to provide more frequent updates (and hopefully about more interesting stuff than moving).

Last week was challenging at times, but we did close on the Portland house Thursday and the Greenville house Friday as planned. "Highlights" of the week included:
* Our funding from the sale of the Portland house arriving 3 hours later than we planned. It ended up not being a big deal, but caused a little last-minute squirming.
* Cleaning the house with no AC. The thermostat in the front room read as high as 88- perfect temp for scrubbing on your hands and knees! (The seller included a home warranty, so our realtor is getting it fixed with no cost to us between now and the time we get back.)
* Not being able to get our stackable washer/dryer installation finished because the dryer outlet's at floor level and the power cord won't reach. (Silver lining- The contractor who worked on the house stopped by to drop off keys and offered to move the outlet for free when we get back.)

On a more positive note:
* We can walk to the heart of downtown in ~25 minutes.
* We found a few pretty good restaurants, and it sounds like there are a lot more (I will definitely post some restaurant reviews in the future).
* We seem to have a very friendly neighborhood.

Next steps:
* Pack, pack pack!
* Vehicles and stuff will be picked up by the movers 8/10 or 8/11 and should arrive in Greenville the week of 8/17. We'll be flying down there again to babysit the movers and do some painting before heading back to Portland for the last week of August and the first few days of September.

OK, this is a little better

Still kinda messy, but everything left is hitting the road with us. Finished up in time to avoid a heat stroke, too! Already been to Goodwill, off to the dump now...

How are we celebrating Independence Day?

Well, Rhonda's working until 6:00 p.m., but I think she got the better end of the deal. My mission is to channel the spirit of the day into cleaning out the garage (Freedom From Clutter!). We plan on using the garage to stage some of our packed boxes, so my goal is to have nothing in the garage that isn't going to Greenville by the end of the day. A tall order, to be sure. Take a look at what I'm dealing with:

Oh, and it's supposed to 94 degrees today! Don't worry, though, I have lots of frosty American-made beverages onhand to keep me cool.

Repairs on Greenville house next week

The inspection revealed a few contractually obligated repairs (modified joist under bathroom remodel, support post under dining room in contact with soil, one outlet not working) plus a couple of additional fixes we requested (modern wiring spliced to old 'knob and tube', a plumbing supply pipe under house not secured to framing). The seller agreed to fix everything and contractors will begin repairs Monday or Tuesday.

We're running out of things to worry about housewise. Now we're concentrating on getting quotes from moving companies.

Quick update on the houses

We did a little post-inspection negotiation with the buyer for the Portland house and signed off on the final addendum to the contract last night. We should be good to go on the sale now, and are scheduled to close on Thursday, 7/23. Oregon law does not require the seller to be onsite for closing, so we'll be able to sign the papers before our next trip to Greenville.

The inspection on the Greenville house was completed yesterday. There are a few things that came up that we'll discuss with our realtor. Nothing of a 'deal-breaker' nature, but potentially a couple of opportunities to negotiate some concessions from the seller there. Still scheduled to close on Friday, 7/24. The appraisal was just completed today, and cleared up a couple of things for us: official year built is 1963 and official square footage is 1,510.

Found a new house!

Well, waddya think?


After a marathon 2 days of househunting (plus another day of negotiations), we found a house we love and are now under contract to buy it! Hard to believe we were able to sell one house and start the buying process on another within a few days of each other. The Portland house is scheduled to close on July 23rd, and the Greenville house is scheduled for the next day.

A funny story to embarrass Courtney (the 4-year old) with when she's older: she helped pick this house out by giving one of the bathrooms a "test drive" when nature (urgently) called...

It's a really cute 3 bedroom/2 bathroom 1940's house on historic Earle Street. It's actually quite small compared to most of the stately brick houses on the street, but it should be plenty big enough for us. We definitely sacrificed property size for location, but the proximity to downtown was impossible to pass up. We can drive to the heart of downtown in ~3 minutes. It's also easily walkable, and there's even a free trolley with a stop 1.5 blocks from the house that we can take downtown or to the baseball park.

Downtown Greenville sure has grown up a lot since we last visited. There's tons to see and do (plenty to blog about in the future). Here's a few more pictures. Rhonda can hardly wait to start throwing some paint up on the walls!

The house sold in 2 days!

Hard to believe, but we accepted a offer on the house roughly 48 hours after it went on the market. Full price and the buyer is paying their own closing costs, too. We actually had 3 other offers as well, including another full price one, and that was all before the open house today! There were, I believe, 10 different official showings between Thursday afternoon an Saturday evening. The buyer is shooting to have the inspection done this week while we're still in the Carolinas, and closing should happen in late July.

Our realtor interrupted our hard-earned weekend of R and R hanging out with Mamaw and Papaw, Candy, and Jason's gang to get the process underway, but it was certainly worth it.

Heading down to Greenville early tomorrow for the first of 3 days of neighborhood explorations and househunting. If we don't find something we love on this trip, we've got another planned in late July. Nieces Katheren and Courtney are sleeping over with us and will be our assistants during this process. After a big afternoon of playing in the hotel pool, they're out like a light right now. So's Aunt Rhonda, who's not been sleeping too well worrying over all this real estate 'stuff'.

We're torn between living right in or close to downtown Greenville or being further out of town with more property. Hopefully being down there in person for these few days will help us figure things out.

Putting lipstick on a pig

If our house was a farm, our bathroom would definitely be the pig. Without the funds or the time to put together a sweet remodel like we did with the kitchen, we opted to slap some lipstick on that pig to purty her up a little bit before the house hits the market.

Rhonda most of the work this weekend, which included a thorough scrubbing, de-molding (we're not filthy people, but there's no exhaust fan and mold can hide in steamy corners), new caulk, priming and painting the walls. I also put together a hillbilly fix with the broken faucet handles with Gorilla Glue. I'm putting a quick coat of paint on the ceiling this evening. After that, all that's left is for our plumber to replace the broken overflow/drain plug assembly on the tub Thursday.

It was a busy weekend for me, too. While Rhonda had her hands full inside, I mowed, trimmed and edged the yard, pressure washed the house and walkway, scraped and repainted the old peeling trim underneath the gutters. Since the gutters are brand new and shiny white, the trim was sticking out like a sore thumb. Took a good days work up and down the ladder Sunday to get 2 coats on.

Should get some interesting information tomorrow. Our Portland realtor has spent the last few days researching the market- sales of comparable houses in the last few months, etc. She lives and specializes in real estate in our neighborhood (and is a friend of a good friend), so we're pretty comfortable with her. Tuesday afternoon we're meeting to discuss her findings. At that time we'll find out a number of things, including what she suggests for an asking price on the house.

So, what do you think of the pig? If you quickly look at it and say, "that's not too bad", then mission accomplished!

Kitchen transformation slideshow

CLICK HERE for pictures that show the entire transformation from eyesore to selling point (that last part will be important in the near future...).

Meant to get these up yesterday, but our computer seems just about ready to croak on us.

Kitchen is done!

Too bad we won't be in Oregon much longer to enjoy it...

I'll post a link to a "kitchen transition" photo album sometime over the 3-day weekend.

Jason's 2nd weekend with us

Highlights of Jason's 2nd weekend here (5/1-5/3) included:

• A trip to Podnah's, the best BBQ joint (and possibly my favorite restaurant) in town. Jason gave the pulled pork his stamp of approval.
• Narrowly avoiding repetitive motion injury with endless games of Mario Kart on the Wii.
• A trip to the McMenamins Edgefield for some pitch and putt. The Pub Course is inspired by Burningbush, for anyone who's read Golf in the Kingdom.

The elements were against us at first, and Rhonda was the only with brains enough to stay in the clubhouse to wait out the showers while Jason and I headed out to the first tee. The clubhouse doubles as a bar, which I suppose makes her doubly smart. After about 5 minutes, the clouds opened up and we came running (and dripping) back feeling not a little sheepish.

Eventually, though, the skies looked a little more promising and we all headed out to give it another shot. Here's Jason working out the kinks on his rusty swing:

Me displaying my signature "Giant Man With a Tiny Club" putting stance:

About halfway through the round, the rain started pouring again. Luckily, we know the property like the back of our hands, and there are plenty of places to wait out a storm. Here's Rhonda leading the way to the The Little Red Shed, a cozy little Hobbitish kind of spot:

And here we are inside doing what Hobbits do best (if you look closely, a pint or 2 of ale are in the pic):

Back on the course for a somewhat sunny finish to the round:

All in all, a fun end to the weekend, and much less stressful than regular golf!

Back to bloggin'

The kitchen's getting very close to being done now. We're planning on finishing up the paint tomorrow. After that, Vern will do some trim above and below the cabinets, and that will be just about it! Here are some pics showing the progress of the last few weeks, including a sneak preview of the paint color (quite bold and dark, but we figured the light cabinets would allow us to get away with it.

Jason's Forest Service training is based in Corvallis (staying in the dorms at Oregon State University, where Rhonda got her Pharm. D.). It's only ~90 miles from the house. (Actually, Rhonda just reminded me it's exactly 92 miles. She should know, since she drove it daily for 2 years!). He was able to spend last weekend with us, and will be with us this weekend as well. Here are a few pics we took last Sunday on the Triple Falls trail in the Columbia River Gorge.

Next updates should be about Jason's second weekend with us and (fingers crossed) a finished kitchen!

Kitchen's starting to look like a kitchen

Seems I'm falling behind on my updates!

Vern thinks he'll be done with his part this coming week, including the tile countertops, the rest of the cabinets and their doors/hardware. Then it will be up to Rhonda and I to execute the finishing touches like paint. It's actually starting to look like a functional kitchen now- what do you think?

A few random things:

Scored some great tickets to the Blazers game Friday night. These are the best seats we've ever had for an NBA game. Took this picture without zooming- we were 3 rows behind the Blazers bench! Shaquille O'Neal (#32) is the biggest man we've ever seen in person. He's massive! Officially, he's listed as 3-1, 325 lbs. He pretty much dwarfed Joel Przybilla (immediately to his right), who's also 7-1, but "only" 245. Rhonda hates nothing more than sports on TV, but a live game is something entirely different, plus she can have cotton candy, which she loves!

Got confirmation that Jason will be coming out for training in Corvallis for a couple of weeks, and it looks like his weekends (4/25-26 and 5/2-3) will be free. I'll be sure to share some stories/pics of his time with us.

Fran the Van has some sort of issue we have to get checked out soon. She crapped out on us at an intersection last weekend (complete lack of power) and we had to have her towed home. I'm guessing it has something to do with fuel delivery- hopefully it's an easy (and not too expensive) fix like a clogged fuel line.

Jack got a puncture wound in one of his paws and we've held him out of daycare for the past couple of weeks. It's taking quite a while to heal, although it doesn't seem to be causing him any pain (he did limp noticeably the first few days).