quick update

Since Joelle has accused me of having the most boring post ever, I'll at least give a quick update of what's new. 2 exciting things have recently taken place....
On Friday night, we sold our house!! We are so so so happy that it sold and now we can focus on packing & moving.
Jackson has finally decided that walking is beneficial after all! He had been taking a few steps here and there by himself, or walking pretty far holding onto something, but last night walked from our living room to our kitchen with a remote control in each hand. Eventually he even figured out that the remotes weren't really helping him, and will now walk on his own. Crawling is still his quickest mode of transportation, but I have a feeling that won't be for much longer!
Pictures to come soon...just wanted something else besides my boring list :)

100 Books

Unless you like to read, this post will not interest you in the slightest! For my fellow book-lovers, I copied this from my friend Sonya's blog. Copy & Paste on your blog....Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you want to read. Leave plain the ones you aren't interested in. Movies don't count. It's a great list for people like me who always want a good book (I should say "literature" because I am aways more than happy to pick up a Karen Kingsbury and think those are great books!) to read but don't know where to begin!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden).
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) **Jon's favorite!
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier) **MY FAVORITE!
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

More Beach Pictures

Might as well post a few more beach pictures while I'm procrastinating and have a few minutes....

Jackson & Daddy


Playing in the sand


With Aunt JoJo

Back to Reality!

After a great week at Ocean City, we are back home once again! We had a wonderful vacation but it is always nice to come back to home sweet home and be in a normal routine again. Jackson loved his time at the beach (we were a little worried when on the 1st day, he refused to put his feet in the sand). He was so good for us, even though he is currently in the midst of getting 6, yes 6, teeth. I loved relaxing on the beach and playing games almost every night with the family. Back to reality and busy life now though...yesterday we got home after a 6 hour trip (including stopping for lunch and terrible traffic), checked our messages and realized we had to go back to the mall because I had preordered Harry Potter for Jon and we only had a few hours left in order to get it 40% off. We also had a message from the movie rental place saying that we had a free rental since we haven't been there for awhile, which we also only had a few hours left to get. So, we went to the mall, then Jon dropped Jack & I off back at home and he went to pick out a movie (Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrell....it was pretty good), and to pick our dog up at the vet where he had spent the week. Today we had Sunday School and church and then came home to straighten up for an Open House from 1-4. We were told it went well, so hopefully we'll hear an offer soon! We were sad to have to miss small group tonight....airplane rides and a BBQ!

Anyway, we have a ton of pictures from the beach, but here are just a couple since our computer is being so slow tonight....

Cleaning, Packing, Cooking...

Here's the promised picture of the new place....the hedge in front will be one of the first things to go!

It's been a busy few days, trying to clean the house so the Open House can happen on Sunday, packing for the 3 of us for the beach, and cooking my meals for the beach, all while Jackson is getting more teeth and being very Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Ocean City, here we come! We can't wait for this week of fun & relaxation! Not much to update on, just wanted to post a picture of the house & one of Jack (I've been feeling guilty that I haven't posted his pic lately, because I know that's why many of you read this!) It's a very random one, because I haven't taken many pictures lately but that will all change this week I'm sure.

*I just got a new cell phone #....I am with Verizon now, and am sharing minutes with family to save some money each month. I will only be using my cell phone after 9 PM and on weekends from now on, unless you are with Verizon too - then calls are free, so let me know! Thanks!

On The Market

Our townhouse is officially "on the market!" We are hoping it sells very quickly...it's already a stress trying to keep it neat enough in case someone wants to stop by and take the tour. Our vacation is next week so hopefully lots of people come through while we are gone and make great offers! Here's a picture for those of you who have never had the chance to visit us at our 1st home...and if you click here, you can see some more. We have loved living here; it was the perfect place for our family for 3 years, but we're so excited to make the move to a bigger place with a yard. The inspection last week went well...nothing huge that we weren't expecting. I did take some pictures so I can start planning paint colors, etc. for the inside - I'll have some great before & after pics eventually! I'll post a picture of the outside of the new place hopefully this week before we leave.

Please pray for this family...I have never met them, but they are college friends of one of my cousins, and for those of us living here in Lancaster county, they are local so you may have heard of them...they just lost their precious 2 year old girl after a long battle with cancer. The funeral was this morning...I can't even imagine.

SOLD!

Definitely time for an update, and there's actually something exciting to write about...we just bought a house! It has all happened so fast, it's hard to believe. We weren't even seriously looking to move yet. I had seen a house advertised that I thought was so cute, but the price was not so cute! I kept checking once in awhile and the price dropped twice, and then we decided to go look at it. Jon's uncle Fred is a realtor, which has been a HUGE blessing, because we know we can trust him! Anyway Fred took us to look at the house and we liked it right away. The next week we went back with Jon's parents and we all liked it....J & I even more than the first time. So we decided to make an offer...and then got a counteroffer...and then made a counter-counteroffer, which they accepted! We are so excited yet feeling slightly nervous & overwhelmed with everything that needs to take place in the next 2 months (settlement is August 31).
Anyway, the house....it's on Ridge Road, for those of you who live around here...the Ridge Rd off of Groff, not the other Ridge Rd or the Ridge Rd headed to Hershey (or Ridge Run, Ridgeview, Ridgeview N, etc, etc....roads tend to be a little crazily named around here). It's a Cape Cod with a little over 1/2 acre. The yard will be a ton of work....there's ivy everywhere instead of grass and fences galore (someone who lived there once used to breed dogs). The inside is nice but not my taste...lots of wallpaper and repainting that needs to be done. I'm anxious to get in and start and hoping we get a chance to do that before we actually move in. Inspection is this Thursday....should be interesting....pray everything goes well! Our townhouse should be on the market hopefully by the end of the week!
In other news, not a lot going on. Jack has had a pretty bad cold for the past several days but has been a sweetie through it. I have a terrible sore throat...might be feeling a little better today...hope its not strep. I'm trying not to go to the doctor's for a strep test because I really don't feel like paying the copay. If it lasts much longer I'll have to though.
Sorry no pictures for this post! I'll try to take some of the new house on Thursday!
***HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KARLA! Another year that I remember your b-day but forget to send a card :) Love ya!