Halloween selfie

I didn't think I should go to the closing or to work in full Halloween regalia, so this was my compromise:

Celebrating Halloween with 30 years of indebtedness

So Fred and I bought a house this morning!

We put an offer on a house a couple miles away last spring, and I immediately felt it was a terrible mistake and was relieved when our offer was rejected. I knew that I really wanted to stay in this neighborhood, which is the perfect combination of house size and cost as well as location. Unfortunately, it's also a relatively small neighborhood, and houses just don't come on the market very often.

When this one was listed back in September, we were originally turned off by the amount of work it will take to make it reflect our tastes. It's beautifully decorated but much too fussy and fancy for us. Ultimately though we decided that if we were serious about staying in this neighborhood, we needed to grab this listing, and so we did.

Here we are after the walk-through and on our way to the closing:



Here are pictures of the sales flyer:









Let the wallpaper stripping begin!

Seen in Crystal City

I hope somebody takes it in when it rains:

Tallahassee weekend

I had a great time visiting Tallahassee this weekend. I don't have photos of all the highlights, but here are some memorable moments.

Watching Sassy and Kaela's cat, Castiel, play:





Shopping for FSU swag (don't worry--he didn't buy these pants):



Mike and Sarah opening Halloween goody bags from my sister:



Owls at the market:



Lunch at Gordo's:



Watching Mike try his hand at yoga:



Watching Mike try his hand at broga, which is yoga's redneck cousin:



Receiving an adorable selfie of Annabelle's new haircut:



Some of the delicious treats at Greek Fest:

Evolution of a dress

The Frozen dress is done and ready for Halloween!

Google me this, Batman

I happened to look up our house on Google Maps the other day and was unreasonably excited to see that they had replaced the photo that was obviously taken when the previous occupant lived here with a more recent one. Note the Florida State flag (and see my neighbor walking her dogs--you're going to want to click these pictures to see them larger):



I remembered that over the summer, Annabelle and I had been walking Ginger on the other side of the block when we saw the Google Maps truck drive by. I wondered if maybe we had made it onto the map. Sure enough:



I feel almost famous!

Don't cry for us, Argentina!

Date night at the Kennedy Center:

Another cute Annabelle selfie

Sewing project

I'm making a Princess Elsa dress (from Disney's Frozen) for the daughter of a good friend of mine:



Harvey likes to think he's helping, but really he's kind of a pain:

"May I help you knit?"

Go, Yellowjackets!

Annabelle cheered on her team today as part of the pep band:

Google selfie

Google came to talk to the computer science students at UR today, and they brought all kinds of lovely swag with them:

Reunion at Rochester

Annabelle's dear friend Maya paid a visit to Rochester today:

A series of September selfies

The sailboat necklace belonged to my grandmother. It always makes me happy to see Annabelle wearing it:



Check out my lovely new necklace:



Annabelle is too cute:



Mimosas with brunch:



Annabelle is working at the IT center on campus. Look how legit she is with her nametag:

Board meet-up

You guys have been hearing for years about my "invisible friends," other moms from a parenting board that I've been a part of since the glory days of America Online. This weekend my friend Angela came to town from Nebraska for a work conference in the city, so we used it as an excuse to have an east coast meet-up. Evey, Christine, and Jen drove in from out of town, and Deana came over for the day on Saturday. We had a great time! We may or may not have played a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity, and if we DID play, I'll never say who won.

Meeting Angela at the airport:



Our feet at TGIFriday's on Friday night (inside joke):



Group picture from Saturday:

Ice bucket challenge

Today some people from my company did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. I tried taking pictures with my phone, but they didn't come out very well. One of my co-workers got this one though, which is pretty decent:



I didn't participate in the challenge, but I did get a t-shirt:

First day for Annabelle

Annabelle is super-excited to be back at the University of Rochester for her sophomore year:



Hope it's a great one!

Dorm decor

Annabelle and her roommate, Casey, have worked hard to get their dorm room set up to their liking. As promised, here are some pictures of the final result:

Never too old for a first day of school pic

Mike is what we are calling a "nondergraduate" student now. He's taking extra classes to beef up his application for the Army-Baylor physical therapy program, and today is the first day of Biomedical Physics:

Well, that was fast

Now that I'm a working girl, I no longer have unlimited days to spend however I wish. Accordingly, our trip to Rochester to return Annabelle for her sophomore year was a quick one: One day up, one day back.

She's very excited about living on the Music Interest Floor this year:



Photos of her room will have to come later, as we didn't stick around to help unpack and decorate.