click my heels and I'm home

We have returned from the first of our 3 week Texas hiatuses this summer. We pulled out of the in-laws driveway with a packed station wagon, Sportback, as we affectionately call it, and made it about three blocks before the bicycle rack, which was carrying a second bicycle in anticipation of our upcoming Colorado trip, started to fall off. Having a hatchback style of trunk door, the top part is actually a silver piece of plastic that popped off with that much weight from the bike rack. What to do, what to do. Obviously we just can't bring that second bike right? Wrong. The in-laws said, just trade cars with us. So we drove their Honda minivan back to Kansas with two bikes on the back. Oh for the love of bicycling. Whatever, it's been nice to have luxurious roominess despite the gasp and look away factor at the gas pump.

The day after we got back, a friend from undergrad, Julia, who lives in Sydney, Australia and was back visiting in the States came to visit us! It was so great to see her! We of course took her for some KC bbq! We went to a place near our house we hadn't been to before and had the best ribs I've ever had! Awesome!

Then we started looking for a place to live. We really don't like the house we've rented for nearly a year now. 1. It smells bad. Like old people house but stranger. 2. It's small. 3. It's not very nice. It's fine, livable, but we're looking forward to a kitchen with more than one kitchen drawer. We are not fans of the Ranch style floorplan so common here. 4. I don't want to have another year of ladybug infestations and then another winter mouse problem. Not with a newborn thank you very much. Oh the list could go on and on.

So we saw three houses yesterday and REALLY LIKED one of them! It's bigger, it has an extra living/rec room to do stuff in! There are 2.5 bathrooms (!), all newly redone and a redone kitchen, with multiple drawers. What more could one ask for in a rent house in a city of houses all built in the 60s? Plus it has lots of new energy efficient upgrades and a two car garage with openers! Main drawbacks: it's $300 more a month than we pay now. Yikes! It's getting to the point where it feels like it's definitely worth it as far as our happiness level is concerned. However, it's in a part of town where we hope to find some private horn students! We'd only have to teach 8 hour-long lessons a month to cover this difference. The other big thing is it smells like smoke. The man who lives there now used to only smoke in the garage until two weeks ago when his family moved out. Now he smokes in the master and rec room. The landlord said he would get the smell out before we moved in. Does anyone have any experience with moving in to a smoky place? If it's only been smoked in for a month, after the carpets got cleaned, etc, it would air out eventually right? Ah the lot of being a renter.

Anyway, we have two weeks until we move out of our house cause then we go to Colorado and then back to Texas and then we'll come back here, whether it's to this great but smoky place or some other Craigslist find. I better start packing some boxes. Elliott's got a stomach flu but seems to be doing better today but of course now Brian doesn't feel so good. I hope he feels good soon cause we've got a lot of packing/figuring things out to do!