Forest Hill Day Care

I thought I would post some more details on Hank's new day care, as well as some good pictures of his first days a couple weeks ago. It is in the Forest Hill Presbyterian Church and it's just a few minutes from our new house in Westover Hills. I don't even know what presbyterian means, but I do know that it seems to be a great place! There are kids from infant up to 6 years old from what I can tell, and tons of nice teachers and administrators. Terri picked it out because it seemed like one of the most clean and educational places she saw, and I think it's living up to that. Hank gets there around 830-9am, has few minutes of play time to get in the groove, and then they have a morning snack at 9am. After that, they do an hour of "circle time" during which they sing songs, practice alphabets, and spell words with other kids in their age group. Then they do outdoor play time for a while before they have lunch at 1130. Hank doesn't eat meat so he has to have a substitute "entree" a lot of days, which we bring in. At 1230 the kids all jump on their cots for a 2-hour nap...it's really nice, they close the blinds so the rooms are nice and dark, play nice music etc. I think Hank struggles a bit with nap time because it's early for him and he usually just falls asleep in his car seat or while watching a movie to have his nap with us...he's not used to going to sleep when someone tells him to, you know? But from what I hear he is doing fine with it. One day last week, the teacher said he and his friend Max were playing, touching feet and giggling while they were in their cots for a lot of nap time....but today he had a good nap and went right to sleep. We're trying to get him on a similar schedule on his non-school days, but it's tough!

After nap, they spend time outside on the playground in the afternoon and then more play time inside after that. I have usally been picking him up by 4pm or so. Like I said before, he is on a Tues-Wed-Thurs schedule now....we may modify the days at some point, but it will probably always be 3 days per week. It seems like a good mix of time with mom and dad, but some good time in a structured learning environment getting to know other kids.

So anyway, here are some pics from Hank's first coupld days of school! There are a couple of him all dressed for day 1, then some of him getting to school in the car, and then a few of him getting used to his new classroom. He saw a bunch of Thomas the tank engine toys when he first walked in, and that helped him get comfortable real fast! In a couple pictures, you'll see his new friends he's made in class....would you believe the little girl (Zoey) has the exact same bunny that Hank has carried around every day of his life?? Hers is slightly less worn, but it is the exact same thing. I had to label Hank's bunny right away. And the little boy is Max....Hank talks about Max all the time so they must be hitting it off.

Talk to you later! Sam

Heading West...

Hi all - I am heading to las vegas tomorrow morning for an awesome 3-day trip with a great cast of characters:
- Ben
- Cousin Ted
- Tony Franklin (friend of Ben/Ted/me from Mpls)
- nephew Chris (just turned 21 three weeks ago)
- nephew Matt (Chris' brother)

This really all started as a trip to celebrate Chris' 21st b-day....I ran it by Ben and Ted and they loved the idea, so away we went on planning. It is going to be so fun...we're going to spend all day Thurs/Fri betting on the sweet 16 basketball games, then hopefully all night spending our winnings! If all the games go according to the Sam Formula, I should be able to pay our mortgage off in the very near future.....

Matt, Chris, and I are leaving from Norfolk VA....one great thing about Richmond is that you have access to literally 6 big airports within a 2-hour drive: Richmond, Dulles, Reagan, Baltimore, Norfolk, Charlottesville. The best option this time happened to be Norfolk: direct flights on southwest airlines, and the flight times were perfect. We leave around noon, get back around 11pm. We're leaving a car at the airport. We'll get there 2 hours before the MN group, who are all on the same sun country flight around 2pm, I believe.

In las vegas we're staying at the Mirage, we got this huge suite that will sleep all 6 of us. 1700 square feet! I've never even had a house that big! Check out the room here:
http://www.mirage.com/hotel/hotel_guestsuites_hospitality.aspx
As Uncle Paulie would say, forget about it!

If we make it back from LV, we are moving into our house a week from today here in Richmond. Today I was over at the house to meet a painter, another guy to take out a wall, and two contractors to talk about building a garage. I don't know how much of this stuff we'll actually get done and when, but I do know that it is so nice to finally OWN something again. We're definitely excited. And we're happy to get some improvements done right away before we move in, so we can enjoy them for a while. At our last place, we did most of the work too close to when we sold. Our new windows were so awesome, I wanted to take them with us.

Hank is on a Tues-Wed-Thurs school schedule....I need to go pick him up in a few minutes actually. I think he's doing real well, but if there is a rough spot it seems to be nap time...his schedule is so late that he isn't used to napping as early as 1230, plus he isn't used to just going to sleep when someone says to. He talks about nap time the most with me, which gives me the impression he doesn't like it. The rest of his days seem to be going well.

If I have time to post again tonight, I may cover Terri's job or more on Hank's school....if not, I will bring (some) stories back from las vegas!! Talk to you later.

Sam

Recent Pics

Hi all - since I'm on, I thought I would load up a few of our more recent photos. First, we have a couple of "chainsaw charlie" himself, Hank Gisselman. These are from Uncle Rob and Aunt Julie's house...we had an ice storm last month that brought down some trees and big branches on their property, so Rob and I cleared the debris away one saturday afternoon. Hank was so amazed by the process, he had to get his own chainsaw and get to work himself.

Second set of photos is from when we celebrated our nephew Chris' 21st birthday two weeks ago.

And the last couple pictures are from Hank's most recent fingerpainting extravaganza here at the apartment....

Firing It Up Again

Hi all - we will be the first to admit we have been pathetically poor at keeping this blog up since Christmas. I am going to make today our "re-start" date and get back on it. We have a ton of updates to talk about, but I'm not going to try to tackle it all at once....tonight I'll just hit on one big topic: our (pending) new house. Before I get into that, I'll quickly let you know that we are all doing well, looking forward to spring, and anxious to see you all soon. We think that having a house of our own will really give us the footing to start making more regular travel plans as well as planning for guest visits to Richmond! Now on to the house details....

After a 4+ month house search, we finally found something that really got us excited. Here's the shortened story of what has been happening: when we moved to Richmond, I think we both figured "smaller city, smaller prices", but that just hasn't been the case. In fact I think houses are more expensive here than in Mpls, and we thought Mpls was pricey! I think there are a few things contributing to this: first, there are plenty of people here making plenty of money...Capital One, Phillip Morris, Suntrust Bank, Circuit City, CarMax, and Genworth Financial are just a few examples of the companies with large presences here in the city. Definitely not as much as Mpls, but there are fewer than a million people here so the money is more concentrated. Second, we have been choosy - we are city people and we want to be in the most urban area while still getting the things (yard, garage, etc.) that we want. And there seem to be plenty of people who want the same things we want, so while there may be cheap housing in many areas around here, it's not in the areas we want.

Compounding all this is the fact that we want to use public schools, but the Richmond schools are not consistently good at all. There are just a few good public elementary districts, so price competition is further increased there.

We were looking in some of those areas and felt very priced out...like we would have to get the cheapest house on the block, still have a big mortgage payment, and a list of things we wanted to improve on the house without a nickle to spend on any of it. We were really close to offering on one of those kinds of places, when Terri called the principals at two of the good public schools, and they were very encouraging about our chances of getting into one (or both) of those schools from out of district. So this opened our search back up to some areas of town we had written off, one of which is Westover Hills. A real cool neighborhood, right near the James River that cuts through the city...a nice friendly feel, older houses, mature trees, young families, etc. But still very close to downtown and the more "happening" areas. There were 2 or 3 houses in Westover Hills that were new listings and seemed like good options. We saw them all on a Wednesday night last month, and decided the next day to make an offer on our favorite of the 3. After a weekend of haggling and back-and-forth, our offer was accepted on Monday night.

Here's a link to some pictures and virtual images of the place:

http://www.circlepix.com/tour.htm?id=507001&mls_tour=1

We're really excited about it. It's deceptive in that the curb appeal is not fantastic, a pretty basic brick cape cod...but the previous owners did a big addition project 2 years ago that added 800 square feet to the house, including a big, warm family room, a new kitchen, and a terrific master bedroom suite. Other big positives are:
- 2400 square feet (50% bigger than our condo on Mpls)
- Master BR with a couple of big closets (FINALLY, some closet space!) and its own bathroom
- not a huge yard, but still plenty of yard for Hank, and it's nicely fenced and planted
- a great new fully screened porch that was part of the addition
- truly move-in condition...there are some projects we want to do, but nothing we NEED to do...it's pretty much ready to move in and enjoy. And the addition was really done well.
- some interesting architectural aspects, like arched doorways, hardwood floors in great shape, and a cool staircase
- lots and lots of natural light. Our condo was very dark b/c it was surrounded by big buildings so that will be a great change

On the downside:
- no garage - project #1 for me!! also no off-street parking as of now
- some painting to do
- since it's so well-polished, we don't anticipate a big payoff when we sell. But for us it's worth having most of the things we want, every day, to live in.

Our inspections have gone well with the exception of some chimney/flue work that needs to be done. Good news is that the sellers are covering that expense, though we'll have to actually have the work done after we take possession. We've haggled back and forth on some of those details, but it came out ok for us and we're clear for a smooth closing now.

Speaking of which, we do our walk-through this Wednesday, and close Thursday morning. That's always a fun 3 hours! The sellers accommodated our quick closing date, but asked to keep possession for 3 days after closing, to bridge the gap until they can move into their new place. So we worked out a rent-back arrangement for them to stay in the house until Sunday (march 18th), when the place will officially be ours.

We're going to get some painting and other small projects done during the week of 3/19 before we move in. Then our big move in will happen on Tuesday 3/27 (when the big truck will bring all our stuff from the storage locker it's been sitting in for the past 4 months). After that, we'll pack up our apartment here and transport all this stuff over, and we'll be done with that part. I would guess that by April 1, we will be totally into the place on a permanent basis. Then we just have to get the unpacking done....

So....bottom line is 1) we are excited about finally moving forward on this, and 2) as of April, the door is open to all visitors!! One of the big reasons this is so relieving for us, is that we can finally officially extend open invites to you all to come stay with us. When you get here, we're going to have a great guest room and plenty of interesting things to do while you're here, so come on down! We're just 20 minutes from the airport. Did I mention that it is going to be 80 degrees here this week???

I think that is enough for now...like I said, I'll try to work this week to get our lives updated on this site....topics to come are: Terri's new job, Hank's new day care, new pictures, my upcoming las vegas trip, and of course I know you can't get enough stories about my motorcycle!

Take care everyone! Glad to be back on line!

Sam Terri and Hank