Home at Last

We have finally moved into our new house. It was quite a project. A very big THANK YOU to everyone that helped! Like a good engineer, I documented all of the project details. Here are the final stats:

Days to complete from purchase: 60
Days to complete from offer: 99
Days to complete since moving out of our Kentwood house: 165
Hours worked: 493
Variance from initial budget: 15% over
Trips to the hardware store: 29

We are pleased with the final product. Here is a progression of our living room.

Here is a progression of our kitchen.

Christmas Lights 2008

I love Christmas. My interest in Christmas lights stems from a childhood void. I bugged my parents every year to put up lights and wasn't satisfied with the few strands they displayed. I vowed to have a good display of my own when I grew up.

I was spoiled last weekend with 65 degree November weather. I also had the challenge of determining a new layout for a new house. I'm pretty happy with my design this year. I have decent coverage but plenty of room to improve. Here is the 2008 display, please drive by for the full experience.

2008

And here is my progression since being a home owner.

2005

2006

2007

Halloween

Erin has so many fun ideas. For Evie's first Halloween, Erin wanted to put Evie IN a pumpkin. Carving a family pumpkin wasn't good enough, Evie needed to BE a pumpkin.

This clothing was quite a shock to the poor little princess, but we enjoyed it!

Evie was quite unruly, but we managed to get some memorable family photos.

Afterward I completed the first decent pumpkin of my life.

On Halloween we spent the night at our new house. Evie dressed up (was forced to go) as a butterfly. She did very well. We went to a couple neighbor's houses and handed out candy the rest of the evening.