The Lowdown on the House

Its finally time to share the details of our house! We're building a house in Apex, NC, south of where we live now. Patrick and I both have good jobs and we have good friends here, and we have a made the difficult decision to stay in this area for now. We miss our family and friends back home terribly, though, so we've chosen a house with what we think will be a very comfortable guest area for visitors (hint, hint!). Check out the floor plan - one modification will be that there will be a full bath downstairs for the guest bedroom. (See - comfy!)

The house is in a brand new neighborhood that is being built so we've had the exciting opportunity to pick out our cabinets, counter tops, flooring, exterior paint color, etc. Here is a peak at our cabinets (bottom left - espresso), floor (top) and counter tops (bottom right).

Thank you to everyone who voted for our exterior color and passed along their comments. Patrick and I have gone back and forth trying to decide between the two. One some days, we were leaning one way and on other days we were leaning another. This evening, we were both leaning Timberbark, so Timberbark it will be.

This is a sight map of our neighborhood, and the arrow points to the location of our future house. It will back up to an open space, which will eventually have something like a playground or gazebo or something in it.



The neighborhood is near the railroad tracks, which we're not exactly thrilled about, but we think Peyton will think its the coolest thing ever! The street in front of our house isn't cut yet, so this building process is still going to take some time. The sewer and water lines need to be run, and the lots need to be graded, and this will take about 4 months. From there, they will start building the houses in Phase 2 (of which ours is one of them). This will take about 3 months. So, we're not expecting to be able to move in until October-ish. That gives us plenty of time to sell our house. We're going to start meeting with Real Estate Agents soon, and our plan is to have the house on the market by the second weekend in April. There are a few other houses in our subdivision that are up for sale, and they've been on the market for awhile. We're keeping our fingers crossed that someone looking for a good starter home will fall in love with our house and everything we've done with it. Hopefully they'll be as happy here as we've been.

Our New House Exterior

So, I promise a post is coming on the details of our new house. But, quickly, I'm taking a survey to get people's opinions of the exterior color of the house. We've narrowed it down to 2 choices - as you can see, one is a brownish/green color, the other is a blue color. The pictures above are the design of our house, and I have colored in the different colors (I know its not the best coloring job, but you get the idea.) We can't do anything like white trim with the blue house or change the color of the shutters, etc. Once we choose the main exterior color, the trim and shutters are predetermined. There were lots of colors, and we've narrowed it down to these. Please choose your favorite in the survey on the right. Feel free to leave comments to explain your choice.

(There are a couple of other houses in the neighborhood that are the brown color, but there isn't a house in the neighborhood that is the blue color yet.)

***Disclaimer****We are in no way obligated to choose the most popular choice for the exterior of our house :)

Disney

Peyton's first trip to Disney was a lot of fun! It had been about 15 years since Patrick and I had each last been to Disney World, and many things have changed. Neither of us had ever been to Animal Kingdom, and a lot has changed in Epcot and Hollywood Studios too. I wouldn't say much is different about The Magic Kingdom. The parks were a little more crowded than we anticipated they would be, but we eventually figured out how to get the most out of our experience. There is always something to do in Disney, so we tried to get as much out of our time there as possible, without compromising Peyton's nap and sleep schedule. I think we did pretty well overall, with a minimal amount of melt-downs on his part.

We left home on a Friday night after work and drove to Savannah, GA, which was about 6 hours. We had anticipated that Peyton would fall asleep in the car and it would give us a chance to do some decent driving in peace and quiet. However, Peyton had other ideas and stayed awake asking about Mickey Mouse until about 10:45pm. He finally fell asleep and we drove a little longer. Once we settled into the hotel, Patrick and I crashed. I think I had just started to fall asleep when I heard, "Mommy? I want to get back in the car and keep driving to Mickey's house." It was 1:30am. My memory is a little foggy but I think I ended up sleeping on the floor that night to try to get Peyton to settle down in his sleeping bag. He was up again at 6:30am, bright and early! We drove on the next day to Gainesville, FL to see our good friends the Boones and the Harris's. We had a great time grilling and hanging out, but our little one was of course anxious to get to Mickey's house. We promised him it would only be one more day.

We finally arrived at our hotel and got all checked in on Sunday, eager and bright eyed to start exploring Disney. We weren't going to go to the parks until the next day, so we decided to head over to Fort Wilderness, a Disney campground, to catch the Chip and Dale Sing Along and Campfire. We took a bus, a boat and another bus to get there (2 hours later). Good thing we left our hotel with plenty enough time to spare (so we thought!) We had a great time singing songs, dancing, and making smores, so it kind of made the trek there worth it. (Although next time I will just get in my car and drive to Ft. Wilderness 10 minutes away).

All Peyton could talk about on our loooooong drive down to Disney was when he was going to get to see Mickey Mouse, so the first thing we did in the Magic Kingdom on Monday was look for Mickey Mouse. We weren't sure exactly how he would react when the actual meeting time came, but Peyton walked right up to Mickey and Minnie and gave each of them a big hug. As the week progressed, he met Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Buzz Lightyear, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eyore, and Snow White. His favorite thing about visiting the Magic Kingdom? Riding the monorail. The rides, they were ok. But the monorail - that got him excited!

Epcot has an amazing show in the evening called Illuminations. Its a laser/fireworks show and Peyton loved it.




He also loved the Finding Nemo ride. Especially all of the aquariums that you can see after the ride. Maybe its time he gets an aquarium..... Anyway, we also took Peyton on the Fast Track and Soarin' rides in Epcot, both of which were rides that we weren't sure he would like. Fast Track is a test track simulation by GM, similar to the types of tests the cars they manufacture go through. It goes up to about 60 miles an hour towards the end. He wanted to go back on it after it was over. Soarin' was definitely my favorite ride. It simulates a ride in a hang glider over mountains, water, etc. You're actually looking into a 180 screen and feel like you're flying. Peyton thought it was pretty cool too, although he's not talking about it like he talks about the monorail.

We did a character breakfast one morning and Mickey came by our table to say hello. We also got to see Goofy and Donald. Minnie and Pluto were nearby as well.

The Safari ride in Animal Kingdom was definitely one of the highlights. We got to see giraffes, gorillas, and elephants. It was raining quite a bit that day, but we got our Disney ponchos for an absurd amount of money and kept on going! We actually went back a few days later to ride some of the other rides and see more of the animals. Peyton's favorite part about this park was the Dinosaur playground. Lots of slides, and a sandpit where he could dig for dinosaur bones!



Overall, we had a great trip. We learned a lot about how to do Disney and we'll do some things differently next time. But until then, I think all that Peyton will talk about and remember is the monorail.