Picking Peaches & Berries

Today we drove up to pick blackberries and peaches at an orchard we love to visit. The blackberries were SO numerous and yummy. I was surprised at how well Colin did with them this year. I think he actually even got more in the basket than in his mouth and after only a very short lesson on how to check before picking, he did a remarkable job only picking the ones that were fully ripe.
Sometimes he just had to taste though. Then he'd grin at me really big and say, "I put the next one in the basket, mama."
I was also really impressed with how carefully he handled them. Here he is bringing two over to the basket. They're pretty easy to squash and he kept nearly all of them intact. Yay for fine motor skills! :)
Here he is carrying the basket before it got too full and heavy!
After about an hour he said, "come on mama, let's pick somesing else!" so we did. :)
Next we picked some peaches. I love peach trees because their branches are low enough than he can easily reach them. We only ended up with a couple underripe ones in our box - he did a pretty good job of letting me inspect before he picked them.
Hmmm...this one got rotated. Whoops!
We also got a small bag of plums while we were there and Colin had to try one as soon as we were home (even though we'd stopped for pizza for lunch - is this child ever full?).
I was a little worried since he wouldn't eat a popsicle for my mom because it dripped on him too much and got him dirty, but he did okay with the plum!
All in all, a good morning!

The House...

Househunting in Dayton was a totally alien experience compared to house hunting in San Antonio. The markets are just SOOOO different!

However, we survived and we are getting ready to close on a house! Yay! For those of you who were enough in the loop to hear about the historic, but didn't get the memo that we are going for a different one, uh, sorry! I've been really bad about getting information out this time!

So, without further adieu and in apparently completely random order (sorry)...

Side yard

Around the other side

Small deck off our bedroom

Maybe the part we are all three most excited about (I'm not even all the way to our fence line when I took this picture; you can see Michael's red shirt down on the grass). Awesome trees and totally fenced. The treehouse/fort ideas are flying around here every evening. :)

Again, random order - one of the four bedrooms

Laundry upstairs

Study for Michael off the master bedroom

Additional woodburning fireplace in basement

Half bath off kitchen

Coat closet

A two car garage that will actually fit two cars and still leave room for you to get out of them - bye bye San Antonio.

Totally psyched about a double oven! :) Michael had already said that we could put one in whatever house we ended up with, but this one had one installed new this year! Yay!

The blue countertops were replaced last week with this:

Wood burning fireplace

And for some perspective:
Entry, living room (will probably be a reading room for us) to the left (the dining room sits behind that with doors to both the living room and kitchen), hall to the kitchen you can see in the back, stairs up, door to the garage to the right (which you can see in the picture above) and also to the right is the family room with the tile floors and fireplace.

One Year Ago Today...

Okay, I know you're all anxiously awaiting pics from our trip and the house, etc. etc. I'll get them up. Really. But for now, a quick look at what Colin was doing a year ago today:

Wasn't he a cutie? Still is, I guess. :)