At the Corner of Fourth and Home

I really can't let today pass without mentioning that it was four years ago today that we moved into this house. It has taken almost the entire four years, but I can finally wholeheartedly say that it finally feels like home.  I love  driving down our street into our neighborhood.  I love my house.  I love our friends and our neighbors. I love our sunsets.  I even love living by those noisy cows.

I think I may have failed to mention that, just in time for our fourth anniversary here,  we finally have a livable basement family room.  Carpet, furniture, it's the real deal down there.  But notice that I did not say it was finished.  I only said it was livable.  We have a ton of odds and ends to finish up, including but not limited to:

-a fireplace insert
-blinds on the windows
-a cold air return cove
-trim around the door way
-paint in the hallway
-trim around  the baseboards on the tile
-tile window sills
-door knob
-book shelves
-cabinets and some kind of counter area
-tv and sound system

All things considered, it is a miracle that we have been able to get as far along as we have on the home improvement track.  In four years, we have finished a bathroom, cleaned up a flood, put up a fence, painted, and finished a family room.  Hopefully, in the next four years, we can add a deck, replace some appliances, and remodel the kitchen.

One more year and Olivia will be the same age that Audrey was when we moved. She will also have lived here half her life by then. I would have to live here another 38 years before I could say the same thing.  It's all relative, ain't it?

Meanwhile, other than home improvement, we have been up to some other stuff too.

Audrey's bird has decided to be social.  We used to have two birds, and neither of them liked any of us very much at all. But then a few months back, one bird died.  Then Chance (the surviving bird) decided he better make a new friend, and he chose Audrey.   If you think that birds don't bond to people or have their own personalities, you are sadly mistaken.  This bird will come out of cage and go straight to Audrey.  He nibbles her ears and eyebrows and climbs all over her. If she leaves the room, he flies right behind her.  The rest of us he mostly ignores.  But he does love him some Audrey.

Tuesday night was Will's solo in orchestra.  So we all went to watch him play, and of course he nailed it.   I'm so proud of him for sticking it out with orchestra.  After the concert, of course we hit McDonalds for some grease and caffeine and goofy pictures.

 Olivia may not look too upset in this picture, but she was quite sad that we went to McDonalds.  We didn't  get a chance to eat before the concert, and it went much later than we thought it would, so on the way home, we decided at the last minute to get something fast for dinner.   All Olivia wanted to do was go home and eat the leftover spaghetti that she had been looking forward to all day.  It was such a let down for her to have to get fast food.  Funny, sweet girl.   And never fear.- She got that spaghetti for dinner the next night.