Moving...AGAIN!

Sometimes there are hazards associated with one's job. For Melissa, it is getting attached to my students over the course of our four years together and then having to send them off into the real world when they graduate. For Travis, it is looking at homes everyday at being compelled to BUY the really good deals which results in frequent moves (but also financial benefits). While we have reached a record...we've actually lived in our current home for two whole years...Travis has found another amazing deal and we have purchased another home. (see picture). It is an amazing deal because it is a foreclosure that has been sitting empty for a year and a half. With the help of some rather creative financing, we are now the proud owner of three homes (yes, three). We've got the one we live in, our rental property, and our new foreclosure.

We'll call this house the Kingston house (since the address is on Kingston road). We got a good deal because the house is not actually livable right now. It has no plumbing (literally, there is not a single pipe in the house), no electricity (at the time of this posting), a septic system that likely needs to be repaired, moldy carpet in the basement, lots of broken windows, and the lovely scent of a property that's been vacant for way to long.

So, I'm sure you are asking yourself, why in the world did you buy this house you crazy Bumgardners? The answer to that is simple: it's a four bedroom, three bathroom house on 3 acres of land just 10 minutes from the University...country living on the edge of the city. We've been living on a busy street for the past 3.5 years. Now that we have a toddler and a puppy, we really wanted to feel safe letting them play in the yard. Oh, and we'll finally have a garage again! WHOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!

Thus, our biggest remodeling project has begun. We've got a general contractor this time because Travis is just too busy to do this whole thing himself. He's an awesome guy from our church. We've also got a carpenter to do some of the work. He's also an awesome guy from our church. We get to design the interior that we want and bless our friends with work while we do it...supercool. We'll keep you posted on the happenings with the house and pictures of the progress as we go.

Mommy and Daddy play barber shop

Ok, so it took us all of 30 seconds to figure out how to back date these postings. Thus, here's what's been going on in real time :)

Sheinah got her first haircut when we were in Colorado for Christmas. Of course, her barber was her Opa (Al Bumgardner). That haircut lasted a whole three months...what can we say, both her mommy and daddy are pretty hairy folks. Travis decided that he'd seen his dad do this sort of thing enough times that he should be able to trim Sheinah's bangs himself. Now I know that you reader's out there are already seeing the problem with such a line of thinking, but we were brave parents, ready to forge new territory, no matter how silly it is to think that we (who have never cut a child's hair) would be able to trim her bangs with no problem.

Now when Opa cut her hair back in December, Sheinah sat very still and did everything he asked her to and it was a relatively struggle-free event (see picture to the right). She even smiled for the camera. Unfortunately, we do not have any wonderful pictures of the parental haircutting event as Sheinah was not quite so cooperative with us. In fact, we both ended up trimming the bangs in an effort to get them straight (yes Opa, we actually gave her straight bangs). We did try to cut them fancy and "wispy" in true Opa style, but we are just not as talented as him! We must admit, at first we weren't entirely pleased with Sheinah's new look, but boy does it grow on you fast (see picture to the left). As they say in Minnesota "Oh for cute!"