Where to begin?

Wow! My first blog post. I have no idea what to write. Even less of an idea of what to blog about. Currently, my family consists of myself and my husband, Mike. We don't have kids. He has a daughter, Sophia, (7 on the 6th of March) from a previous relationship that we don't see often enough. She lives in Vancouver, WA with her mom and we live in Spokane, WA. It's about a 5+ hour drive to see her. Most of my extended family lives here, my parents, my sister and her boy, Kamron (6), all of my grandparents, except for my Grandma Martha who passed away in 2007. I have a bunch of aunts, uncles and cousins. I have been blessed with a rather large family. Mike's family lives in/around Portland, OR. His family consists of his mom and dad, his twin sister, Janna, and her family. She has 2 kids. A son, Killian (8), and daughter, Rowan (3). They are AMAZING kids. In Tacoma, is my cousin, Roni, her husband Joshua and they're little boy, Soren (little cutie is going to be 2 in April!).

I really can't wait to have kids of my own. I'm hoping to get pregnant this year. I know Mike is TERRIFIED about having kids. I can't figure out why, exactly. I figure he had a bad experience with his ex. Combine that with a pretty sad childhood of his own. I can understand him being afraid that his kid would inherit some of the sadness Mike felt as a kid, but I know I would be a great mom and Mike is a really sweet guy. I can see it when he is with Sophia. He is stern, and wants her to learn from every mistake, challenge and opportunity. He likes to play, sometimes... I think the biggest challenge for him will be to stop doing what he is doing to play with or help the kids. Mike likes to be alone and play/work/research on the computer. I think it will be especially hard for him to be completely selfless and put the kids first.

I have all kinds of fears of my own surrounding having children. First, money. I absolutely will not use government assistance. I've always been fiercely independent and would feel like an absolute failure if I couldn't take care of my own children. I'm not trying to be rich, but I want my kids to have proper nutrition, healthcare and education above all else. Then, toys and luxuries. I want to live in a safe neighborhood where the kids can play outside with neighbor kids without the worry of child molestors, rapists, kidnappers, thieves or bullies... I fear for birth defects. I've already begun taking folic acid to help during the pregnancy. I've told Mike that I want him to quit smoking before I get pregnant. I also need to lose weight. I bought some sneakers last week with the intentions of going on walks with Mike. I also need to get the "Wii Fit" out again. I just have no motivation to get up and exercise. I'm sure a lot of the "lack of motivation" is due to the rediculous winter we've been having. But I know I need to, for the baby.

We've started taking some baby steps towards buying a house! :) On Friday I went out to Medical Lake to visit Mike for lunch. On the way home, I stopped by an Open House out there that I'd noticed the week before. The realtor took me though 4 houses and there was one that I absolutely loved. I had looked at all the floorplans previously on the builders website, but this particular one wasn't one that I was crazy about. No basement. :( But walking through it, changed my mind It would be a GREAT house for entertaining. And mom is working on passing the Family Christmas Eve dinner to me...

This is a link to the builder's development website with info about the neighborhood, home features and lots:

http://www.markhamhomesinc.com/interior.php?page=index&id=5

This is the link to the house that I really love.

http://www.markhamhomesinc.com/uploads/WASHINGTON.pdf

It's a "spec" home, so it's already mostly built with just the finishing details to take care of... flooring, lighting fixtures, plumbing hardware. That, we would get to somewhat choose ourselves. The price is also reduced since we can't make any changes to the actual "blueprint" and all the wiring is done so we couldn't move outlets/lights around. The front yard of all these houses is landscaped with sprinklers. The front walk of the house I like has really cool stones/small boulders incorporated into the side of the concrete. It looks so cool. There's also a great front porch that would be great for sitting out front watching the kids. The backyard has a 10'x14' wood deck that is partially covered for rainy day bbq's. The back of the lot already has been fenced and the neighbor on the west side has fenced their side. The realtor figures that the family on the east side is just itching to split the cost of a fence with the people that move in. :) That would be a total score to only have to pay for part of one side of fence. We'd even be willing to do the labor. I'm also willing to stain and install our own baseboards and trim if it saves some money.

The north side of the property is on the Medical Lake city limits border with, I believe, Airway Heights on the other side. Currently there is only field on that side of the fence and the realtor says there aren't any plans for building there any time soon. From the backyard, you can see planes taking off and landing at Fairchild Airforce Base. The realtor says you can't hear them, but there weren't any coming in when I was there. I'll have to take his word for now. But it would be AMAZING to watch the "Air Show" in the summer. I'd have to invite the whole family over for a BBQ or something.

The house also comes with all the kitchen appliances (refrigerator, range, micro-hood, dishwasher). I'm hoping I can either have them remove the appliances from the cost of the house, so we can buy our own at Best Buy. With our killer discount, we could probably get better appliances for the same price, maybe less. Or maybe they'd take the cost of the appliances that they would put in, and make it an allowance to purchase our own. That would be ideal!

Mike hasn't seen this place yet, so I'm meeting him there when he get's off work tomorrow with my parents and possibly Grandma and Bill. That realtor might just pee himself when he sees this enrourage. ;) I'm going to take my (old) camera (the good one is in for service), so hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures of the house.