Madison has overcome her fear of heights. She seems oddly fascinated by the snow and the people below.
Wade and I helped sell a house today, but not ours. We put a bid in on the house below. The seller’s realtor then called everyone else who had been to see the house in the last two weeks (which is what our realtor would have done too) and got a second offer that was higher than ours. (As a side note, this house has been on the market since July. Can you tell rates are falling?) They asked our realtor if we wanted to change our bid. We told them no, but we would be open to negotiations. They went with the other people.
Wade and I aren’t too upset. We found an area we like and there are quite a few houses for sale in the area. Like this one that we looked at on Sunday.
1801 N. 49th Street
An old friend from Tech, Brad, was in town tonight. Who knew we would have visitors so soon after moving to Milwaukee? Brad works for a consulting group out of Atlanta and they sent him to Madison, WI for the week. His flight out of Chicago was canceled due to wind so he rented a car and stopped in Milwaukee for dinner.
Wade and I had fun today. We took Madison to the dog park. The temperature was in the middle 30s so everyone was out. Madison had a pack of dogs to run with.
Then we made a stop for Wade. He decided to buy a Play Station 3 with his birthday money. He says it is one of the cheaper Blue Ray players not to mention a game system. Regardless he is excited.
Our apartment now appears very “techy”. We have two laptops, one desktop, a server, a Wii, a Play Station, and a full size Area 51 in our one bedroom apartment. Want to come play?
Wade and I spent the afternoon with our realtor. We found quite a few houses we really liked. They are all in Milwaukee and in an area called Washington Heights. I have posted the houses in order with our favorite being first.
2031 N. 52nd Street
1903 N 49th Street
1916 N. 52nd Street
5817 W. Elliott Circle
Wade and I spent two nights in a row in the movie theater. He was out sick on Thursday and wanted out of the apartment by late that evening. We knew we would both enjoy “Book of Secrets” and we were right. Today I saw an ad on TV for “27 Dresses” and remembered I had wanted to see it. I mentioned it to Wade never dreaming he would want to go. He went just because it made me happy.
We enjoyed both movies and laughed at the teenage element in the theaters. When we left the theater tonight there was snow on the ground – what a perfect Friday night.
I spend a lot of time in our apartment and have often thought it would be nice to have some music. Because I do not own any CDs, radio is my only option. Wade and I have a Bose 3-2-1 system, which has an FM tuner. The problem is we do not have the FM antenna. Somewhere in the last 3 years we have lost the original antenna provided by Bose (I will blame this on Wade since he doesn’t read my blog and is in charge of all our A/V equipment). You might ask why I don’t run out and buy another one – because Bose is Bose. The antenna requires a special connector on the end. Wade told me he has looked for one in the past, but couldn’t find one. I decided to pick up the hunt today. I found them on eBay for $20, which seemed a little absurd. I called Bose to find their cost, and they are mailing me one for free! All I had to do was call.
If I can sell them for $20 on eBay, maybe I should call and ask for several more from Bose…
Obviously Madison needs some recovery time after her romp in the snow last night. She has spent the afternoon curled up on an old comforter and pillow. Maybe I’ll do the same on the couch.
It has snowed all day and supposed to continue through the night. This snow is gorgeous – light and fluffy. We all took a long walk tonight and had fun playing.
(Goggles added to Madison by Wade – red eye on dogs is really, really bad)
I recently posted about my DC friend, Maren, who now lives in Milwaukee. She and her husband welcomed a sweet baby girl, Elise Marie, on Wade’s Birthday (but I only now got the news). I can’t wait to visit!
Wade wanted to celebrate his birthday with a steak dinner and chose “The Capital Grille“. I made a reservation and when asked if this was a special occasion quickly filled them in. We arrived to find a birthday card and confetti on the table. Wade and I had the best calamari ever for an appetizer and then steak dinners. We were actually somewhat disappointed by the steaks. Wade had read wonderful reviews, but they didn’t compare to Bones or Chops in Atlanta. Wade did receive a free piece of chocolate cake with a candle, and a birthday picture. It was still a wonderful evening out.
It’s fun to start the new year with a birthday. Wade worked all day, but we celebrated with presents when he got home. I cooked dinner and even tried my hand at making an Angel Food cake.
Wade and I tried a new church this morning and then looked at a few houses. We had a lot of hope for the house below, but the inside was pretty bad. The house has lots of character and tons of original features, but oh my it would cost a lot to make it the kind of house we would want. We are going to mark this one off the list.
I was having dinner with Melissa and Chris in Nashville. We got up from dinner and were walking to the door when I saw a familiar face waiting to be seated. Janaka was standing in the front of the restaurant! I haven’t seen Janaka since I was at Tech. We chatted for a few minutes. She is in Nashville trying to make a break into music. If we had taken a few minutes longer eating I wouldn’t even have known she was in the same restaurant.
Wade and I went a long time without seeing any great houses. Then we found three this weekend! Below are the ones we saw today.
This one is a little small at two bedrooms, but we love the house and it is only a block from downtown Cedarburg.
This is the last house we saw. The neighborhood is “emerging” but the house is wonderful.
Wade and I had a lazy morning of running errands. Then we went house hunting and actually found one we liked. It’s in Oconomowoc – try to say that fast – which is about 30 minutes from Wade’s work. The house is old and has lots of charm. You can see Lac La Belle (the lake) from the front porch.
We finished up about dinner time and met one of my old friends, Maren, and her husband for dinner. Last I heard, Maren and Michael were living in Chicago. Little did I know they had bought a house in Brookfield (the suburb Wade works) and are due to have a baby in a week or two. We had a great dinner and lots of fun catching up. I can’t wait till the baby is born. Then I plan to annoy Maren with my company all the time. I can’t seem to find any pictures of Maren and I together, but this is from our time in DC.
Wade has such a fun job. He gets to order anything that looks interesting and play with it. One of his recent purchases is this robot dinosaur I named Cleo. He has touch sensors and develops a personality as you interact with him. He even plays tug with his leaf. Wade and I think he is fun. Madison runs the other way. Too bad he has to go back to work with Wade….
I am posting this picture at Wade’s request. He felt it showed his family perfectly: Wade is goofy, Emily has her eyes closed; Judy is looking at something else.
I take back every good thing I ever said about Coop’s (the gym we joined in Anderson). To start at the beginning, when we first joined the club we asked a lot of questions about how to get out of the contract because we knew we most likely wouldn’t be in Anderson for too long. We also wouldn’t sign a 2 year contract but did sign for a year. We were told all that was needed to end our membership was a pay stub from Wade’s new job. Then they wouldn’t accept the one he provided. They pointed out that there was a sister gym in Racine (40 miles away) and under our contract we had to use that. This is definitely not what we were told initially, but our copy of the contract was in Anderson and we couldn’t check. Wade tried to get some help from the local gym people and they basically told him “good luck” he would have to deal with the financial company. After numerous emails, phone calls, faxes, and an extra two months of payment we finally got the dang thing cancelled. I’m not entirely sure how Wade did it but thank goodness. Needless to say we will never join a gym again – all the snake oil things we have heard are true. I think we’ll stick with the nice YMCA’s.
Wade and I decided to spend all of today in the snow and cold. We bundled up and took Madison for another romp in the dog park. There weren’t as many dogs today, but she still seemed to love playing in the snow. We let her tire out and then headed home for some tubing with Chad and Sarah (Wade knows them through a Tech friend). Chad and Sarah both got snow tubes for Christmas and wanted to try them out. We spent a few hours testing a hill near our apartment. A lot of the snow was now ice, but we had a great time. Wade managed to find all of the jumps and got quite a bit of air.
The rest of us just had fun trying to go the farthest at the bottom of the hill. Chad and Sarah rode tandem once and made it all the way to the road.
When we could no longer feel our fingers and toes we came back to the apartment for a quick game of Wii bowling (Sarah who doesn’t like to bowl kicked all of our butts) and then ventured out to the movies. We saw the movie “Juno” in an old time stage theater (awesome atmosphere) and then tried a new pizza place. I think the evening will be complete after one more dip in the hot tub!