New job and new (used) car

So happy things are working out!  Bobby didn't have a fulltime job coming into IL and within a week of moving, he has been able to secure a new job!  He did have one interview with this company in CA prior to moving.  There was also a job offer in St. Louis but I had already told Bobby that I wasn't moving - especially after the stress of packing and dealing with movers. I'm so glad he agreed, especially after seeing the new home here and also its surrounding area.

New job also means needing a second car.  I managed to find one online and we decided to go test drive it:

Bobby actually looked into a Mercedes but I told him that would be too flashy.  I think a Volvo gives a good impression for a new "General Manager" :-)

This car drives pretty fast!  Hopefully Bobby won't have a lead-foot when driving into Chicago.  Or perhaps it will just be a drive to a train station nearby.  Downtown Chicago is about 1 hr away.

Looks like the test drive was successful!

We do have a 30-day return if we decide on it.  Bobby was able to find satellite radio so he might be all set!  The only thing that's lacking is Navigation, but I guess that's what our phones are used for these days.

Looks like it's red color for Hers and blue color for His!

Good luck to Bobby when he starts his new job next week!

Lake life

I guess this is what it's like now that we live near a lake.  Graham and Charlie have been so excited to just wander around the lake by themselves:

A few minutes later, we are already seeing water!

And suspension bridges.  It's definitely a bit wobbly!  Supposedly these connect the east side of the neighborhood to the west side of the neighborhood:

And soon enough, there are kayak sightings - lots and lots of them!

Poor Charlie was not looking where he was going and bumped his head on the tip of a kayak.  Unfortunately, it was one of the metal ones.  OUCH!  4 days later and he says his head still hurts.  Poor fella!

But "Play Island" is helping ease that pain a little bit:

I still don't know how kids swim in the lake.  I just read another case of brain-eating amoebas in the news - in Florida.  Totally freaks me out!

I say let the boys stick to jumping on these suspension bridges :-D

Woah, those houses on the "West side" are ENORMOUS!!!

There's a cute little reading nook in "Rest Island":

Okay, some of the houses on our side are also quite large.  I think we have one of the smaller homes around here:  Even at 3,300 sq ft!

We went to an Italian restaurant nearby and our waitress asked what we were celebrating (I wonder if there always needs to be a celebration when eating at this particular restaurant??!).  We said to celebrate our move to this new area.  And she gave us a yummy tiramisu on the house for dessert. Definitely coming back again :-)

And oh, Bob survived the trip! I put him in a box within a box and had him in the car the entire trip.  Charlie even wrote its name "BOB" on the box so we didn't forget to bring him along:

I think Bob survived.  Oh yeah... this is "Bob the Cactus" if you didn't know of it yet.  He's my very first cactus/pet from my first year of college (back in 1995!).  Coincidentally named him Bob before hubby Bob came along.  How funny is that??! LOL!!

I didn't get a chance to clean "Bob" off so he has remnants of all the leaves and fallen flowers from California.  And now, he's actually stuck in some spot in the garage and I can't get to him because there's too many boxes in the garage!  So hopefully he will survive another week or so without water, or until I can clear up a few more boxes.  Never a dull moment when it comes to moving.  But I thought it was so funny when Graham and Charlie were the ones that said we couldn't leave "Bob" behind.  

Oh, here's a photo of all the snacks that our friends had packed up for the kids.  Funny enough, they put it in an Emergency bag.  Ha ha!  There's actually a story behind the emergency bag because that's how the mom and I met - during an Emergency Training Session about 4 years ago:

Here are two more house plants that survived the trip.  I just had to bring one of the Agave babies to our new home :-D

Back to lake life... boys bought some bait from the local gas station yesterday:

I wonder who is actually handling the worms.  On our last fishing trip, I made sure I had some gloves on before touching those worms.  Just can't quite do it with my bare hands.  At least not yet!

Off they go!

I love how they can go and do all these activities on their own.  We are having them carry 2-way radios at this time and so far so good on those.  Hopefully in time, they will make some friends around the neighborhood.  Everyone has been great so far - waving every time we drive or walk by.  It's like a dream!  And thank goodness it's catch and release here.  If I'm not letting the boys swim in the lake, I'm not so sure about eating the fish in there either!!

New home update

There's been so much going on lately.  The movers showed up last Friday and the house has been a mess ever since!  But here's some photos prior to the mess :-)

I still can't believe we traveled with ALL of this stuff in the car and also above the car in the cargo box.  It was like playing Jenga or Tetris every time we moved from one hotel to the next - shoving bags or boxes in every nook and cranny of the trunk:

I love the beautiful flowers by the window:

And we brought our wind-spinning golf putting guy from CA.  He still needs some help with his putting!

The previous owner walked through the house with us when we arrived the Monday before last.  She even bought us snacks and cut some flowers from the garden for us:

Nothing like setting up the blow-up beds for the next few night:

Graham is trying to figure out if this slope on the side of the house will work as the future snow-sledding site.  It just might be perfect for it!  As long as the boys dodge that tree trunk to their right on the way down.  Ha ha!

Aren't these lovely?  

Some parts of the yard is already starting to overgrow.  I hope I find my gloves and clippers soon!  

But hopefully this huge tree out front won't topple over in the meantime. YIKES!  If anything, it is leaning away from the house:

I love these lights but I need to find out how to turn them on!

We are now Chicago Cubs fans! Eventually, we will get to a baseball game downtonw:

Nothing like doing take-out dinners for the next few night!  So far I still have only 1 pan and 1 cookie sheet.  Still so many boxes to unpack!

Aaahhh.... so bright in the morning in the bedrooms!  The windows only have these really light window shades.  It's been really difficult for me to sleep in :-P

First "victim" to the ceramic sink.  I'll have to be more gentle when washing dishes, especially when there's soft water involved.  Everything is just so much more slippery:

More updates to follow!

New home!

It's been so long since my last update.  We've been so busy!  After getting our house in Rancho Palos Verdes on the market, it has been a whirlwind of activity from then on.  We obviously tried to hit all the popular spots on our to-do list prior to leaving California.  I've yet to post those on the blog.  There was a trip to Universal Studios, indoor rock climbing, tour of the SoFi Stadium, the California Science Center... to name a few.  And let's not forget all the adventures on our roadtrip from California to Illinois!  Yes, I am really quite far behind with my blog postings :-P

Well, I did want to quickly post about our new home though.  We finally arrived in Tower Lakes on Monday, July l8.  We spent 8 days on the road - that's 2,911 miles worth of driving.  Yikes!! Bob and I managed to survive each other and also survived having the kids in the car with us (a very small space) and gosh, all those hotel rooms too. Phew!

So without further ado, welcome to our new home!  

It is much larger than our previous home at over 3,300 sq ft! Although it only has 3 bedrooms, so it will be a bit tricky with the sleeping arrangements as one of the bedrooms is downstairs.

Check out the pretty flowers.  I'm totally loving this:

And oh, Bobby had to carry me through the threshold - like all the other houses that we have moved to. I'm just glad he didn't drop me! Although, I think we need to fire our photographer a.k.a Graham.  Ha ha!

We really didn't know what to expect because we have not seen the house in person.  When we came by to visit Chicago during Spring Break, we didn't get this far Northwest of Chicago.  Charlie keeps repeating what I'm saying - that we live out "in the sticks".  Ha ha!  We did check out a golf course south of here, but that's about it.  What a find though... the neighborhood is nicely kept and the lake is bigger than expected!

Anyhow, more photos and details to follow.  It's getting late!  Here's one more photo from our first night.  I told the boys that there are fireflies outside in the yard.  They have never seen them before so they tried to catch them.  Although I think Graham said he squished one. Oops!

We are so lucky to have found this small community of homes.  Let's hope the schools will work out too for the boys.  In the meantime, we are enjoying the new home and the lake nearby and not also forgetting the new golf club membership. We are totally spoiling ourselves right now - thank goodness we sold our CA home when we did!

Ps. The movers should be arriving this Friday or Saturday.  It's going to be quite busy unpacking and organizing this home for the next few weeks (or months??!). Wish us luck!