Good Friends, Good Fun

What a weekend! Friday night we tried to see Juno at Messiah but it was sold out. We decided to drive to AMC and take our chances. We really wanted to see Run Fatboy Run but it wasn't there and Horton Hears a Who had just started so we saw Vantage Point. It was actually really good! It was worth the money to see all that action on the big screen. It just won't be the same at home on a TV (but still worth seeing!).

Saturday we went to open house at the shelter to talk to someone about Trudy, the pup we're interested in adopting. We had left a note at the shelter on Monday and sent an e-mail to the shelter on Wednesday but heard nothing back so we figured it was time to talk to someone in person. Unfortunately, when we got there someone else had just put an adoption application on her. Amy let them know how frustrated she was but they were just volunteers. It really wasn't their fault. We filled out an application anyway but we're not feeling too good about it. As long as she gets a good home, that's all that really matters.

Saturday afternoon we went to Isaac's with two of Amy's college roommates, Christine and Stef, along with Christine's boyfriend Ryan. We had a really nice time catching up. After dinner we went to game night with our small group friends. That was tons of fun too. Then we came home and crashed.

Sunday after the paper route we taught Sunday school, then came home and slept till 4 pm! Apparently we were worn out. Amy made a new burger recipe for dinner and it turned out pretty well. We had (cinnamon) brownie sundaes for desert.

So that's that. We officially have 51 more days of doing the paper route. Can we make it?

A place to eat

We bought a dining set. Peter and our friend Jeremy are picking it up as I type. I really liked the color and the simple design and the fact that it feels heavy and sturdy. Some assembly required... we're happy to leave that to my Dad ;)

I made a new recipe tonight. Bruschetta and cheese stuffed chicken breasts. Possibly the messiest meal I've ever made but after some dishes and a few anti-bacterial wipes the kitchen was good as new. It was really yummy.

An update on the house - the sellers agreed to fix the faucet and have the furnace serviced. They will not have the radon mitigation system installed but they will give us $400 toward having one installed ourselves. Our realtor was quoted $600-$800 for the entire system so we thought it was an acceptable offer. Now that the inspection is all worked out, our mortgage guy ordered an appraisal this week. Exciting stuff!

We're also thinking about getting a dog. There's a female basset hound at our shelter who we've just fallen in love with. We're waiting to hear back from someone at the shelter to hear what they think about the fact that we can't actually take her home till June. Guess we'll wait and see!

Happy Easter

Food Galore!

Amy has been busy cooking up all sorts of yummy food lately. Below is a sampling from the past few days. The first is a Chocolate Truffle Pie. Very simple and very yummy. This was Thursday's dessert. The 2nd we had for dinner tonight. It's pork loin seasoned with thyme over stuffing with sweet potatoes. It was the first time we had this but it turned out really great! The last picture is the cupcakes we're taking with us to Easter dinner at Amy's parents' tomorrow. Fun Easter colors! We can't wait to eat them.

It's been sort of a busy weekend thus far. Amy spent the day with her Mom yesterday while Peter was at work. They went out to lunch at Red Lobster and drove by the townhouse to show Mom where it was. After work we went grocery shopping and watched "Red Dragon" (a classic!).

Today we slept in after the paper route till 10. Amy made blueberry muffins for breakfast and then we did some shopping at Target. We came home with a new Easter dress for Amy and yellow polo for Peter to wear tomorrow! Then we put together the Sunday papers, came home, had lunch and watched some Gilmore Girls (Amy needed to relax). We made dinner together and now we're about ready to go to bed early.

We heard back about our radon inspection. The levels are a little higher than they should be, so we're asking the sellers to install a radon mitigation system. We're a little nervous to hear what their response will be. If they refuse to install it, we can't buy the house. However, if they refuse to install it, chances are good another buyer would ask them to do it anyway. So... we wait and pray.

We wish you all a Happy Easter!

Yay Weekend!

Hey there world wide web! Just Amy this time. Peter's still at work. I'm home early for a Dr. appointment. Boo! So Kenny and I are hanging out and blogging together (see below).

We had our home inspection on Tuesday and it went VERY well. We're asking the sellers to fix a loose diverter (faucet) on the guest bathtub and have the furnace serviced and that's it. Nothing else wrong, really. I took about a million more pictures to give me a better idea of space and colors and things. Yes, I've already been looking at paint colors. Some of my favorites are Bagel, Latte (sounds like breakfast so far), Jubilee and Coastal Plain. I can't wait to get in there and paint!

We get the results of our radon test either today or tomorrow. After that our mortgage guy will order an appraisal and we're one step closer to making this home ours. Yay!

I have the day off tomorrow. Peter does not. This may be the only time EVER that Peter, the State Employee, doesn't get a holiday and I do. Ha! My Mom may come over to visit. We'll have lunch and I'll drive her by the house to see where it is. Maybe do a little furniture shopping :)

Peter and I found a table and chairs that we really like and for a great price too. We may buy them next week. We're also giving away our current living room furniture and getting all new stuff so... if you know anybody who needs a couch... Otherwise we're putting up flyers at Messiah College. College students LOVE free stuff.

Alright, enough already. Have a fabulous weekend! Oh - and here's a pic of the front of our house (finally). Enjoy.

Happy Easter!!!

Two Years

Happy St. Patrick's Day! And happy 2 year anniversary to us. We just can't believe it has been 2 years already. Two wonderful and amazing years. Not always easy but more than worth it.

So what's the news? We met with our mortgage guy last week. It seemed to go really well. Because our income needs to fall below a certain number to qualify for the FHA loan, it's still unclear if the paper route will have any effect on our loan. We decided this weekend that we will not be keeping the route beyond our vacation in May. Woohoo! It would just be too much stress with the move and as Peter said yesterday, "I don't remember what it's like to sleep through the night anymore." We're ready to sleep again!

This weekend we had our own mini movie-fest. We watched "Michael Clayton", "Dan in Real Life" and "Across the Universe". Not bad. We'd recommend any of them. Amy loved Bono's appearance in ATU. Priceless.

Tomorrow we have our home inspection. We're both a little nervous but the townhouse was built in 2002 so we really don't anticipate any problems. Our landlord was in our apartment today with his plumber buddy fixing the seal on the toilet and replacing the shower fixtures. We removed everything from the bathroom just as a safety precaution so Amy spent the better part of the evening cleaning the bathroom and putting it all back.

Amy met with our car insurance agent today too. It looks like our home insurance quotes aren't bad at all and we'll get a discount on our car insurance too. We'll be waiting till our mortgage is solid and then we'll go ahead with the insurance.

As you can see, our life has been revolving around this house... and we couldn't be happier. Less than 3 months till it is ours!

We bought a house!

That's right - we bought a house! It's been a little crazy in the Jones household lately. We saw 3 houses in 3 days and ended up falling in love with one of them. It's a townhouse with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. It's just about the perfect size for us and in a location we've been considering for a long time. We're thrilled!

The buyers took our first offer but they wanted to push back the closing date by 30 days. That was actually preferable to us because now we will remain in our apartment for the duration of our lease, it will give us more time to save a few more bucks to put into furniture and such and it postpones moving till after our vacation in May. The only issue was that our mortgage guy had told us he could only lock in our interest rate for 60 days BUT he was able to secure us a 30 day extension so it all worked out PERFECTLY! Praise the Lord :)

So we close June 12th. What an exciting Spring this will be! We meet with our mortgage guy tomorrow to get started on all the details.

Here's a pic of our (shared) back yard.

Daylight Savings

Heard a question on the radio - when it's not daylight savings time, what is being spent? Didn't hear the answer but the question was still funny.

There's really not much going on. Last Thursday Amy's parents came to visit and we went out to dinner at Friendly's. Friday night Peter played at Ignite with a group from Amy's work. Ignite is an event that happens monthly and it draws in mostly college students from Messiah College. The purpose is to promote short and long term missions and raise interest and participation. Peter plays the drums for praise and worship! The drum kit is still in Amy's car though. Maybe we'll bring it back inside tonight.

Yesterday we ran the paper route in the rain. Boo. We did a little grocery shopping and in the evening went to the Sandwich Man with Tim, Jessamine and Geoff. Fun times!

Today we did the paper route in the cold and wind (boo again). We taught our Sunday school class and the girls were a little more high strung than normal. Still, we managed to have some fun. We came home and slept for another 4 hours, haha. We definitely caught up on that lost hour. We made veggies and Mama Jones' mac-n-cheese. Yum.

Now we're on our way out to the Woods' for our small group meeting. Oh yeah - Amy made chocolate chip cookies this week! A new recipe that worked out really well.

Have you seen THIS umbrella?

We lost an umbrella. Actually, Amy lost her umbrella (pink isn't really Peter's color). It was left on our porch last night and when we woke up to do the paper route this morning it was gone. We figure either a) someone stole it (perhaps a client of the hair salon next door who - forgetting their own umbrella - wished to protect their newly styled coif) or more likely b) it simply blew away. Boo. Amy has had that umbrella forever too. Time to upgrade.

We both survived our dentist appointments on Monday. Amy had a clean bill of dental health, as usual. Peter has one itty bitty cavity and a recommendation to have has 2 wisdom teeth removed. He's determined to fight that one.

Amy's sore throat did indeed turn into a full blown cold. After loads of Tylenol Cold, she's on the mend.

We survived the rain from yesterday and this morning too. The Susquehanna is still on the rise but we're not close enough to the river to feel any effects of that. We tied shut all of our papers this morning so we'll see if we get any wet paper complaints. For the past 2 days we've had to wait 30 minutes for our papers once we get to the distribution center. It's highly frustrating as that means one half hour less sleep once we get home. Ah well. We figure sometime around August or September we'll be done with this foolishness. Yay!

That's about all the news for now. We've has baked penne for dinner the past couple nights (although this time it was made with half penne and half bow tie pasta so really a baked "bowne"). Here's the super simple recipe - if you're interested:

Baked Penne

Preheat oven to 375

Mix 26 oz. spaghetti sauce and 16 oz. cottage cheese

Add 1 lb. browned ground beef and 3 cups (12 oz.) cooked penne

Pour into 13x9 in baking dish (sprayed w/ cooking spray)

Sprinkle w/ 1 cup shredded mozzarella

Bake 25-30 minutes

Long Weekend + Friends = Good Times

Well it has been quite the weekend, and it's not even over yet! Friday night we met our newlywed small group friends from church at Chick-Fil-A. We've been hanging with this crazy group for about a year now and they've become our closest friends. After dinner we went to the Coliseum (a big arcade-type place) and pretended to be 5 years old again. Then to top off the evening we went back to Chris & Michelle's house for cake and icecream. Chris and Jeremy have upcoming birthdays this week. We had a ton of fun (even if it meant only getting 4 hours of sleep before our Saturday paper route... ouch).

Saturday after our paper route we slept till about 12:30! Boy was that nice. Unfortunately every Saturday we spend from 2-3 pm back at the paper distribution center arranging what we can of the Sunday papers. It does make our Sunday mornings a little more manageable though. After that we headed to Messiah, grabbed a snack at the Student Union and then made our way to Boyer Hall to see "No Country For Old Men". Wow. Fantastic (albeit, not exactly a feel good) movie. Amy tried to count all the murders but lost track around 20. Javier Bardem certainly earned that Oscar.

So after all that psychopathic killing we went to Carrabba's for dinner. It was our first time (and we actually went to use the gift certificates Mike & Missy gave Peter about 4 years ago) and we both enjoyed it very much. Our chocolate cake dessert was AMAZING. We barely made it home before falling asleep.

Today we ran the Sunday paper and went back to bed till 10. Amy cleaned the house and Peter did laundry and dishes (exciting, right?). Amy's fighting a sore throat and hoping is doesn't turn into something worse. Lots of tea and honey - and probably a fruit smoothie for dinner with icecream for dessert. Yum! We went grocery shopping and paid some bills (we really were the life of the party today). Later we'll finish watching the SNL we taped last night with Ellen Page and Wilco (and Vincent D'Onofrio, Hilary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, consequently).

We both have tomorrow off (in an attempt to spend a long, relaxing weekend together to celebrate our anniversary a little early). After this post, it's time to relax. For reals.