Summer is over!

This has seemed like a super short summer. Cait left to go back home a couple weeks ago so she could get ready for school, and even though I am done with my school days, September just seems like the beginning of real life, work, and routines. I do have a lot more work to do now that the school year is starting since I edit papers for the Naval Postgraduate School, and I am trying to start some weekly routines so that Manu and I don't get cabin fever couped up in the house with no idea what to do. But, I'm not quite sure what my routines should entail. If anyone has some good ideas for hobbies/activities that I should take up (with a 5 month old baby), please let me know.

In other news, we finally hit the jackpot on sweet houses. We have been actively house hunting since July, and we have been having a hard time finding the "right one", but this week we saw several houses that we liked and two that we loved. We made an offer on the two best ones, but they are both short sales which means that they take a long time to close. For those of you who are confused about what a short sale is (me included), my rough understanding is that it means that the seller is selling the house for less than they still owe the bank on the mortgage. So that makes more steps in the sale process because first the seller has to accept your offer, then the bank has to appraise the house and calculate thier losses to make sure your offer will cover their bottom line. The thing that takes the longest is the bank appraisal/counter-offer process. We've heard that often banks counter offer multiple times. But we are feeling confident about our first choice house becasue its been in the short sale process for a while which means the bank has already appraised it at least once. Also, the sellers already accepted our offer! Yay! So we are just waiting on the bank. This house is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, rambler (one level) house in South Salt Lake. I like the layout and the yard a lot... the green shag carpet and wood paneling in the family room will have to go eventually, but it is technically "move-in ready". If you are interested there are some pictures on the real estate website. Just go to realdealutah.com and search for MLS#956872. The second house we put an offer on is in Taylorsville and its also really really nice, but it needs a little more TLC and it was previously owned by smokers, so its a little stinky. If we don't get our fist choice, we are still excited about the smoke house though, it has a huge yard and its right on the Jordan river.

Here are a few pictures of our last few summer adventures. We went to Arches national park when Cait was here. It was amazing, but note to self: hot desert and tiny baby don't really go together. Manu was drinking water from a cup right along with the rest of us by the end of the trip. Oh, and now she is officially eating solid food (well if you count runny rice cereal with apple juice "solid"). We got a bumbo seat for her to sit in and she loves it. She is getting to be such a big girl!