Colors

Colors are Zach's newest accomplishment; he can now name most of the primary colors about 85% of the time. He often mixes up red and pink, a tough distinction. :) But his latest adventure in colors was... coloring on the wall. I'm not sure how well you can see it in this picture (he's pointing at the evidence), but trust me, there were some nice green crayon lines drawn all over our yellow kitchen wall, right at Zach level. Apparently he knows how well green and yellow go together...

Good thing we're moving!

Zach also continues to surprise me with how well he remembers people, and makes connections between people and his memories. Today, for example, when I asked if he wanted to go to the mall (rainy day, too much toddler energy), his response was: Grandma? He hasn't forgotten how much Grandma W likes to shop! If you mention our friend Ben, he starts rattling off members of Ben's family, starting with Otto (the dog comes first), then Brady, and then Isak; Kirsten is clearly too hard to say! And after he spent some time last weekend with his cousins Chase and Sophie ("Dase" and "Yo-fee"), he's now asking for them as often as "Man-nee" and "Bin-nee", who he hasn't seen now in week or so. And at random times, he'll just ask "Grandpa?" Grandpa is also a favorite when it comes to playing with his various phone toys - that's who he always wants to call.

With cousins Chase and Sophie

Today at the post office, the woman in line behind us told the guy behind the counter that he should hire Zach, since he had great customer service skills. He was doing his parrot imitation, saying the last thing that either the postal worker or I said. When he realized he had an audience, he was waving and yelling bye-bye as we left. He loves to work the crowd!

Don't get me wrong, while our kid is clearly a genius, it often takes some interpretation to figure out what he's saying. There are a LOT of letters he can't pronounce. So we often do a little repeating game, or pointing, to figure out what he wants. The one thing we can't figure out is something that sounds like "yay-saays". We know when he says it he means "Zach's turn", since it fits the context and he's pointing at himself, but we can't figure out why he's pronouncing it that way. He normally refers to himself as "Yack", and he can say "turn" pretty clearly when it's on it's own. But put them together, and you get Yaysaays. Go figure.

Friends - then and now

Think back to where you were in 1988... for me, that was the year I graduated from 8th grade. Yes, we had an actual graduation ceremony, and we got all dressed up too. I realize it's odd, but when you go to the same school for 8 years, with essentially the same thirty people, it's a big deal when you graduate!

So, to commemorate that joyous occasion, we had a reunion last weekend! Two "old" friends, Carrie and Ann, and I had been in charge of organizing it, and even that process was fun, as it reconnected us with a lot of people we hadn't spoken to in a very long time, and had us digging for old pictures and memorabilia. The reunion itself was pretty simple; we went to the church festival during the day and took a tour of the school, and that night met at a local establishment for dinner and a few cocktails.

Since I realize it's not so interesting to anyone but me and my classmates, I won't bore you with the details. I'll just say I had a great time, remembering what was really a wonderful time period of my life, and creating some new memories. Cheers to old friends!!!

Perhaps you'll enjoy this flashback - the girls basketball team in '88, and us now!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I also have to reflect on how much we enjoy seeing Zach with our families, since we've recently had the opportunities to spend time with Scott's family in MT, and mine in Milwaukee. It's really amazing to see how quickly he connects with them, especially now that he clearly remembers them from one visit to the next. One of the funnier moments was when Zach woke up Sunday morning in Milwaukee. First I heard his little voice coming from the pack-n-play in the other room saying "mama? mama?" Then he paused, and said "Man-nee?" Another pause, and then, "gram-ma?" Poor kid was running though the possibilities of who might come and get him out of bed, since he'd been sleeping in so many different places the last few weeks. I had to laugh!

But, I do have to say, if we aren't fortunate enough to have our families close by, we couldn't be any luckier than to have the friends we have. Especially lately... here is just a sample of the help we have asked for from our friends:
- Can you watch Zach while we house-hunt?
- Can you watch Koskie while we go to Montana?
- Can you give us a ride to the airport?

And, of course, we all know the biggest favor is coming up in a few weeks - help moving! No one likes to move, themselves or anyone else, since nothing about the process could be considered fun. But the amazing thing is... we didn't even have to ask. Once they heard we bought a new house, our friends asked us when we were moving, and then every single one of them said - I'll be there. Does it get any better than that???

Big Sky Country

Wearing grandpa's glasses

We're back! Did you miss us? We were in Big Sky country - on Saturday we got on a plane to Kalispell, MT. We realized that was Zach's 5th flight... we had to laugh; neither one of us had been anywhere near an airplane at that age, and he practically has enough miles to be silver elite. We were not looking forward to the flight, since sitting still and quiet in a contained space isn't exactly one of Zach's strengths - and who can blame him? However, he was great - a little loud at times, but he even stretched out on our laps and took a nap for an hour or so.

It turned out to be a good thing he got that nap, since he was on the go the rest of the day and into the night. Teri, Mandy and the girls (Bryn, almost 6, and Maryn, 4) picked us up at the airport, and then we checked into our hotel, changed and headed to the wedding. Scott's cousin's daughter was getting married, on his Uncle Bud's land in Columbia Falls. It was different from weddings I'd been to in some ways... we drove on a gravel road to get there, an entire pig was roasting over a fire, and the groom wore a cowboy hat! But like all good weddings, it was a very touching ceremony (in a beautiful setting - check out the pics), and a great party. We risked having our arms frozen while "bobbing" for beers in the huge tub of drinks, and our toes frozen if we waded in the creek!

The ceremony; our little family

Zach wasn't really interested in the ceremony (imagine that), and got quite frustrated when he couldn't walk behind the minister to get back to the bridge and creek that he loved. Despite the freezing cold, he waded in again and again. But once the dancing started, he got his groove on, dancing with his cousins and the bride, and then eventually passing out in Mandy's arms.

Oh, did we mention how much Zach loves Mandy? She's like the toddler-whisperer or something; from the first time she picked him up until we left, all we heard was "Man-NEE". :)

a gaggle of Willards - Kristin, Mandy, Alan & Teri

Sunday morning we went back to Uncle Bud and Aunt Alice's for some huckleberry pancakes and homemade chocolate syrup - so decadent and yummy. Then Scott and I experienced the literal meaning of the phrase "eat my dust" when we followed one of Scott's second (?) cousins on a four-wheeler ride. We zoomed up a beautiful trail to see some gorgeous views of the valley. When we returned to the house we were greeted with a lot of laughter, as we were visibly coated in dust - my hair felt like I'd put on a few coats of AquaNet! Mandy took pictures as proof, so once I've seen those, I'll consider putting them out here.

Just of a few of Uncle Bud's trophies

We headed back to Belgrade (where Scott's parents live, just outside Bozeman), and then spent the rest of our time playing in the backyard, sometimes swimming, and often eating, eating, and more eating. Zach got to spend lots of time with his cousins; although Liam (almost 3) didn't really appreciate the nickname Zach unintentionally gave him. He couldn't quite say Liam, it came out sounding like "Limo", so by the end of the week we were all calling poor Liam "Nemo"!

Zach and Nemo; with the girls

Let's see... what else - oh, Scott and I even went out on a "date" - dinner and drinks with a walk down Bozeman's main street. We also got together with Scott's college buddy Neal, his wife Stephanie, and their two kids, and discovered they will be adding to their family in a few months - with twins!!!

Zach in Scott's old Raggedy Andy costume - too cute!

All in all, a good time, as always. I had a hard time deciding what pictures to include - we had lots of good ones! But hopefully these give you an idea of the fun we had. Once I'm more organized, I'll put the snapfish link out here, for those of you who want to see ALL the pictures I took.

PS... I brought home an interesting souvenir - pink eye. Yep, I'm 34 years old and I have pink eye. Sigh.

Suburbs here we come

We just had a huge downpour of rain - very much needed - and I couldn't help but notice the little girls down the street immediately running outside to run around in the rain, shrieking with delight. Who doesn't remember doing that as a kid?? There's nothing like a summer rainstorm!

So... we got the house. Woodbury here we come! We are closing on the new house on September 19th, which gives us about a week and a half to move before we have to be out of our house. We'll be posting a sign-up sheet here soon, so you can volunteer your time and muscles. :)

I've included a few more pictures; we went out this evening while the inspector was doing his job - check out the picture of him on the roof! Brave guy. The second picture is for my father-in-law; if you look between the two houses across the street, and squint hard enough, you can see the pin on one of the holes of the golf course! We almost live on a golf course!

So after going through the house again, I'm pretty excited, although it really doesn't seem real that we are going to live there. I'm definitely most excited about the kitchen being open to the family room - so Zach can play while I'm in the kitchen and not have to come running to find me in another room!

I also met some neighbors while we were there; a woman from around the corner and four girls. I learned that there are lots of kids in the neighborhood, but the majority are older, probably 5 and up. There is one little boy (Peyton) about Zach's age a few houses up, and somewhere nearby is a three year-old who is "wild" (out of the mouths of the little girls). So we're looking forward to living in a neighborhood where the kids all run around and everyone looks out for each other.

The back of the house; Zach on our new deck - site of lots of future BBQs!

Not a whole lot else new with us... Zach and I are suffering through our colds, and it's likely Scott is next. I didn't have the energy to entertain Zach myself today, so I took him to the children's museum so he could run wild. He did just that - they have a lot of good exhibits for guys his age who like to run up and down ramps and climb up things. He took a longer than usual nap, so I guess it worked!

Oh, and one last thing -

Happy Birthday Dad/Grandpa Klicka!!!

And now we wait

The sellers are apparently familiar with Scott's negotiating strategies, since we've now been waiting since about 10 AM for a response to our offer on a house. Not too surprising they didn't immediately come back with an enthusiastic accept, since we made a pretty low offer, at least from their perspective. :)

After looking at about 35 houses, narrowing our search down to 5, and then to the final 2, we made an offer on a 4-bedroom house in a neighborhood that appears to be filled with kids. It has the floor plan we (mostly I, probably) wanted - the kitchen flows into the eat-in area and then into the family room. We'll fill you in more if we actually get the house; for now - here are some pictures of the front and the backyard (and the neighbors' yards). Check out the pitcher's rubber (there's also a home plate out of sight) - somehow I don't think we'll be taking that out!

In other news, Zach has come down with his first cold in a long time, and has a non-stop runny nose. I think I'm getting it too - whoo hoo. Scott got to spend a beautiful Sunday at work today, the first day of a week-long training session, complete with all sorts of schmoozing dinners and a booze cruise. Since I've had to create those types of training programs, I can say I'm glad it's him and not me. :)

We're going to have to find a way to get some video out here soon, as some of Zach's pronunciations of new words are pretty goofy. He has trouble with Ls, Ss, and Fs, and replaces them with a "y" sound. So lake is "yake", sock is "yock", and for some reason, phone is "yoon". Our favorite, however, has to be "blueberries". Yep ... he says it "boobies".

House Hunters

As many of you know, we love the show House Hunters on HGTV. Well, reality isn't exactly like that show...

For one thing, I thought we were done with the forced home evacuations... wrong! When I heard the William Tell Overture on Saturday, I happily told the woman on the other end of the phone that we'd sold our house, so no more showings! She patiently explained that it was still available for showings, since the house inspection hadn't occurred yet, and the offer was contingent on the inspection. Oh...ok. So we ended up having 2 showings on Sunday... where were these people a month ago??? Although for the very first time I said no to a showing when they requested one right smack in the middle of Zach's nap - boy did that feel good! Anyway, then we had to get out again Monday for the inspection; Koskie gets all excited that he gets to come along, then ends up waiting in the car, this time while we went to a music class. Poor pooch.

On to the house-hunting part of this wonderful process. While it is definitely better than the selling process, it's been... interesting. Our first time out, we saw 10 houses, while our friends Jenny and Kyle watched Zach - thank you thank you! And out of those 10, 8 were in foreclosure or "short sale". Which means we went through empty and not maintained houses, most of which had been stripped of things like the cabinet hardware, appliances, and in one case - shower doors! It was rather depressing, especially since most of those houses clearly had kids living in them. I'm a softie, what can I say; I kept imagining those poor kids thrown out of their homes. It made all the gloom and doom you hear about on the news seem a little more real, I guess.

Our second time out, last night, was better in that most of the houses were not foreclosures - it was nice to look at houses with furniture! But we had Zach with us, and while he did pretty well, he was not a fan of the in and out of the car repetition. The highlight for him was probably the two houses that had cats; he got to run after the cats hollering "meow".

Let me try to summarize the extremes that exist in this process... While we were trying to sell our house, we did things to "stage" it, just a few examples include putting extra stuff in storage, painting, giving a bare lightbulb a light fixture, and eventually - having the exterior of our house painted. When we walked through a foreclosed house yesterday, they had "staged" the house with... a dead goose on the deck. No, I'm not kidding. We're not sure if it came with the house or not, but it wasn't much of an incentive to buy. Painted exterior... dead goose. Huh.

In summary, we have looked at 18 houses so far, and I think there are 2 in contention. We've seen a lot of houses that are close to what we want, but there's always something - yard is too small, basement isn't a walk-out, or the layout is just wrong. So we're back on the hunt tonight. Another big THANK YOU to the Bergums for watching Zach tonight so we can crank through as many houses as possible!

Conversation with Zach

Finally - some more video! Grandpa Klicka shot this while they were here last week, and kindly sent it to us to post for your viewing pleasure, since we haven't been able to get our own video off the camera yet (I'm happy to report that I stumped the guys at Best Buy when I took the camera in; it made me feel like less of a techno-idiot). So we hope you enjoy listening to a conversation with Zach...

Whew!

Yes, after four months of having to clean the house and evacuate with Koskie and Zach on a couple hours' notice... we're done! After the usual offer/counter/counter process - we accepted an offer on our house this morning. If everything goes according to plan, we will be closing at the end of September. Now the fun part begins - we finally get to be on the other side of the deal!

It really has been an odd, odd ride. Scott has a spreadsheet and could give you exact numbers, but I'd estimate that we averaged about 1.5 showings a week from April thru June. Then we went over three weeks in July without a single showing! Which was nice, from a living perspective, but not so great from a selling perspective. So when I finally heard the distinctive ring - the William Tell Overture - on Wednesday morning, I was both relieved (finally - a showing!) and frantic (the house was not exactly showing-ready). Long story short, we ended up having TWO showings on Wednesday, after weeks and weeks of drought. We got extremely positive feedback from the first showing, so we were feeling good. Then Thursday morning we got the offer, and it wasn't even from that first showing! We went from no one wanting our house (we had one second showing during the entire four months) to having 2 different parties who were interested. Crazy, I tell you. So now we have a decent, if a little odd (they wanted and are getting stuff like our microwave, grill, lawn mower, etc), offer and we're moving forward! Stay tuned for more on our house hunt!

Oh... and I have to mention it's entirely possible my parents are our real estate lucky charms. Their presence seemed to bring about showings and eventually the offer. So if you're having a hard time selling your home, feel free to contact Beck and Bill. :)

Where did that come from??

I know this is only one of many many times that I will say "where did he get that from?" when Zach does something goofy, but I just had to run and get the camera and now share this one:

I was filing my nails yesterday afternoon (yes, while eating bon-bons), so Zach decided his toys weren't as interesting and came over to get the nail file. After I was done I handed it to him, and asked him what he was going to do with it. He looked at it for a moment, and then sat down and...



started "filing" his toenails!!! He was saying something too, which I eventually interpreted as "tootsies". I honestly have no idea where he got this from - I don't think I've ever filed my own toenails! Perhaps Daddy has been teaching him how...