Karl and Angela Rees

This week there was a lot of driving around for Angela and Thomas. They drove by a few for-sale homes to see if we wanted to see inside them. A couple of them they went into alone and another couple they went through with Karl. We decided that we are going to need to do some work on a house if we want one in our range. Two of the homes were move-in ready, but one was a short sale with 20 offers already in. So even if we bid high enough to get it (and who knows because banks are so slow on short sales), the sale could still fall through up to signing, and that would be a mess. The second was at the top of our range and there were a few people already looking at it, and who wants a bidding war when it is at the high point anyway. The other homes we looked at needed a good amount of work. We decided to rethink one we had looked at before. It needs a good amount of work, but it is lower in price than the other fixer-uppers we had seen. It's in a great location (well taken care of neighborhood, park down the street), and it was seller owned. We also found out from the bank that conforming rates are still the same whether you put down 10%, 15%, or 20%. This makes us less reluctant to put less down, and in turn gives us some money to fix it up. We decided to put in an offer. We are feeling pretty good about it. No word yet, but since our realtor is the seller's realtors, we already negotiated a price (still a good amount lower than asking). Hopefully we will have the good news early next week.

We had dinner with our realtor and her family on Thursday. They even watched Thomas as we went to a hospital tour (which was informative and now we know where to go). They have a son a few months older that Thomas and they seem to play well together. Thomas enjoyed riding on Logan's train.

Karl tried frisbee for the first time since his injury. His ankle is still feeling good, even though he doesn't feel fully mobile on it. He definitely could be in better running shape.

Angela and Thomas managed to squeeze in play group on Wednesday and his class on Friday. Thomas loved them both. While Angela went to another doctor appointment, Thomas played with Paela. Thomas had been wanting to play with her for awhile (saying her name several times during the week). We will have to get them together a lot this month.

Saturday we watched conference. We were hoping to go bike riding but Thomas was sleepy and had a low fever. He woke up from his nap with a higher fever, but still smiling.

We had both thought lately that we are blessed with a very special little boy. He is usually mellow and his fits are few and far between. We have heard from others marveling at how well he will sit on our lap during the first part of Sacrament meeting, how he doesn't cry in nursery, how good a talker he is, how cute he is, and so on. He has also become polite saying please (which we at first told him to say) and thank you (which he figured out on his own). He is helpful around the house. He likes to help mom with chores. He also looks to stand on a chair at the counter and help cook, so we had him help us a lot this week.