Our New House

Ok, so it's been a busy year. Insane would be a better word. I've missed a lot of blog entries that should have been. My next entry or two will attempt to be the equivalent of a re-cap episode of our life, but for now, I'm too excited about the present.

We're New Englanders now! I suppose Alex has always been a New Englander, but living on the west coast for so long has essentially drained out his New Englander blood and he must start over. While living in Massachusetts for one year does not a New Englander make, we went ahead and bought a house here -which means we're stuck here for a good while. Here it is:



Cute, isn't it? We moved in July 4th weekend and are really enjoying it so far. We live in Melrose, roughly considered to be on the "North Shore" of Boston, and while it does not touch the shore, it has some very nice lakes and the cutest downtown ever. Melrose was originally a farming community and a place where well-to-do Bostonians summered. When they put the rail in, it rapidly became built up in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Like the vast majority of houses here, ours is turn-of-the century vintage.

Check out the old in-ground waste container in our backyard!



It is quite charming, and will also give us a headache here and there, I'm sure.

Headache #1: Replacing these old leaky pipes in the basement with new PVC


And here's Alex, newly minted home improvement weekend warrior, getting ready to saw them to pieces:


Yeah. So, hopefully this blog won't turn into "This Old House". Meanwhile, while we very slowly putter about with various projects, Susannah has been settling in pretty well. She has never lived anywhere nearly this big, and will occasionally get scared in the house, but for the most part I think she likes the extra breathing room. Having a yard is kind of nice! We even have a resident bunny, who she loves saying hi to each day. We have lots of picnics on the deck, and have even worked on full-size murals outside:


And some more rough-housing on the deck and in the kitchen:






So there you have it. We're having fun, and we are certainly never bored. I promise not to wait another year before I post again.