Hello, Cincinnati!

On Tuesday, we bid farewell to lovely Ann Arbor to embark on yet another adventure, another new city and another new house. While saying good-bye to our dear friends, the house we loved and the neighborhood we adored, we were already starting to think about our new house, new neighborhood and who would eventually become our new friends. The good-bye was made easier knowing that grandma Jo and Grandpa David would be meeting up with us in Cincinnati on Wednesday and we would be seeing our new house on Thursday. Well, Thursday is coming to a close, so we thought we would post a few pictures of our new house. All we can say is Thank God that grandma and grandpa could rearrange their schedules to come down and help us, as mama and daddy seem a bit... distracted. We've got plenty of room for friends and family to come visit and we promise you don't have to sleep on an aerobed anymore! Below are pictures that we took on our various house hunting trips, now the house is empty and many rooms will most likely remain empty for quite some time...

View from the street

Our front patio and we did get to keep all of the rockers

view when you enter the front door

dining room, just to the left of front door

formal living room, just to the right of front door

the kitchen

the eat in area of the kitchen

full view of the kitchen area

the family room

the mud room and laundry room. Yay! no more laundry in our kitchen

master bedroom

Tyler's new room

Remi's new room

the guest bedroom

the screened in patio

the backyard

The Rock

Last Saturday we paid homage to Ann Arbor, we painted The Rock. An Ann Arbor institution, this rock was originally placed in a small triangle of land called Washington Park in 1932 and was a memorial to our first president, George Washington, there's even a time capsule placed underneath it! Around 1957, The Rock, was painted, at first the city tried to clean it up after each painting, but has since given up, as it is painted several times daily. Like the day we painted The Rock, it was painted 4 different times in a 24 hour period! At one point the rock has had 7 inches of paint on it at one time! The Rock has actually been striped several times. As you can see by the pictures, there is a little hill up to The Rock. That's all paint that has dripped off!

Ok, enough history of The Rock. On Saturday we headed to Home Depot to buy cheap returned paint and supplies, got in our worst clothes and attacked that bad boy! It's was so much fun, we've seen the college kids do it for four years and now it was our turn. Thank you mama and daddy for letting us do this. It was so much fun to be covered in paint and leave our mark, even if it was only up for a few hours. Oh yeah, when we were done, we threw everything away, even our clothes!

What The Rock looked like before we painted it

those are all drips and layers of paint

Getting to work

I chose the orange and Remi chose the pink (shocker, I know...)

The sidewalk is all painted too. Thanks for teaching us about vandalism at such a young age, mom and dad!

not bad, if we do say so ourselves, all done by us kids

ok, daddy did the writing, but I wrote Tyler!

like I said, we took it all off!

what The Rock looked like from the car

Tyler's Graduation from Preschool

That's right, I graduated last night, or actually bridged... Yup, it's called a bridging ceremony and you literally walk over a bridge from preschool to kindergarten. I got a diploma and a yearbook and cheered on my other friends who graduated. Then we had a concert by one of my favorite bands and then family fun nigh at the school. Pizza, ice cream, bounce house and playgrounds, what more could a graduate ask for. I tell you, mama and daddy couldn't be more proud of me, they just kept gushing on and on, so embarrassing...

waiting for the ceremony to start

Remi, the frog room's tad pole, got to sit with the class

starting to get a bit anxious about "bridging"

ok, nerves are gone...

when asked what I liked most about preschool, I answered, "tennis." To which I received a standing ovation from the gym teacher!

getting my diploma

walking down the bridge

I made it!

sweet cheeks at her finest

Gaby, Regina, mama and Remi

this is as close to a smile you will ever get from Regina!

dancing to one of my favorite bands

dancin' with my sister

The boys. Yoel, me, and emiliano

plus our favorite teacher, Julie!

The boys and their sibs.