Trouble finding time to post, but he was mugging too much today to not capture something.
At six months, Elliott has eight teeth and an interest in our most decadent food. Seen here reaching for a milkshake at Lunchbox Laboratory, a photo requested by the staff for its cuteness.
Elliott has been smiling at his own reflection for about 10 minutes....
I couldn't say no, he wanted it!
Elliott has a new highchair and a new bib! His teeth are still
really bothering him,
so he refused to smile.
On the road home from surviving his first birthday party. Happy Birthday Alex!
Elliott had a visit from vocal members of his fan club yesterday and today. In their honor, rapid turn around on the pictures from lunch!
This is Cousin Nancy and Great Aunt Ginny. In one of these pictures, Ginny is on the phone, attempting to reach Elliott's Great Grandmother...
These two pictures show how lovely his personality is, most of the time. He's a charmer on the elevator rides, shopping, and as we walk around.
The blog may slow down for a bit, as the rest of our lives accelerates. Yet again.
Our lease is up at the end of the month, and while we have the opportunity to renew, we won't. Outside our window, a former Greyhound maintenance barn -- a noisy, occasionally noxious neighbor -- will soon be demolished, to be replaced with an electrical substation. Out of the frying pan of loud, malfunctioning diesel engines, and into the fire of infrastructure construction and electromagnetic radiation (EMR). We have a very nice apartment in a great location in downtown Seattle, but without getting answers from City Light about the design of the new station, except research from their specialists suggesting correlations between EMR and childhood leukemia, moving seemed like a good idea. At the same time, it has become more evident to us that we are pretty darn happy with what Seattle has to offer. Our limited insight into our own future suggests we won't be disappointed to still be here in 10 years.
Finally, we discovered a curious thing about the Seattle real estate market. While still too expensive, and a glut of one to two bed room options, there are very few three or more bedroom opportunities for rent. At our high, but not too extravagant, standard of living, we found precious little in our price range. Historically low mortgage prices, however, make expensive real estate seem reasonable in comparison.
In 2006, Tessa and I bought a duplex in Pittsburgh after a grueling 60 house tour over the span of a month or so. On the evening of Tuesday, July 27th, we finally entertained the notion of actually doing a house tour. Using the power of Estately, we filtered down to a couple houses to start with. Our focus started with Ballard, an established cool neighborhood that has increasingly drawn our attention, and time, including our weekly trips to their Farmers' Market. It was a start. We put in our request for a tour on Wednesday, and that evening we saw five houses. Beyond all reason, we found two that upgraded from "looks ok online" to "would be happy living there". By Friday, one had jumped to "and worth the money and hassle of 'ownership'", and we placed an offer. On Friday we made an offer, and after a weekend of negotiation, reached mutual acceptance with the owner. We went from casual looking to home inspection in a week -- way too fast to let people know. As far as we can tell, the window of time that we would consider ourselves "in the market to buy a home" could be measured in hours.
We are not complete Real Estate novices. In addition to our own experiences with our Pittsburgh duplex, my father is a professor of Real Estate at a pretty good graduate school. We know that home-buying is not an investment, and are happy enough that our fixed expenses will be less than recent rental expenses, but know that it is only the tip of the financial ice berg of bank rental. Unlike our previous renovation project of a home, this house is younger than Elliott, which does not eliminate but only changes the nature of the problems. Still, it will be nice to have a fenced yard for our aging dog and our soon-to-crawl baby.
For everyone surprised to learn that we quietly bought a house: sorry, we are just as surprised. For the rest of our lives, 2010 will be an important year. At the moment, however, it appears that 2010 is also our origination year for major expenses. Next month, we will be driving our 2010 baby in our car (model year 2010) to a our new, constructed in 2010, home. I hope not to start a new job in 2010, as I am plenty pleased with my existing one, but recognize there are still four months to go.
We will post pictures, soon enough, of Elliott in his new home. We are really excited by the place and its potential as a long-term place for Elliott to grow up.
Teacup Human is a reference to a favorite show of ours, "True Blood":
