Springfield Home Tour starts today!

If anyone is in or close to the Jacksonville area or maybe you are going to watch The Players Championship in person, I highly sugguest that you come to Springfield's Home Tour starting today and going on through Sunday. The neighborhood always showcases some of the best homes and gardens and this year they even have a free bike tour on Saturday. So if your in the neighborhood, come on out and join the fun.

Audrey's first plane trip to New York

Well this past week was Audrey's 100th (Baek Il) day. In Korea, the baby's 100th day is a very special day of celebration because a long time ago if a baby made it past 100 days than their chances of survival was very good. So to celebrate Audrey's 100th day we went to visit with family in New York.

We were a little scared with how Audrey would do on the plane, but as you can see she did pretty darn well.

The trip wasn't too bad and she mainly just slept the whole way.

We arrive on Thursday night and ate with my parents, who of course were delighted to finally see their first grandchild. The celebration was going to be on Saturday, so on Friday we went to the city to walk about and 'look at stuff'... the stuff we looked at were fabric shops that my wife was dying to go see. She literally spent all day in the Fashion District looking at fabric. But of course I took some pictures while waiting.

On Saturday everyone came over and took pictures with Audrey and then we placed her in front of the rice cake (duk in Korean) and took pictures while she was still in a good mood. After that we let her sleep and we feasted on ribs and crab legs and other stuff. It was a good day and was great to have almost the whole family together. I'm just glad that everything went fairly well and that my grandma was able to see her.

Now only 265 more days until her big, big, big celebration.. 1 year.

Audrey is 3 months old now!

Well I've been pretty busy since Audrey came along so I didn't have time to post this on the 19th, but Audrey is now officially 3 months old! Woohoo! She is getting bigger and bigger and now I need to do some arm curls just so I can pick her up in her carseat. She is whopping 12 lbs 13 oz now. Anyways daddy just wants to say HAPPY 3 MONTHS!! Also next week will be Audrey's 100th day, which in Korea is a very big celebration. So we will be going to New York to celebrate with the whole family. Sadily no one has yet to see her yet, but grandma and grandpa will be happy... finally.

Saving Money

Well, we recently sold our beloved Mercedes Benz C230 to Carmax. It was tough, but it was part of our plan to reduce debt and save money. With the money we got back we were able to pay off our other car and use whatever was left to pay other debts we have. See since having a baby our plan is to pay off all of our debt and be debt free, so that my wife can be a stay at home mom. So that means no more Mickey D's, more eating at home, no more shopping for clothes at department stores and more shopping for clothes at discount places or thrift shops. I guess in a way it's a good thing. We end up riding our bike to work more or walking home and eating right. Of course this also means that our dogs can't have their favorite treats as much anymore either.

We figure by selling our car that it should save us about $800 a month, which of course will be offset by the daycare for our baby while my wife still works, but it is worth it for my little bugger. Ain't she cute?

Getting ready for cherry blooms

Well last year at the 'Annual Flowering Tree Sale', I bought a redbud and yoshino cherry tree to plant in our front yard. Now for basics our front yard probably gets the most sun even though it is facing north. The south side of our house, which is normally the side with the most sun, is occupied by 3 large oak trees, a walnut tree, 2 palms, and a mulberry tree. So you can see that we get barely enough sun to grow weeds and such. The trees only cost $10 and they  usually have a whole assortment of different trees. I made sure to grab these two as they have nice pink and white flowers and don't grow as tall. I planted the redbud in our front yard and the yoshino cherry on the city owned area between the street and sidewalk. Unfortunately for the redbud we also happened to travel to Indonesia a month or two after planting and when we came back it was dead. But the cherry tree was still going strong. Now it's been planted there for over a year and finally after the cold winter we had, it looks like it will bloom. We also replaced the redbud with a Meyer's Lemon tree and hope to harvest a bunch of lemons later on to make some lemonade and cake. Anyways here are some pictures of the buds forming and about to bloom. This should be nice. Too bad the rest of our yard looks like trash.

Another one bites the dust

Well yesterday another house bit the dust in our neighborhood. This time it went up in flames and huge flames at that.

As you can see this baby was engulfed and from what I hear it went up in a matter of minutes. This hosue was a few blocks down from mine and it was on 8th street, which is a commercial area. It was in pretty bad shape, because the owner had neglected it over the years. The police say they think it was arson. Hmmm I wonder who would want to set an old dilapidated house on fire that was insured??? Answers anyone?? But anyways we loose another old beauty in Springfield and gain another empty lot that will be used as a trash dump. Sad to see but that's what seems to happen here. A moment of silence please.

Buying a Second House

With the housing market crashing down and looking like it has bottomed out. Me and my wife have been thinking about maybe trying to buy a second house. No, we're not trying to bloat about it, but we came to a conclusion that we need a bigger house. Our current house is about 1600 square feet, 3 rooms and 1 bathroom. We have 6 dogs, 4 cats and a brand new baby, as you can tell it's a little cramped in here. We have been keeping an eye on the house prices here in Jacksonville and have seen some houses that are 2800 square feet selling for under $100,000.00! We bought ours for $150,000.00 darnit!! Our plan is to try to buy a bigger home and then rent out our current house until the economy gets better then sell it. I don't know how many of you out there have thought about this or have even done this, but I wanted to know what your thoughts were on this as I'm sure many people are thinking the same way, with low home prices and low interest rates.