thank you guys so much...for the...HOUSE!

first of all, i must say this. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CAROLINE!!!! what a beautiful day for a beautiful sister to turn 28!!! i hope it's overflowing with beautiful blessings!











now on to business. what you hear is true. chris and lyndsay bought a house. the signatures are official. alls that needs to happen now is to get approved for that loan, get the inspection done and wait a couple months, and we'll CLOSE. it's not really all that weird either. it feels really natural. like it's the perfect next step. PRAISE THE LORD!!!! what a provider He is. we were thinking about maybe looking for another apartment or MAYBE a house in the next few months. a friend from work sent an email around last thursday saying they were selling their house. we had been to this house before and LOVED it. and actually, when we were househunting last year, we compared the ones we liked to this house even though it wasn't for sale. "man! if we could just find one like that house!!!" buddy did we snatch it up quick. the timing works perfectly for when they have to move out and when our lease is up. it's just awesome - AWESOME - how God provided for both couples involved!!!

THE FRONT. beautiful, glorious front porch!!! WITH a swing!! :) and the little tiny tree that you see is "little stick". one of the stipulations of buying the house is that we take very good care of him. not, like, officially. but these are our friends so we talked about silly things like that. i love it! and i actually had a dream night before last that i broke little stick. i think it's anxiety that they'll come back and visit a few years from now and little stick will be dead...let it not happen!!!

THE BACK. notice the GIANT back deck! :)













BACK YARD!!!! are you kidding?! it's HUGE!! sitting out on the back porch feels like you're out in the suburbs - it's quiet, secluded b/c of all the trees and bushes, and apparently when it's that time of year the lightening bugs are EVERYWHERE. other than those types of bugs, the back yard isn't buggy (ie, mosquitos) and there are bunnies and butterflies!!! oh boy!! and i must say that a fence and puppy dog very well might be in the slatens' near future thanks to this back yard...:)

**EDIT** our dear friend jeremiah, in chris' words "was very quick to point out all the possible locations for a slip and slide in the back yard." oh. my. word.



KITCHEN! i love the kitchen. counter space! cabinets! WINDOWS!! glory!!!












DINING ROOM. RED! enough said. and AWESOME windows.












DEN pic 1. that fireplace works, dude!!













DEN pic 2. beautiful, glorious windows!!













BEDROOM 1. bigger than what we have now! one thing we must get creative on is closet space. the house was built in the 1930s and apparently back then you were taxed according to how many rooms you had, and a closet counted as a room b/c it had a door. so they built no closets. the renovators built in two small closets (one in each bedroom) so we'll need to get a wardrobe or something. and the bedroom's big enough to take one! hurrah!! :)




BEDROOM 2. this is a terrible picture of it, but whatever. there's the other fireplace! and it's really small, but we won't really be using it for anything other than really small people...someday. and until then, it'll just be a computer/music room.








SUN ROOM! i LOVE this room! it's practically ALL windows and leads out to the back deck.

we didn't get any pictures of the basement, but it's (what i call) HUGE and perfect for storage. there's a fan down there that kicks in when the moisture gets to a certain level and it works so well that the people living in it now have their bulk paper towels and toilet paper sitting out on a shelf. the washer and dryer are down there too...which, btw are STAYING with the house. what a gift!!! :)

the handsome smile of a home owner. i hope we did everything right....:)