Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The newest addition to the family






Ann and Abe had their baby girls this morning at 7 am. She was 8 lbs 3oz. 19 inches long. She is cute at chubby. She has a full head of brown hair and loves to suck on things already. Mom and baby are both doing great. Taggart isn't sure what to think of his baby sister yet but he is happy that she has arrived. Enjoy the photos.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Plan B house

Yes this is the house that we have a contract on. Mind you we haven't seen it so if you have any questions about it don't ask us ask Shawn, Jason's brother.
It has a nice backyard that has a fully enclosed yard, great for a garden with all the deer around.

Nice old lady blinds.

Bedroom? Your guess is as good as mine.


Sweet blue kitchen
More awesome blue kitchen
Bedroom again?

backyard/ sunroom.
More Sunroom.
Basement, Jason says this is going to become the future home of the rokenbok set. I can't wait!!

Awesome old lady bathroom.

Sweet dinning room.
Yet another sweet old lady bathroom.
The sweet deck.
And finally the rest of the lovely backyard. There is also a garage and water heater etc. but no one wants to see those we all know what they look like. We hope this one pans out or it is on to plan C.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

In review of the house hunt

Jason and I took spring break to go and preview the town of Big Rapids, Mi where he has been accepted and will be going to grad school this fall in optometry. We got on the plane in Salt lake and the fun started from there. We were delayed in Denver causing us to miss our flight, we spent the night in Cincinnati getting in at 11pm and leaving for the airport the next morning at
4am. We did get to Grand Rapids where Jason's brother picked us up and we were off to spend a blissful week house hunting. We started the house hunt on Monday morning seeing houses that we named the dog house, the cat house, the smurf house, the hoarder house, the octopus house, the harry potter house, the hot tub house, the 2-toned house, and the Jack Daniels house. Needless to say from the names you can imaging some of the qualities that these houses possessed. But we did find one that we liked (the smurf house) built in the 1920's it had hardwood through out it was in good condition and it has a Victorian feel. We put an offer in it was accepted and then came the inspection. Termites is all I can say and lots of them. We were told if the house hadn't been built so well it would have collapsed by now. On to plan B. 2 houses came on the market right after we left so Jason's brother and sister have been doing some house hunting for us. We are putting another offer in on one of the houses that they looked at and said was in very good condition. It was built in the 70's and is a ranch style home. It doesn't have much character but with a little paint we can fix that. We hope we get it if not on to Plan C.

The house hunt.


Lets start off with a good one.
This is the house that was bought by a father for his son and his son's friends. Isn't the patched white siding in the lower right corner of the house nice?
Yes it does look like college boys live here and believe me it smelled like it too. It is also a good thing you can't see what is on those posters. We could have named it the porno house.

This is the beautiful green kitchen. Now just imaging garbage bags filled with beer and Jack Daniels bottles all over the floor. Which is where this house got it's name, the Jack Daniels house.This house was actually quite nice. It was named the 2 tone house because as you can see it is two different colors. Not because it was meant to be that way but someone just got tired of painting. This picture doesn't look that bad but there are brush marks on the white siding and white where the gray should be. Not the best paint job.This is the bathroom that you have to walk through to get from one side of the house to the other.


This is the kitchen it was cute. We decided not to go with this house because it sits in between 2 busy streets and when we went to see it, it had flooded. It wasn't in that great of shape, it is also far from the university.
This is the warren house because it was on warren street we could have called it the filthy college house or the guy sleeping with 2 girls in filth house. When we came to see this house, first it stunk like morning breath and college boys. Then we were greeted by a boy coming out of his bedroom in his boxers and 2 scantily clad girls following him. Needless to say one was wearing a zebra bra, that is how scantily they were. The house was piled high with garbage clothes and dishes. Needless to say I think those girls need to find a new guy.
Nice wood panels!
The Awkward kitchen, not that we could see what it actually looked like when we went to see the house.
This is the dog house. The pictures are not too bad but once a person has 2 dogs that pee on the floors and rip up the wall paper and the blinds and is a hoarder it is hard to look at the homes potential.
trust me the living room did not look like this. The smell in this house was so bad that when we walked in it was like a wall. The first thing out of our Realtor's mouth was OH MY G**. It smelled that bad.
So we basically ran through the house and out the door and the second things out of her mouth was, "they are never going to sell that house!"
This is the harry potter house. It was actually one of the nicest houses that we saw. The owners kept it in good condition but it is a little small for the asking price.
The nice bright living room.
We called it the harry potter house because the second bedroom which wasn't big enough for a bed was under the stairs so it was like a closet under the stairs. Get it?
This was the Hoarder of all Hoarder houses. There were no inside pictures listed on MLS I wonder why? If anyone has seen the show buried on TLC they would have been great contenders, it was that bad. nuff said.
This was a cute house with a lot of character, maybe too much. The ceilings and walls were popcorn textured. It did have a lot of rooms and high ceilings but the kitchen was small and there was literally no parking. A tree had grown up where the parking spot was so you had to pull in front of the tree. so if someone parks next to you you are stuck.
This was the only inside picture.
And this concludes the house hunt. Yeah. It was an interesting experience and there were reasons that these houses have been on the market so long.

The Smurf house that almost was

This is the house that we lovingly named the smurf house. We did put an offer in on this house but after finding out that there were termites we decided not to go with this house. This is the feature on this house. The kitchen was cheap and would need re-done. There were also no appliances.
The dinning room was nice.
As was the living room. We also had this couch and chair set written in the deal. Too bad it didn't work out.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Cinnamon Rolls (Really Fast)

Cinnamon Roll Sunday


Taggart informed me that I needed help making cinnamon rolls on Sunday and here is what he taught me. First you measure all of your ingredients



Then you add them to make your doughThen you need to check your dough and see if it is ready.Then you clean up and get ready to roll out the dough.
After you have the dough rolled out you put on the toppings that you want.
Roll them up and cut them to size with some help from mom.Then you bake them.And eat them! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
3 1/2 Cups warm water
2 tsp. Salt
1 Cup oil 3 eggs
3/4 Cup Sugar
10 1/2 Cups Flour
6 Tbsp. Yeast
Mix the water, oil, sugar, and yeast together. Let raise for 15 minuets. Add the salt, eggs, and flour to the mixture. Roll out dough. Shape and let raise for 10 minuter. Bake for 12 minutes at 425 degrees.

From the kitchen of Ann Clements