Lots of Big News!

Well, we've had a whirlwind last few weeks and we have lots of good news to share (and a boatload of pictures, too)!

In the end of May, I started my last rotation in residency and have been on call every 3rd night for 30 hours.  It is exhausting and I am counting the days until I finish residency and get to sleep in my own bed every night!  The first weekend in June, I had a bit of a break and got off work late Friday evening instead of having to stay over into Saturday for the full 30 hour call.  We got the house all ready to show for an open house while we were gone, then got everybody loaded up in the car and headed to the Twin Cities to stay at Nanny and Grandpa's house.  Grandpa was away at his college reunion, but Nanny watched the kids for us while we went on a whirlwind tour of homes on Saturday, trying to pick a house to make our home when we move up to the Twin Cities for our new jobs.

We looked at a bunch of houses on Saturday and nothing was quite right.  There were some beautiful houses, but nothing that really struck our fancy....until the last house we saw on Saturday.  After about 2 minutes in the house, we knew it was OUR house.  It actually wasn't even on the market yet. Our realtor heard about it from the realtor that was going to put it on the market later when they were done renovating it.  We had one more house to see the next day, so we waited to make sure that the last one we saw wouldn't beat it before we made an offer.  On Sunday, we brought Nanny, Michelle, Brian, and the kids to see both the one we hadn't seen yet and then back to the favorite from Saturday.  No question - we still loved the house we were so excited about from Saturday.  We put in an offer on Sunday afternoon and it got accepted.  There are a few complicating factors, though.  The current owner bought it from the original owners in foreclosure in April. He was fixing it up for his family to move in, but then his family decided not to move, so he is selling it.  He hadn't put in the carpet he ordered yet, so we got to see it before it went in. We didn't like it, so we asked if we could pick the carpet and he agreed.  So this past weekend, we scurried up to the Twin Cities on Friday afternoon when I was post-call and picked out carpet on Friday afternoon, then met with the inspector at the house on Saturday. There were only some pretty minor things to fix.  Now it goes on to the appraisal and figuring out our closing date and the house wil be ours!  The sticky part with the closing date is that we might have to wait until 90 days after the last closing, which was on 4/27, becuase of some anti-flipping rule.  We'll see.

Here are a few photos of the house...

This next photos is the office/living room in the front of the house.  The wood built-ins in this room are the original color of the woodwork in the rest of the house (kitchen, family room, etc). Luckily, the current owner painted the other woodwork when he renovated the house...it looks MUCH better that way.  So a part of our offer is requesting that he paint these built-ins as well.  Before we get the house, this wood will be painted a much nicer color!

Here is the family room.  The fireplace is a 2 sided fireplace that sees through to the office/living room in the last picture.

This is the really big dining area in a bay off the kitchen.  It is big enough to fit a big dining table for family gatherings.

The kitchen. There is a nice gas range (yay!) and a big pantry closet. There is also a door to the right that goes out to where the deck would go and there is another room behind the kitchen (french door seen to the right of the kitchen) that is a den/office or whatever we want to make it.

Mudroom with nice built-in bench/locker/shelving unit.

Master bedroom. Note the carpet is not installed yet.

 Master bathroom has a big tiled walk-in shower with dual rain shower heads. Quite luxurious!

 Master bathroom - 2 separate sinks so we can keep our messes to ourselves.

Bonus room over the garage. It technically counts as the 5th bedroom upstairs, but we will use it as a playroom for the kids. 

 Unfinished basement that walks out to the nice backyard (with plenty of room for a swingset for the kids!). With the unfinished basement we've got some room to grow. There are actually 2 more bedrooms downstairs and a storage room and family room.  We plan on making one of the rooms an exercise room at first.

 
Also, in recent news...on Wednesday, June 9, I graduated from residency.  Well, we had our graduation dinner at the Mayo Foundation House, but I do still have a couple weeks of residency left.  We hired a babysitter for the kids (for the first time ever!) and had a nice dinner at the Foundation House with entertaining speeches by the residency program leadership, advisors, etc. complete with a slideshow of pictures of each of us as kids.  The kids did pretty well for the babysitter, so that's good too.  It didn't really feel like graduation though, since I had to go to work the next morning at 7am for another 30 hour shift.  Oh well...I will be done very soon.  June 25 is my last day at Mayo.

Steve and I at graduation

Getting my certificate/diploma from my advisor.

 Steve and I outside the Foundation House.

The kids have been doing great!  Sarah learned how to roll over yesterday!  She has been really close over the past couple weeks, but she finally figured it out yesterday and has been rolling over a bunch today.  She likes to roll from back to front, but sometimes she gets mad if she forgets how to get back over onto her back and gets tired of being on her tummy.

Here is a short video of Sarah rolling over.  She has been rolling all day, but as soon as I get out the video camera, she doesn't want to show me.  It took about 15 minutes of video tape to catch her rolling.

Sarah has also been doing really well with sitting up on her own.  She is getting more and more stable. 

This was a couple weeks ago...she started out needing the Boppy pillow around for support.

Then she started doing the tripod sit and supporting herself forward with her hands.

Now she's doing even better with sitting up straight.

She has been having lots of fun in her exersaucer too!

Shortly after the last picture was taken, we managed to catch the "poop face" on camera. 

Sarah turns bright red and makes this face when she is ready to totally obliterate her diaper and clothes.  Sometimes, we can take this as a warning sign and get her stripped down to her diaper before she destroys her clothes.

The kids have had a blast going to Nanny and Grandpa's house the past 2 weekends.  One special memory that Austin will probably look back on with fondness later in life is his routine of going to Jerry's in the morning with Grandpa to get donuts. He equates Jerry's with this activity now.  Here is the monster sized donut he brought home on Saturday...

He is still talking about it days later.  Thanks for the special time with Austin, Grandpa!

Other fun...spinning in the desk chair with Nanny.

Dizzy boy snuggling with his baby sister.

My handsome little man.

A few other fun photos...

Austin getting his "catching hands ready"

And the catch...

Sarah loves her bathtime, and she is always so adorable when she is snuggled up in her towel after her bath.

That's it for the Cronk family updates.  We are all pretty exhausted from the recent whirlwind of activity, but are looking forward to July, when I will be done with residency and we get to move into our new home!  We have a few more steps to get through before we have everything figured out for the house, but hopefully we'll have all the details ironed out pretty soon. We just have to have the appraisal this week to make sure the house appraises for what we've offered for it (otherwise the bank won't finance it), then we have to figure out closing date details (because it was purchased so recently by the current owner).  Once all that is figured out, the house will be OURS!  Yay!  Then on to new jobs, Michelle and Brian's wedding, and Austin starting preschool!  Life just never slows down, does it?