Great Book for Fun Games

Many of you know that I majored in Recreation while I was in school.  One of my favorite professors, Dr Mike Kinziger, taught the majority of those classes.  He is a very active, enthusiastic, and dynamic leader.  In most of his classes, we played games.  All sorts of games.  In fact, one semester, that's what we did two days a week, all class long - play games and talk about the dynamics of games.  And I just found out that he has published a book.  And what do you think it's about?  GAMES!!

That's right, he has a book out that includes over 100 games.  I haven't purchased it yet, but plan to as soon as we are settled into somewhere that we can get mail...which is by the end of February, if all goes as planned with this home purchase...but if you're interested, or know someone who is interested, please check out the website for his book.

http://www.kingfrogbook.com/index.php

Teachers, day care professionals, girls' camp leaders, scouts or achievement day leaders - anyone who would need some help with finding a great game will benefit from these. 

Do You Know This Website?

A few months ago, I stumbled across a website that is about homes.  It might be about the lady's family, too, but I know she does interior design.  And for around $30, you give her the dimensions/pictures of your room or something like that and she will design the room for you.  I think she's back east somewhere.

Also, in order to save $30, are you any good at furniture placement/design ideas?  If we get this house, I have no idea how to arrange the living/family rooms that connect and are right at the entry.

A House

So the bank accepted our offer!  All we need now is a great inspection on Friday, and we've got a house!!  We're hoping everything continues to go so fast with this, since we have to be out of our temporary housing on the 7th, by noon.

Tooty's Thoughts

While we were getting ready for moving and celebrating Christmas, our family did a LOT of traveling from Idaho Falls to northern Idaho to visit family.  During one of our trips while we were staying at my parent's house, Tooty was waiting to have her nails painted by my sister.  She was sitting at the kitchen counter and playing with the green, red, and white polish.  The others in the area were not paying too much attention to her, but the polishes had voices and were talking to each other.  Suddenly, a little bit louder than everything else she was saying, she declared, "Step back, Red!" 

Apparently the red polish was causing someone problems. 

And when we asked her what we should name her upcoming sibling, she thinks 'Trick or Treat' is a good idea.

Lately

Daddy was approached by a well-known company last fall about the possibility of working for them.  We weren't sure that we wanted to leave the great job he had (even though he was a contract worker, subject to being let go as soon as funding ran out), and mulled it over a lot...all through the 3-4 month process we weren't sure if it was something that we wanted to do.

Once the offer came, we decided to go for it.  So we started planning (another) move.  Cupcake will be 2 in April, and this was move #4 for her (and not just across town - all of her moves have been at least 500 miles away).  We were sent to the Seattle area, and are thinking of settling down in Puyallup.  We are currently in a temporary apartment, for which the company is paying for us until the beginning of February.  So we are looking for a short-term rental, as well as a house to purchase.  It's a little trying, especially since our temporary housing is 1100 square feet, 2 beds, 2 baths.  It's really, really nice, but it's been a struggle having our girls share a room...since Tooty is a crack-of-dawn riser (and now it's even earlier, since the sun doesn't come in our windows before 7 here, and she's up before 6 each morning), but Cupcake in the past would stay happily in her bed until around 8.  But since they are together, they are both up before 6. 

So it's definitely an adventure.

Yesterday was Daddy's first day of work (we arrived here on the 9th), and it was wonderful!  Which we are all excited about.  It's good to feel like you fit in right away and he's treated like the 'expert', which is really good, since that's why he was hired. 

Our relocation package was awesome (I mean, this free temporary housing alone is great), but they also provided a moving company.  So all we had to pack were clothes and a few minor things we would need for this first month (like a computer), BUT of course I forgot about the camera cord. So while I will try to stay more up-to-date on here, there will not be any pictures until we unpack our boxes (and that might be a while, depending on how a home purchase goes). 

But we are happy and healthy, and even though we didn't think we'd be living in snow country anymore, it's obvious that we aren't yet able to escape it.  In fact, after sacrament meeting on Sunday, the bishop of the ward we were visiting announced that the rest of church was cancelled, and that the stake had cancelled all other meetings that day for everyone.  So we 'missed' the opportunity of explaining our situation multiple times to people we may or may not ever see again.  Shoot...

Need Some Advice!

Okay, it's been sooooo long since I've posted, and soooo many things have been happening for us.  But I need some advice about something.

We've moved to the Seattle area (surprise!), and are feeling really good about buying a house!  Here's the problem - with the budget that we'd like to spend, the homes are in the lesser of the 2 school districts around here.  (The good one is ranked in the top 50 in Washington, and the other is around 120 out of 280 total districts). 

I have been looking into homeschooling for a couple years now, and gotten pretty serious about it the last year or so (have been doing a preschool at home for Tooty for a couple months now, and we love it), so the school district doesn't really have too much bearing on us, but a LOT on the potential to sell the house later on.

So, looking at resale value (in many years, of course - we wouldn't buy if we weren't confident of staying put for at least 4 years), is it a horrible idea for us to purchase in the lesser school district?  Is that like shooting ourselves in the foot?  The specific school doesn't matter, because they allow you to attend any in the district that you want, so it's just a matter of being in the same district. 

What do you think?  Would you knowingly buy in a lower scoring district?