Approved.

So the biggest news is that we met with a mortgage broker on Wednesday, and on Friday got our approval letter, officially authorizing us to start our home search (I know we could have looked before, but if I'm going to drive all around the West Side going to open houses, if I find one I like, I want to be able to buy.) We're approved for more than we can afford, of course, but it's nice to see that good credit and saving money pays off somewhere. The realtor has sent us some more listings; we have sent him a better idea of what we're looking for, and Tim will begin his online research, and we will start looking in earnest. HOORAY! The whole process stresses me out quite a bit, I must admit, but my boss reminded me that this is supposed to be fun, and celebratory, because we are buying our first home and building our lives together, so I am trying to keep up that attitude.

Last night we went and saw Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I'd never seen it before and fell in love. I adore musicals, I love sequin dresses, and I myself am partial to jewelry. The movie had everything I needed to be happy, and it was fun to see it at LACMA, with an audience that laughed and clapped and cheered along. We'd gotten pupusas for dinner before, and got frogurt on the way home, so it was a perfect date.

Today I went to my former boss's baby shower. It was a big group of her friends, and a lot of my old coworkers, so it was a fun time. I'm definitely glad to be off to bigger and better things though. Having 21 days off instead of 10 is enough for me - I would have changed jobs even if there wasn't also a pay raise!

We've got a chicken pot pie in the oven (I cooked, Tim cleaned up) and once we've devoured some chicken and vegetable goodness, we're going to spend the rest of the evening watching a movie. From here on out, it's March Madness, all the time (even though I find basketball too fast paced and stressful.) Go Bruins! Tim bought me a little UCLA keychain that plays the fight song. I love it, but poor Thory is terrified of it - he hates when I wave it around, and the sound seems to freak him out also. His lack of blue and gold spirit is disappointing.

More Hawaii.

Jasmin posted a few new photos on her facebook - some from our last day at the North Shore (the day my camera battery died) and some from the wedding (taken by the professional photographer.)

I just thought I would share.

Here is our seal friend!


The sunset we saw on Waimea. It was absolutely beautiful, and is one of the moments I will treasure most from our visit.

Me with the boys. You can hardly tell how sore they were afterwards.

Us picking up the Fluff. I look crazy and possessed, which is of course why I'm sharing it.

We are going down to the OC this weekend to celebrate mom's birthday. Dad has promised to take us out for sushi and I am hoping to show mom a good time. She's my best mom ever.

A Little Gossip

Sorry blog readers/family members - we have not been eaten by bears. We are just up to normal, boring life stuff.

Yes, we are still looking for a house. Next week we have an appointment with a mortgage broker recommended by our realtor, so we will see how all of that goes. I will feel better about for real going to look at houses when we have a preapproval offer, and buyers know we are serious. We are still looking at things online. We are also hoping to win the lottery at some point. Sheesh.

Last week I had plans Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night, which was odd for me in terms of popularity. Then over the weekend I was in San Diego with some of my college girlfriends "the England Girls." We drank wine at 11:30 in the morning, took naps, got massages and ate like linebackers trying to gain weight before the NFL combine. A good time had by all!

Tim went down to Cal State Fullerton to talk to a video game club about his job and how he got it. I think it's very cute, because when he was a youngster, he started a video game club at UCLA, which was a big boon in his efforts to get hired at EA (because Lord knows his grades didn't serve him well at all!) This week he's been doing some training stuff at work re: becoming a technical director. He loves him some engineering.

There's been some fun conversation going around the Miller-Thiel-Nollin family re: the Fourth of July in Door County. I am so excited to see everyone and have Tim experience some of my favorite memories from my childhood. In San Diego, I bought a Door County item that I am so excited to show off in a few months. For now, it's a Suprise Prize. I've had random midwestern friends ask about the possibility of coming up for a day, to which I say, the more the merrier. Prepare yourself for cold beer on the porch and a lot of smart mouths talking all at once. Also, bring Deep Woods Off!

Tomorrow we are going to see Rent at the Pantages. A few weeks ago we saw Man of La Mancha, and I immediately bought the soundtrack and have been singing it nonstop. I've also been mixing in a little Hello Dolly! It's all musicals, all the time (but not Phantom of the Opera. We saw that before Valentines Day, to which I say THUMBS DOWN. Out of all the plays we've seen in the past few years, none by Andrew Lloyd Webber have cracked my top ten. Now Oklahoma!... THAT'S a musical.)

Valentines, etc.

Tim and I did the most romantic thing on Valentines Day - we went and met with a realtor, to get our dreams of home ownership off the ground. The guy we met with seems like a good dude - he's been in the Culver City area for thirty years, and is the second generation owner of the family real estate business. The initial meeting was just to sort of feel each other out and see if we liked him. I think we do, and our next step is to look at some of the listings he'll be sending us, and of course, to get pre-approved for a home loan.

We're looking for a single family home with at least two bedrooms, and at least a bath and a half. We'd like a two car garage but could live with a one car garage and a driveway for the second car (we stack park now, so we're used to moving one car to get to the other.) We're fine with a house that needs some surface repairs, but not looking to rewire or rebuild anything. Our goal is to stay on the Westside, but we're not married to the idea of a particular neighborhood or zip code. My biggest goal is to stay north of LAX airport, so that my commute doesn't turn into a nightmare.

We're looking for something we can afford on Tim's salary alone, to give us more flexiblity in terms of my future work schedule (or lack thereof, depending on how cute our offspring turns out to be. If it's ugly, I'm just going to leave it for Lulu to raise. What? She raised four kittens when she was only 8 months old, she can parent a human baby, I'm sure. And we got her after she had babies - we were not the irresponsible owners that let their teenaged cat daughter get PG.) Thankfully, the market has begun to drop in Los Angeles and we are in a much better position to get into a single family home than we were a year ago.

The whole experience was really exciting and also nerve-wracking. At the end of the meeting, the realtor was like, "well, let's get started. We could probably have you in a home by the end of the summer." I have to be honest, I got totally freaked out at that point - my heart started racing and I got a little teary. It's just amazing to me that we are going to take such a big step towards grown up time. We've been living in our postage stamp apartment for almost five years now (which is four years longer than I hoped we'd be here for) but what we've been saving in rent will go into our house downpayment. We're going to get a house and pay a mortgage and be homeowners, and providing we can get all of that stuff figured out, then we will become parents, to human babies (we are already very successful cat parents, as evidenced from recent posts.) Who would have thunk it?

I love building my life with Tim. He's the best Valentine ever.

Another Crazy Cat Lady Post.

I had a lovely weekend. We went down to Laguna Niguel on Friday night and hung out with the fam, including Auntie Lisa, and then on Saturday morning brought Sara back up to LA for a massage at Burke Williams, a little sushi, and a little fun time with her big sister (and Tim, who she likes better than me anyways, even though I have known her since the day she was born.)

We had dinner with mom and dad at the new fancy dining room table, handmade by a lovely Amish man. No power tools! It was especially nice because now they have new chairs, which aren't in danger of breaking to pieces at any moment.

But now I am back home. Here is a video I took of the "kids" tonight. They are both chatty buddies. And yes, I am wearing my footies. It's COLD here. I mean, it's like 50 degrees outside. I could get frostbite.

Furball Football Party.

So it's Superbowl Sunday, and now I will go into mourning over the end of the football season. What am I going to do on Sundays? What will I watch at the gym, while trapped on the treadmill?

Tim convinced Jake to have a party for all of the nerds. I thought about going, and then figured that much as I like all of those boys, there is only so much shop talk and geek smell I can take in an afternoon. I knew that the evening would end with Rock Band being played loudly while I fell asleep on the couch. So I was a hermit and stayed home and hung out with the cats (I did make a plate of cookies from Tim to take along though.)

Here are the pictures from our party:

During the first half.

Lulu hopes that someday she will get the ability to circle things on TV like John Madden.

Thor is such a dear little weirdo. This weekend he has woken up a couple of times and sort of flung himself a few feet from where he was sleeping. He then starts crying until I pick him up. I think he's having cat nightmares. It's obviously not been healthy for us to leave him alone so often lately. Poor little dummy.

Their final cuddlefest during the last few minutes. Yes, we know Lulu is kind of porky. But look at how cute her extra toe is! She's our Thumbelina. Of course, as soon as the game was over they both woke up and started squealing about their dinner.

Diamond Head and Home Again

First off, we are home safe. We landed around 11 last night, had our bags by 11:30 and were in the apartment by midnight. Of course, then I had to unpack our suitcases because I am anal like that, so it was 1am before I got to bed. Tim took today off but I headed in for a 9am staff meeting. I managed to keep it together pretty well, I must say. Any time I drifted back into consciousness last night, all I heard was purring - Lulabelle purring on my pillow, Thory purring as he walked up and down the bed hoping for a pets - they were some sad little lovebugs.

Yesterday morning we started by hiking up Diamond Head. It looks deceptively easy from the ground, but it was tough. I mean, I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but my legs were trembling by the time we got down. It's almost a mile up, and the first part of it is up a narrow gravel road.

Doesn't look so bad, right?

There are some beautiful scenic vistas along the way.

But then when you get to the top, you hit this:
There's some steep, narrow stairs. Over 100 of them, in fact. By the time we got to the top, our buns were a-burning.

Then you walk through a low, dimly lit tunnel.

And then there's these! Narrow, corkscrew stairs.

To get to the actual vista point, you cross this board and climb up a little ladder.

Finally, you climb under this low wall thingie. It's a nightmare. I must admit, as I was climbing up and down, all I could think was "I'm glad Grandma was with me on the Death March to the Great Wall, rather than an attempt up Diamond Head." It was vicious.

But, the views at the top were SO worth it.
The view over Waikiki. You can see a little rainbow in the clouds.


Down to the ocean - you can see a little lighthouse along the coast.

The reef below.

Another windswept photo.

We climbed down and had a shaved ice reward at the bottom, then jetted back to our hotel room to finish packing, shower and get ready to fly out. We went through the International Market Place one last night for some last minute presents (maybe we picked up something for a certain birthday girl...) and then went to the International Pancake House for lunch.

Returning our rental car was a breeze, as was checking in. The woman at the AA counter was like, "I can see you have a pet" and then tapped our suitcase. At first, I thought she meant that we had a pet IN our duffel bag. Which, if I could bring the cats I would, but I would buy them little pink kitty strollers. She was then like, "you have pet hair on your suitcase... I have a cat... I understand." Our big suitcase lives under the bed 24/7, and the cats sleep on it constantly. It's half cat fur when we pull it out.

The flight was smooth, except for when I spilled my soda onto Tim. Damn my ham hands!

So now we have nothing on tap until Door County for the Fourth. Well, Sara and I have a massage next weekend, which I am very much looking forward to. Hawaii was so relaxing and amazing - we had a great time.

I leave you (for now) with our pictures from our fancy dinner out on Saturday night. We went to Alex Wongs, which was delicious (but which I might have liked more if its menu had less seafood options.)

Here is me and the world's cutest husband, with our dessert courses. He had five tastes of creme brule and I had THIS!

Coconut ice cream in a chocolate shell, garnished with fresh fruit. It was so realistic looking that I could hardly take my spoon to it. But once I did, I found it to be absolutely delicious!

So there are our first two travelogues of the year. Keep posted for additional fun about the Ford family. Now I have to go snuggle a cat on the couch.