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Wanted: A happy family to buy my childhood home. Must have lots of kids to run around in the backyard (and occasionally do some yard work). Must be willing to eat breakfast and dinner on the deck from May through October. Must promise to hold wedding receptions, birthday parties, neighborhood breakfasts, and other such events on a regular basis. Must love old houses with all of their charms and their beautiful woodwork. Must promise to never put in vinyl windows that would compromise the beauty of the original craftsmanship. Must adore Coastal Redwoods, ocean breezes, and detached garages.

It is an added plus if you love to sing together, want to lay on the grass at night to watch the planes fly overhead, and don't mind an occasional siren (as the police station is only a couple of blocks away). I hope you'll love all the trees, including the original Whittier Haas avocado trees, the persimmon tree (we can give you recipes for that one), and the space for a vegetable garden. You'll be pleased to know that there is plenty of room for food storage, camping storage, and storing your kids' stuff when they are too grown up to live at home but not grown up enough to have a place to store their own things.

I hope you'll build a tree house where ours once was and hang a hammock under another tree-- a place for a bookworm to escape and while away an afternoon with a great classic. There are plenty of places to play Star Wars, Davy Crockett, and GI Joe (if you're into that). The basketball court will help your kid develop their athletic ability--or not.

Be sure to take walks and bike rides to the nearby library, to the Whittier College campus, to Michigan Park. In the spring, the jacarandas bloom everywhere and then snow purple all over the streets. It's positively dream-like. Your out-of-state relatives will all want to visit since you'll be within minutes of Disneyland, and a short distance from Los Angeles, the Pacific Ocean, and Irvine. You'll be glad for the guest apartment over the garage (unless you decide to rent that out to a college student.)

This home has been in our family for over 30 years now and we will be sad to see it go. You can probably buy it even if you don't meet the above qualifications, but it will be easier for us to hand over the keys if you do. Then we will know that we are providing a place for another family to build 30 years of memories together--and it is the perfect spot for that.

Are We There Yet?

This morning, my mom and I (what would I do without her?) loaded the kids up in the van, put one last load of laundry in the wash so that everything in the house could be clean, stopped for gas, picked up a prescription, and dropped off some leftovers out of our fridge at Christine's before finally getting on the road to L.A. Back in the days before I had four children, I regularly made the jaunt to L.A. to visit my mom without my husband. (His schedule is far too restrictive for me--it really cramps my style:) I had it down to a science: leave at 9 am, stop once at a rest stop for 15 minutes for potty breaks, etc, then get back on the road and get into Whittier by 3:00, beating the rush hour traffic that hits at 4:00. Most of the time I could pull it off just like that.
Well, now we've had a baby and everything's changed. Just getting out the door on time was unrealistic--at 9:00 I realized that I was going to need to wake up Bronwen and feed her before we left (the dear thing sleeps until 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning--12 hours straight without waking up once!) We had to make much more frequent stops (4 total) because Ian is only on his 5th day in underwear. And of course, Bronwen couldn't go all day without eating and only took cat naps instead of her usual four hour mid day nap. And twice we (meaning Mom) managed to make a wrong turn or miss our exit and it cost us some major time. Naturally, we hit the city of Angels at prime time, so it took much longer to get through the city than we were hoping it would. All in all, we arrived 8 hours and 12 minutes after we got on the freeway this morning. A much longer trip than we had planned.
Every time we got off the freeway, someone would ask if we were at Nana's yet. And everyone was so thrilled when we finally pulled up. Bronwen was so happy to be out of her car seat that she just rolled around on the floor cooing for at least half an hour after we got here. Ian was so happy to be here that he promptly messed his pants after being accident free all day! And Kimball and Henry raced past Allison in the kitchen to get out to Nana's backyard and start exploring. So, it was obviously worth the trip.
The bad news is, I'm going home on Saturday--without my mom as shotgun/backup driver. Which means there is potential for it to take even longer. Do you think that if I think positively the universe will send me a sidekick for the ride? Maybe there's an angel who needs to head north for the weekend! I'll need all the help I can get!

(These pictures were taken last summer on our visit to Nana's.)