Tuesday, January 20, 2009

open for discussion

OK :D rephrasing this entry .. :)
I would love to hear all your stories about purchasing your own house .. from the beginning, first house checkout to the very end when you got the keys... all the issues with realtors/loans/inspectors ...
I'll sure appreciate anything!!
thanks!!!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Oscar and the rest of the week

A big congratulation to Kim and Eli!!!! Oscar Rosen Powers was born on the 14th of January at UNC Hospitals :D healthy super-sweet boy! makes me want to have a boy right away ;)

(sorry for the bad res... that's all i could get from facebook..)
Eli was a grad student of Tom's, worked on the aerosol project until last summer when he graduated. They watched Reka a couple of times back in Chapel Hill, so should I think that maybe Reka wasn't soooo bad at their house so they did not get frightened enough to not want to have a baby?? :D
anyway, we are sooo happy for them, it's great start for something amazing, and hope they'll have many more children as Kim and Eli will be wonderful parents with so much energy and humor!
I'll post pics if I get permission :D
anyway..
this past week was pretty busy and lots of new information.
First of all, I'm advancing forward in my phd research, and I'm getting a good amount of support from my hungarian advisors, which is pretty good and hopefully it'll be fruitfull enough soon so that we can send out a paper...
Second, I've started to get some info on kindergarten.. well, it sucks.. we live in the wrong street.. there are two district in Stocton: Stockton Unified and Lincoln Unified.. and one definitely wants to send his/her kids to Lincoln, no questions, period. so what do we do now?
theoretical options: 1, interdistrict transfer: I would need to work in the other district to be able to get that accepted. 2, move: either buy a house or rent a house somewhere else that belongs to LU. well, the open enrollment is between mid March and mid April.. so we have to get a resident address by mid April.. this'll be though.. but that's our plan..
3, Reka can go to a private school, there are a few catholic schools, and if I consider how much we paid back in NC, it's actually half of the year price.. but then we had two income..
anyway.. so since we are to buy a house in Stockton in the near future anyway, this just speeds up the things a bit more..
so there we are here at the third big thing about this week: getting familiar everthing that has to do with mortgage/housebuying... all the loan side and the house side.. it's still a little bit overwhelming, but I hope I can clear some gray area soon.. at least I hope I have everything under control: we'll meet with an independent mortgage broker on Monday and a woman at Wells Fargo on Wednesday, I'm in contact with several realtors, and probably we'll decide on one, since the european way, that is to shop around houses by yourself, is not really in fashion here and if I keep continue that I'll get no help from any of the realtors as they thing I'm cheating on them ;)
we did went and took a look at 4 houses Friday afternoon.. it's promising.. and realised we really need to narrow down our pricerange and get preapproval and that'll help to find more specific homes and probably solve this homebuying issue quite fast actually.. lot's of houses on the market...
Andy, our german friend from the department, and Sampada, Balint's indian grad student were here last evening for dinner and some board game afterwords.. it was fun, I like playing games... it takes off your mind from soo many things..
it was funny, actaully I've noticed that while at the table what do 4 chemists talk about? chemistry .. but when we sat down and started playing, no chemistry was mentioned for 1-1.5 hours.. that tells you something, right?
anyway, it was fun, I like Andy quite much, he has great humor, great stories with lost of information..
what else...
oh, yes :D Bori :D sweet as an angel still.. her first teeth is comming. 5 months, exactly same as Reka .. we had a few rough days, and lately she's not sleeping that well during the night.. but oh well, it's not that terrible.. and she's in her smiling mood quite much ... she smiles at everybody and constantly.. she's soooo happy, it's amazing how much she smiles.. :D and the other sweet thing is that she learned how to swing herself in the car seat, same as Reka did.. I'll post a video of that.. it's sooo sweetly strange how my two girls figure that out about the same age and amuses them and keeps them happy.. :D there's this rabbit.. at first I was scared to give it to her cause it's big and has many things hanging off it.. but Bori likes it quite much, she can always find something that's interesting.. so this way she's sitting next to me playing in the car seat while i'm hitting the laptop keyboard ;)
oke, that's it of now, I'll do some chemistry work now..


teeth and misc pics:




Wednesday, January 7, 2009

something really funny :D

for you guys in RTP :D
from my sis's blog..
enjoy :D

Friday, January 2, 2009

Xmas and the sorrouding days in pics ;)

Before Xmas:
chess books are in right now ;) ... my own little jedi :D and the advent wreath (?) that we always have before Xmas:




Christmas Eve:
angels and Jesus brought us the tree and gifts..






After Xmas off to a zoo/playground, also trying out the new razor..