Sam doesn't really like this floaty a ton when it's in the water, but I found him sitting in it the other day. Guess he'd prefer it on land.

Top tooth numero UNO! Total tooth count: 3. At this rate, he'll have a full set by age 7.

When talking to the Comcast folks about hooking up internet at our new house, one man mentioned that because our house in new, on a new street, it could take 30 DAYS to get connected. Say WHAT?

So this might be my last post for a LONG while. We'll see. I hope he's wrong. How will I live without blogstalking?

But hopefully next time I write, I'll have pictures of our new place! (Fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow with the closing.)

And good luck to my brother who's taking the BAR EXAM! On his birthday, no less.

My sis took these cute pics in VA.

Well, I don't have much to say but I wanted to put up something new to take the top spot. We had our "walk through" today of the new house which consisted of us putting little bits of painter's tape on every flaw we saw - weird paint spots, mostly. It still doesn't seem real that we're going to be living there in ONE WEEK!

Who knew that so much was involved in buying a house? Mortgage company, inspectors, meetings, homeowner's insurance, hooking up alarm systems, internet, etc. It's stressing me out. Well, it should be, but I don't think I get stressed too easily.

They put on the front door today. (Before that it was just a janky piece of wood.) It looks super cool. It has a little window in the middle that actually opens. So now we don't have to open the door if there's a salesperson there. We just open the little window and say, "No, thank you. Please go away." Then you don't feel bad for shutting the door in his/her face. You just shut the little window in his/her face. Much more courteous, yes?

So, have I mentioned that I auditioned a few weeks ago for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Well, I did. Needless to say, I didn't make the cut! After standing in line for about an hour, they shuttled 400 of us into a room to take a 10-minute, 30-question scantron test. Of the 400 who took it, they called out about 15-20 people who passed. Ouch. At least I tried!

And I promised a while ago that I would talk about my budgeting thing. Not that anyone other than myself remembers, but that's okay. Dan and I haven't been the greatest at budgeting and after reading some good articles in the Ensign, decided to work harder. We took a look at our expenses from previous months and found that we were spending much more on groceries than we had thought. Our plan, then, was to set a goal to not go over on groceries. On June 1, I walked over to Bank of America and took out the grocery money in cash. For the rest of the month, I only bought groceries using that money. (Or if I accidentally forgot, I would take the appropriate money out so that we were still on track.) It worked! We spent over $100 less than the previous month.

Since I was gone a lot of July, I went to B of A today and only took out half of what we used last month. So far, so good. It feels nice to know we're being more mindful of our finances - especially since we're buying a house in a few weeks. I'd heard of the cash concept before and I'm here to say that it worked for us! I just hope that we keep it up.

And on another unrelated note, I just wanted to mention that Sam can now say two words - dada (Dad) and daga (dog). He says mama a lot now, too, but I'm not quite sure it qualifies yet. He also says dada a lot for other things, but he always says it to Dan so I think it's legit.

I am finally back from my fabulous vacation to Virginia! It was so much fun. Dan, Sam and I arrived in Charlottesville on July 2. After a few hours at my parents’ home, we packed up and headed to West Virginia to go white water rafting down the New River. On the 3rd, Mom and Dad watched Sam and his cousin Carter while Kirk, Gretchen, Candice, Craig, Dan and I went rafting with our hilarious guide, Heather. Heather was the best. She picked on Kirk the whole time (which was funny for the rest of us), and called Gretchen and Candice her “pants-less wonders.” She had a ton of jokes and told far out stories which ended up not being true. Random, but I guess it’s probably fun to make up outlandish stories of near-death experiences for strangers you’ll never see again. That day we drove back to Virginia.

On the 4th we attended our first Earlysville parade. My parents have lived there for 12 years but never went before. It basically included anyone who wanted to participate, and people in the crowd got lots of free candy. I was all over that! I was beating 7 year old boys to get to those tootsie rolls. They were too slow. Sam hated the fire trucks. Later that day, K and G created a scavenger hunt for us on the downtown mall. Dan and I won. We’re the bomb. Once again, Mom and Dad watched the boys while we went to the fireworks. This is getting long so I’ll summarize the rest faster.

Sunday I got to see my friend Katrina. It was so great to spend time with her and see her cute pregnant belly!

The rest of the trip included the UVA cemetery, Bodo’s Bagels, a driving range, a date with Dan to Putt-Putt, slurpees, a peach orchard, a splashpark, haircuts, games, a movie, more Putt-Putt, walks, bowling, a picnic, more slurpees, good food, and great company! I really wish Ryan, Teresa, and Zoey could have been there, too. I miss my family so much already!

When I arrived in Houston it was 97 degrees or something. And I saw Chloe from Project Runway at the airport.

It’s nice to be back with Dan, but this weather is ridiculous!