Fun on "the land"

Happy Memorial Day weekend!! A long weekend seems like a perfect time to get caught up on all the blog posts I've been neglecting.

The last 2 weeks have been mostly fun but not overwhelmingly eventful. Since the last post, we've made 2 trips to Peoria - one to celebrate Mother's day and one to visit the kitchen design place and then bug Walter for information/advice, and 2 trips to the "chicagoland area" - one for a Welcome Baby open house for my best friend Sammi's little guy Cooper and one for a wake. But that's not fun, so moving on...

The house stuff is going well. Ryan has been working hard to design/customize a beautiful home for us and it looks amazing on paper (computer monitor). He has also been making calls and appointments getting all the first steps out of the way. So far we (and by "we" I mostly mean "he") have met with the power people to discuss where all the stuff will go, have discussed all the details with the propane people, have met with the excavation guy (side note to the ladies: CUTIE!), have had soil samples taken (not once, but twice) and picked up the neverending forms from CEFCU for the new construction loan.

During all this, we also got a great new camera so that we can document the process of building our first home. Unfortunately, with nothing happening on the land just yet, our pets and family members have been the guinea pigs for us figuring out the camera settings. Oh, and thanks to an extremely generous friend, we now have photoshop, and have been having a ton of fun with that. (I am actually thinking about creating a second blogger site dedicated to photos, just so that family and friends who dont want to see 500 pictures of cows dont have to.)

Until next time, here are some random photos from the last couple of weeks:

"I hear what you're saying Uncle Ryan, I'm just not sure I agree."

Ryan, I know its called a "fainting couch," but I'm pretty sure they'll let you just sit on it.

"So, how long until they get tired of taking pictures of us?"

Hello from the land!

Ryan, stop laughing! What's wrong with my boots?

Landowners at last!

Well, we've done it. Ryan and I are officially the owners of 2 acres of land in Clinton, IL. Nothing much to tell, the closing went smoothly, lots of papers to sign, you know the deal. We got to meet Merle's wife Helen (Merle is our real estate agent & new neighbor) and she seems like a really great lady. While Ryan and Merle talked farming and well digging, Helen gave Meghan the scoop on all the neighbors. Here are some pictures of the land from yesterday and today.


Mom and Dad P came down to visit yesterday with Seamus. Here's dad and Seamus standing in what will be our front yard (poor little Seamus almost gets lost in the grass!):

This is the view from the back corner of the land (that small orange spot out there is the Mustang):

After the closing, Merle was kind enough to indulge Meghan's request for a "SOLD" sign. Here he is wrestling with the sign:

Ryan steps in to help Merle attach the "SOLD" sign:

And here we are, the proud landowners (YAY!):

May already?

Somehow I can hardly believe its May already. Time seems to be flying by, but at least spring is finally here.

The kittens are very happy that it is finally spring!!

Not a whole lot has happened since our last post. Aunt Pat is back in the hospital dealing with a bacterial thing. She's in fairly good spirits and keeping her sense of humor up. They hope to send her home in the next couple of days and we hope this will be the last of it. Your continued good thoughts and prayers, as always, are appreciated.

The babies Logan and Cooper are both doing wonderful, growing like weeds and keeping their mommies busy. Baby Gabriella will be joining the family any day now - she's due on May 11th, Mother's Day! Kevin and Elzbieta are very excited, and the rest of the family is anxiously awaiting her arrival.

It looks like Mom and Dad Pokryfke are finally going to get the "old" house sold here soon. As hard as it is to see my childhood home sold, I'm excited to see this finally happening with the housing market as it is. The closing is scheduled for mid-May, and even though there have been a few bumps in the road, everything appears to be on schedule. What a relief that will be to them.

As for us, things are going well. Ryan and I close on our land Monday afternoon. He's cool as a cucumber, but I'm a little nervous. Mama and Papa Morge came down last weekend and took a tour of the land with us. Mom and Big Poppa P are coming to visit tomorrow and get their tour of our lovely 2 acres.


Oh, and for your enjoyment...Mama Morge was kind enough to give us a preview of what Ryan and I are going to look like living on the "farm":


More soon!