Chris & Naomi Hathaway Home

Just a quick update... the seller accepted our offer for the house (with just a few minor changes), so it looks like we got it. There's a 7 day option period where we'll get an inspection and make sure everything is in order, then a month long escrow period, then we close. The ball is rolling!

After looking over nearly 30 houses, we've finally found one we really like and made an offer today. It will nearly double our living space and hopefully not cost much more than the rent we're paying, it's closer to school for me, has everything we want, but still has room for some improvements to build up our investment. Here is the detail page for the property, and below is a video from us walking through it today. After deciding to make an offer, our Realtor found out that someone else had made an offer today as well, but if we offer a certain amount and don't include closing costs, we should be able to get it. Cross your fingers for us!! We find out tomorrow.

Let us know what you think!

We recently returned from a relaxing, 2-week vacation in Washington, visiting Naomi's family and enjoying the nice, cool weather. I've been meaning to get a more prepared account of the event, but it's been a week with nothing, so here at least are some pictures. Expect video and more details to follow. This gem was taken by Kate, Naomi's younger sister:

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Ok, so after 8:30 am church we all take a nice long nap. It's perfect. We all sleep 2.5-3 hours no problem and make up for going to bed so late the night before. Well, today everything went as planned, but when Lincoln woke up I went in to get him and when I set him on the floor I noticed he wasn't wearing a diaper! Just him in his shirt and bare cheeks! When we had put him down for his nap everything seemed fine, but shortly afterwards Chris remembers hearing the sound of velcro. He thought to himself "that wasn't his diaper was it, no it couldn't have been, that would be pretty funny if he took his diaper off." Lincoln took a 3 hour nap with no diaper on and then proceeded to pee on his blanket, sheet, mattress pad, bumper, bedskirt, crib, and floor. At least that was all he got. Most of that was washable.

I was looking at some of Lincoln's friend Jake's videos today, and I got jealous, so I rounded up some clips I've been meaning to post and pasted them together to upload on YouTube. You know, as much as I love Linux, it does a horrible job at video editing. And as much as I don't love Microsoft, Windows Movie Maker was exactly what I needed. Well, here they are:

The first is from our trip to Utah. We went to a wedding reception for our good friends Megan and Vic, and Lincoln had a great time. It was in a glorified greenhouse, so he found plenty of things to do and people to meet.

Next is just a few clips we took one night. Maybe I'm biased (well, for sure I'm biased), but I can't think of any other 14 month old that makes such nice music on the piano.

And finally, a little clip of Lincoln's new favorite thing to do with Grandpa.

Enjoy!!

I'm sorry for being so slow in posting Lincoln updates; I won't bother you with excuses. Here are some from April:

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and from May:

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Several of the shots have explanatory captions you might be interested in. There's a checkbox on the slideshow, or go through the gallery view.

Caribbean Shrimp

1 lb. large shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 fresh or canned jalapeno pepper, minced
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 jar (16 oz.) Pace Lime and Garlic Chunky Salsa
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 cups hot cooked rice

Toss shrimp with 1 Tbsp. oil, lime juice and pepper.
Heat remaining oil in skillet. Add onion, green pepper and jalapeno pepper. Cook and stir 4 min. or until onion is tender.
Stir in crushed red pepper, salsa and coconut milk. Heat to a boil. Cook over low heat 10 min.
Add shrimp and cilantro. Cook 5 min. or until shrimp is done. Serve over rice. Garnish with lime slices and cilantro leaves if desired. Serves 4.

I found this recipe a couple of years ago on the Pace salsa website. I can no longer find the salsa, so I just subsitute regular medium salsa and add more lime juice and garlic. This time I forgot the garlic and added too much lime juice, but it was still good. We've tried the recipe with precooked shrimp and that worked pretty well too. Enjoy!

Here it is. One of our favorite unique salsa recipes. I guess it's more like a salad, but we eat it with tortilla chips so I guess it counts as salsa. Courtesy of one of my favorite college roommates.

1 can black beans
1 can black eyed peas
1 can yellow corn
1 can white corn
Drain each can and pour contents into a large bowl.

Chop:
6-7 green onions
1 bunch cilantro
3 avocados
2 tomatoes

Prepare 1 package of "Good Seasons" Italian dressing.

Combine all ingredients in your large bowl and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before eating.

I will give the recipe as I have adapted it from Simply Natural Baby Food by Cathe Olson.

1 3/4 cups rolled oats (ground up in the blender)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups milk

Mix the oats, baking powder and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Beat the eggs and milk together. Combine the egg mixture with the oats until just mixed. Let batter sit 5 minutes while the pan heats to medium. Bake 5 minutes each side. Freeze extras.

You can also add 1/4 cup almonds to the blender when you grind the oats. You can add 1 apple grated and mix it in when combining the eggs and oats. Unfortunately I never seem to have apples or almonds on hand so I do without.

Lincoln loves these pancakes and they're an easy snack to pull out of the freezer and heat up for 20 seconds in the microwave.