Our "New House"

Finally some pictures! I'm not even going to lie...the house is never this tidy...but Bill and Joan were on their way to visit for the weekend, and with Vinny actually napping, I could really clean it up! So I snapped some pictures while I had the chance!

This is it!

It's little, but it meets all our needs, and we are really enjoying it.

We are right at the top of the cul-de-sac, and here is a view of our little neighborhood. Dotty lives in that little grey house obstructed by the post, and she is the last standing original resident...she's been in that house for 56 years! We were glad to finally meet her the other day. She got a kick out the fact that she has never seen Vinny walk anywhere. Nope. He'd rather run!
There's our little "tunnel" as Vinny calls it. What's nice is that all the traffic goes the opposite way of the cul-de-sac so it's pretty quiet...although, cars race around that corner pretty fast. Even though they're going the other way, it's still pretty annoying.
Going through the "tunnel." Watch out...don't want to hit your head. I'm telling you, he cracks me up.
The Inside

That's pretty much all of it. Told you it was small.
But we were able to fit most of our things that we took with us, and actually think it looks better here than in the big house. Cozy is what we're calling it. We really do love it.
Through the kitchen is the laundry room and powder room, just like my mom and dad's house. Then off that is our bedroom with another door that leads out to the backyard.
The guest room awaits you...
The main bathroom:

Look who's up...

Vinny's playroom! We got so lucky finding a house, first of all (we would have never made it in an apartment), and a house with 4 bedrooms! Vinny loves to play in here and watch the "little TB" as opposed to the "big TB" in the living room. But he does his fair share of TB watching in there, too.
That door leads to the back yard...the best part of this house!
The Backyard

And this would be how we spend every night. While the days are warm, in the mid 80's, the nights are cool and beautiful! Coming from Phoenix, they are down right chilly for summer! We still pinch ourselves-it's been 12 years since we could actually open the windows and truly enjoy real summer weather during real summer months!

So this is the upper level, right off Vinny's playroom:This is the lower level with the patio and grill:
Those shrubby things are geraniums. Geraniums? Can you believe it? In the ground, not in a pot for a brief stint around memorial day! And the pictures didn't really give justice to the numerous white rose bushes that burst with color, and especially pop at night under the moonlight. It's like a secret midnight garden that can truly be enjoyed round the clock.

Vinny loves to run across the grass non-stop. He says, "ready, set, go" every time he takes off for another sprint. And when in a rush, it's just "set-go!"
And here is the best part. Sure, renting has it's drawbacks, maybe even stigma (though coming from the abysmal real estate market in AZ, what's the difference, really?) But I tell you, when Antonio and his brother show up with their mowers and trimmers and take care of business every Wednesday, I sit back and think, "Hmmm, 'gardeners included?' Renting is highly underrated...this is a treat!" I still need to get out there and give the beds some TLC with weeding and thinning, but oh my goodness, having someone else do all the heavy lifting every week is so great.

Gotta sneak in this cutie!

So, I posted this a while back on Facebook...we often hear a rooster cockadoodle-doing throughout the day, and funny enough not at the crack of dawn, more like dusk...anyway...turns out his owner had a termite problem, and while their house was under wraps for fumigation, this guy escaped backyard and explored the neighborhood for a few days. Vinny thought it was great fun. He went up to the rooster and said, "Hi roosey, I Ninny." We need to work on that V sound...
I thought I heard a putty cat...and yup, right there in our back yard shrubs, this guy appeared. He scooted quickly through the fence...not sure who he belongs to yet.

And thankfully we still have lizards to keep Vinny interested, too. One night, while we were sitting out back, we looked up to find a spider weaving her web across two fan palms. It was the coolest thing to watch! We tried to get a picture, but it just didn't capture the beauty of her web, nor her skill. I'm still on a mission to capture the elusive parrots that fly all over Monrovia and roost right in the tall trees behind our house...I'll save that for another post...