The Corley-Blake-Larson get together!

Hey good lookin', we need to find you a woman!
















Crazy Steve
















Little Zach, looking scary, good work assisting in building the haunted house along with Elizabeth and Riley.















All the Corley kids....but where is Micheal, ooops we ditched him and ALL moved to Oregon.

Time flies...

My darling husband has been busy at school and we are already in the middle of the quarter here at Portland State. Here he is hard at work...studying...wait...let me look closer, nope I was wrong. He is reeeeaaallllly hard at work watching TV and reading the newspaper. Well at least he is building his multi-tasking skills. Go Ben!

All systems a go...for now!

I know all of you have been waiting on pins and needles like I have about the house. And I happily inform you that for now we have an addendum being sent to us as I write, for a $12,000 lower sales price and still the nasty 4% in closing costs going to the buyer. The new little home buyer of my condo just could not quite have the heart nor the money to give us a break. Only the brain to tell us that they will still take the deeply discounted deal and move forward with buying the house. Oh, only if we sold when I moved to Portland, but no we were greedy and wanted to wait it out for the price to increase. Oh the lessons learned. As Ben has learned now from his trusty rich dad poor dad books, "Attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful". And so the Blake adventures continue in hopes that all systems STAY a go and that we do recieve a large check (but not as large as hoped) in two weeks.

Mom turns 70...

My mom turned 70 on the 15th...the same day that Andrea's daughter Elva (Ilva?) had to go to the hospital to get her sist drained, the same day that my sister got her license taken away from her via her doctor that she told she was unsure about her medication and driving, and the same day that we recieved the news about being 12K poorer than we thought we would be..and unsure that the house deal would even go through at all. I guess I spoke to soon about accepting the offer because the day after we accepted (and good thing it is all contingent on our condo selling), we recieved a call from our realator up in Seattle. He informed us that because of radically dropping prices in Issaquah our appraisal came in 12K less than we sold it for. This is great news for the buyers, bad news for the Blakes. After I shed a few tears, I finally realize that we are so blessed to even be able to sell at all in this market. And so as we are still waiting to hear if they want to move forward at all or renegotiate the price, we just pray that they still want our lovely little condo and that we are still closing in two weeks. It has been two days and my wonderful husband keeps saying "don't worry honey it is going to be fine, they won't back out because they want the plasma tv." Men and toys, let's hope that he is right!
Regardless, I am sure glad that we are celebrating mom's birthday all week long, because it was not the best day.

We have accepted...

So, after countless counter offers on both ends, we have finally accepted the offer on "the" house. It takes about 90 days to build, but we have until March 25th to close. Right in time for Mr. Blake to get a job. He technically graduates in June, but his last 6 unit sr. capstone class allows him enough time to start working almost full time. Those summer classes really paid off! We kind of think we are a little bit crazy to be buying a house in this market, but the risk just might be worth it. Can't wait to have you visit.

Welcome....

Kitchen/Dining

Trees make us happy here in Oregon :)

Facebook...

Okay, so I don't really get it or maybe I have just been in denial that I feel old and can't even try to pretend like I know what is going on out there in the Internet world. I think that it is absolutely crazy that you can actually put in someones name and then at the click of a button get reacquainted with an old friend, read all about their lives, see pictures of their familes and correspond quite easily. Anyways in efforts to keep up with the times and from some urging of my best friend Jen, I joined facebook. This seems like a lot of work... blogging and facebook...what have I gotten into. We will see how it goes in a year or so when I actually have other responsibilities, like a kid :) Cheers to the Internet!

My Personal Mosaic...

I saw this fun idea on Torey's Blog and had a blast. Try it yourself and see what you come up with:

How to:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an imagen that suits you.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs (right click on properties) for the images into fd’s mosaic maker. Layout should be 4x4 with large center.
d. Copy the mosaic image (right click, save image as -- or just drag image to desktop) to your computer.
e. Upload image to blog and voila!


Here are the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your current job/career?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you?
12. Where do you live?
13. A location you like to visit.

Here it is: