And there are trees!

By Orange County standards we live pretty far out.

Growing up, I considered any city that didn't have at least one border on the beach "inland".

Of course, when I was growing up the city I now live in didn't even exist.

Now we live in South County aaaallll the way to the East in what I call "the country".

I call it the country because (and I can hardly still believe this) there is nothing but nature on the other side of our neighborhood.

We back up to and are walking distance from O'Neil Regional Park and when you look at a map, 

you'll see that next to us is nothing but green.

And there are trees!

I mean, trees everywhere!

They line our streets and they are gorgeous and the neighborhoods are beautiful.

We can see the mountains from our windows.

We are a few minutes walk from this lake.

We leave the house, walk past the elementary school and find this waiting for us.

It is man-made and there is no swimming in it but it's such a perfect one mile loop.

I'll be sure and take some pictures of the lake with the mountains in the background.

I'd take pictures of the Peanut at the lake but it's hard to hold a camera and keep him from jumping in at the same time.

It's a breathe of fresh air every time we go for a walk around the neighborhood.

Where do you go to recharge?

During the house hunt

First off, may I say that the housing market is not what everyone still thinks it is.

It's tough out there.

We saw a gazillion houses, some of which were very nice and some were very... interesting.

This has to be my favorite picture from our house hunt.

I could have created an entire blog on the additions built in this house.

For instance, after taking a look in their normal hallway bathroom, my mom turned to the right and opened the hallway closet......

to find this instead.

A bathroom.  In a closet.  Right next door to the bathroom.

I will say that with the 6 bedrooms, half of which were added on, in a slanted ramshackle way, they probably needed an extra bathroom.

Can you imagine going to the bathroom in here?

One dim over head light and barely room to breathe, let alone turn around.

I should have known it was going to be like this when I entered the "foyer" to find myself looking at what was perviously the front of the house.

How do I know it was previously the front of the house?

Well, because they didn't change anything.  It still had the exterior stucco, the porch light and a blank spot where they moved the mailbox.

I wish I had taken more pictures of this house but I think the one above says it all!

House tour!

As promised a thousand moons ago, here is the first official house tour.

These pictures were taken for the listing so we get a good idea of how they had the house set up.

Almost all the flowers you see are already dead.

I am a flower killer.

I'm thinking of all the fun things we can hang for the holidays here!

This is the living room when you first walk through the front door, which is to the left in this picture.

They didn't have the stairs shown on the listing so here is a shot after we're already in.

There are actually two different greens there and the bookcase is already partly dismantled but you get the idea.

At the top is access to the attic aka christmas decoration storage.

I love how open this is.

The front door is just to the right.

This is the dining room and one of the sliding doors to the back yard.

Here is the kitchen, you can see the dining room at the far end.

A little eating area between the kitchen and the family room.

I love that you can see the back yard from all of these windows.

I like to know when Peanut is trying to pick up spiders and is busy eating dirt.

The family room with a fireplace I can't wait to use in the winter.

I think so far, that although this rooms lends itself perfectly to a TV room that I would like to keep it TV-less and make it really kid friendly.

That sounds odd considering it has the fireplace but I'd rather make the front room a more adult room, 

in hopes that we can walk into the house and not see a bunch of toys.

I feel like the less Peanut sees the TV the less he wants it on and so it'll either be hidden or gone completely from the room.

There is another set of sliding doors to the back yard.

The view from the top of the stairs.

The master bedroom.  This room is actually much larger than it looks.

To the left is a very large, long window and the ceiling is very high on one side.

The master bedroom is above the family room.

The master bathroom, closets to the left, shower and separate potty to the right and perhaps my favorite... behind the wall you see on the right is the linen closet.

The bathroom is huge and the ceiling is high.

The only drawback is that the light through those windows is a rude wake-up call should we be so lucky to sleep until 7:15 am.

These rooms they remodeled not to long ago, adding an additional room in the front of the house.

I love the windows and light and they both have views of the mountains.

Both of these bedrooms are above the garage and entryway.

This is Peanut's room.

Although in person the color is this room was a vivid lime green, we loved how bright and cheerful it was.  In my opinion, this is the best room in the house.  This was completely added on to the house.

I liked the color so much that I chose a softened version of it for Peanut.

It went from vivid lime green to what I think of as lime sherbet but is called something like Frosted Garden.

Of course, it's only fitting that the prince live in here.

He also has the only walk-in closet. 

I know.

Apparently they were originally going to build out differently and what started as a hallway ended up as a walk in closet.

For a little boy.

Here is our new back yard.

No more packing a bag and stroller to get the kid outside.

Now I just open the door and go back inside for a nap.

I kid, I kid.

They were kind enough to leave the enclosure you see on the left, under which Peanut now has his own house.

We've already used our BBQ several times and I love how everything is nice and shaded so the sun isn't glaring through all the wonderfully double-paned windows.

That concludes our house tour for today.

I'll keep you posted on renovations, the house should be furnished and completed by the time Peanut is in college.

We love the house, by the way.

Love.