Foster Fun House: California Dreamin'

Well, it's a new year, and the Foster's are starting a new life, in a new state, with a new job (cue stress!). Most everyone's heard by now - Mike has been offered a post-doc position at Sandia National Lab, in Livermore, California. Livermore is about 40 minutes outside of San Francisco - check it out at www.cityoflivermore.net. Mike took the below pictures while driving around the area after his interview in December.

We got the unofficial offer on Mike's birthday, December 21st, but there were a lot of details that still had to be ironed out. So, although I still spent the week after Christmas getting ready to put our house on the market, I was (in pure Melissa fashion) anticipating bad news. Fortunately, my worries were needless (as usual) and Mike got the official offer on January 6th and our house went on the market the same day. Did I mention we have a wonderful realtor?

We are leaving on January 18th to go house hunting. It will be Andrew's first plane ride! Which of course, means that Mike and I are both pretty anxious about this trip - stay tuned for a report on how that goes!

Our goal in house hunting is to find a rental starting February 1st. This is all moving very fast... did I mention it's slightly stressful? ;) We are looking for a McMansion with at least 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a pool... so, everyone start planning your trips to California - there will be plenty of room!

I am posting some pictures of our first house - the house we brought Andrew home to - for posterity. We bought our house unexpectedly in May of 2008. The reason why I say this purchase was unexpeceted, is because we were not house hunting at all, and still had quite a few months left on our lease in Jenkintown. But, our fabulous realtor is always on the look out, and she had just listed this cute Cape and thought we would love it... and she was right - thanks Mom! We put our blood, sweat, and tears into this house (even though it didn't really need it... but we like projects). To name a few of the projects Mike completed: he updated both the bathroom and kitchen, put in new insulation upstairs, installed ceiling fans and a gas fireplace, as well as dug numerous flower beds. I'm sure that I'm missing several other projects, but I have been continuously impressed by Mike's natural talents and determination.