birthday!

Tristan loved his party today. He and Papa went downtown for a trolley ride while I did last-minute preparations and the guests---Meme, Papp, Grace, Mamaw, and Oma---came. He didn't seem nearly as surprised as I thought he'd be (guess he's a quick-to-adapt kiddo), but he really enjoyed it. He got the pineapple cake he'd been asking for and got some really nice gifts as well. His Thomas engines and video really held his interest, but over the afternoon, he also wanted to play with his helicopter (which chants out "Here comes Tonka, to the rescue! Coming to save the day!" like something out of Team America) and train puzzle, tried on his rain boots, and inspected his Thomas tableware. He had a great time.

We drove by the house again today...even went down the alley, lol. It is really nice. From stuff on the curb, looks like the owner was kind of busy doing work on it this weekend. I'm pretty excited...my dire 'no good job, no good school' post earlier this week looks like it wasn't quite true. The house is very near a local university, which pays its librarians significantly better than where Jon works now. And, from what I can gather online, there are some decent schools after all. The best thing is that, even after taxes and insurance, our mortgage payment would be quite a bit less than we're paying now in rent. We both really like this city and, from the calculations we've done and even taking into account maintenance and such, we'd be financially able to stay here comfortably for as long as we'd like. One especially neat thing is that it's about two blocks from a house I grew up in; kind of nostalgic.