I could live with an outdoor space like that...

Remember that big house I talked about in this post? The one my brother-in-law and his wife were hoping to purchase? Well, they moved into their new home on Halloween, and Chris spent most of the morning and afternoon helping them carry furniture and boxes into their new digs. That evening, we packed up our girls (I mean Owlette and Catboy) and drove across town to go trick-or-treat at Uncle E and Aunt W's new place. I got the full tour, and my girls went crazy running all around and up and down the stairs and into closets and behind closed doors. I had a mild panic attack as I chased Sweetheart around, trying to keep her from all of the things that haven't been baby proofed yet.

Ah, family time at it's finest!

A house of the several-thousand-square-foot variety is clearly not my cup of tea, but I am looking forward to spending time visiting, especially since it's now only a fifteen minute drive to their house rather than the half hour it used to take to go see them.

It's pretty common for people in small homes to make use of outdoor living space as much as possible, and part of our detached "addition" will be dedicated to a covered porch area off the back. I would also love to put down a patio outside our sliding door, maybe with an awning, to give our girls more room to ride bikes and play.

This big house, though, has an outdoor space that I can only dream about, and I'm pretty sure that's what sold my brother-in-law and his wife on their new home in the first place. There is a huge unheated sun room that probably used to be part of the back porch but at some point was enclosed by previous owners. The sun room has walls of glass on two sides, and one of those walls completely opens up onto a small raised deck with a cement patio on the other side of the deck. Then there is green space along the back with fruit trees framing the small yard. (I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but it was dark outside, and I was busy trying to capture at least one non-blurry image of my active toddler.)

I certainly don't want a big house, but the outdoor living space has me drooling a bit. The sun room is probably as big as our whole house is, and while I wouldn't know what to do with a room that size, to have a covered outdoor living area apart from all the bugs and critters and mud would be so amazing. It makes me look forward to making our own outdoor space more livable as time and budget allow.

In the meantime, I think a regularly scheduled play date might be in order.