"A pool is not a kitchen." - Gordon Mair

When we first found out we were having twins, we decided it was probably time to start house hunting. The difficulty with finding a house in the neighborhood we love, Burbank, is that we really love our condo. And unfortunately, houses in Burbank in our price range just aren't as nice or updated as our condo - there was always a compromise.

We considered dozens of homes and looked at about 10 in person. One we checked out while my dad was visiting had a perfect pool area, but needed a whole interior re-do. As my dad said, "A pool is not a kitchen" and he was right. That was when my wish list was revised - I decided we didn't need a pool or a view, we needed space (for family visits and the girls) and something that didn't need remodeling. We needed a good layout that made sense. We moved our hunt from the Burbank hills to Magnolia Park and after a few more weeks, found something perfect!

The purchase process was probably too easy. Our bid was accepted the day after we sent it in. I wrote a letter to the seller about why we needed a bigger home, and it turns out the listing agent also has twins! The inspections all passed with flying colors. The 30 days to closing goes so fast you don't have time to think about it. This was totally different from when we bought our condo, which was a short sale and took months and months - plenty of time to process it all.

We will be moving to our new home in mid July and renting out the condo. I will miss being right in the heart of so much good stuff.  I'll miss our pool a lot, but we will get a little blow up number for the girls to splash around in and maybe some sprinklers to play in. I look forward to all of the space we will have, and for the outdoor area for the girls to play in. I really look forward to putting up family in the guest room, where they will have their own bathroom. I hope our family will really take advantage of that! And I look forward to discovering a new area of Burbank.

The best part? Really? The fireplace - because now I don't have to come up with some wild story about how Santa gets in to deliver presents!