Finally there are more houses on the market than we can comfortably visit in a two-hour period. Four houses matching our criteria came on the market just yesterday, a few on Tuesday, and a few on Monday. None of the homes in Sunnyvale are listed anywhere NEAR the final price of our bidding war a few weeks back so maybe we made the right decision to stop the madness and wait.

However, as time goes by we are becoming decreasingly enchanted with calling Sunnyvale our home. We currently live in Mountain View, one town north of Sunnyvale. And we are increasingly drawn to houses in Palo Alto (one city north of Mountain View) and Los Altos (one city to the west). The lure of Palo Alto and Los Altos is great; there are things besides houses in walking distance, there are old-growth trees, non-ranch-style houses, and large lots. Sunnyvale feels newer, more suburban, more thrown together at the last minute. Moving into Sunnyvale, however, means the possibility of moving into a large house on a large lot with some cash left over to remodel (and oh how we ache for a satisfying remodel). Palo Alto and Los Altos are both much more expensive. We could buy a small house on a medium/large lot that badly needs a makeover but we'd probably have to live years in tacky fixtures before being able to update. The question becomes, can we be surrounded by tackiness without going INSANE. Madness brought on by track lighting and linoleum? How embarrassing.

While there are now seven homes on our list to see in Sunnyvale only one home came on the market this week in Los Altos and none in Palo Alto (or, they did but not in our range).

We drove by a number of houses yesterday to knock them off our list just by their location and surroundings...

Simon: "I want to buy dat one!"
Hava: "Simon, that's a school."
Simon: "I want to buy a school house!"

Hava sees a church that says "Father's House" on the side.

Hava: "Hey Simon, how about we move into Father's House?"
Simon: "OK, I like dat one."
Hava: "Simon, who is 'Father?'"
Simon: "Granmudder!"