It's Official!

We heard back from the sellers this week and they agreed to all of the repairs that we asked them to make.  Therefore, we will close on the 25th of February!  Alot of you have been asking me for pics, so here they are.  Keep in mind these are the BEFORES, with someone else's very very old furniture (and old everything else!) We have big plans for it though so it will be fun to see how it all turns out.

Exterior

Dining area, also showing door to garage and master bedroom.

Master bedroom

Kitchen

Living room area

Screened in porch

Screened in porch from inside.

Out With The Old

Todd is opening his new store tomorrow.  Since I had so much time off last week, I went in on Monday and helped clean the place for the big opening.  I definitely was hating life spent alot more time there than I had initially planned but when I left it was looking pretty good, and I did get paid so all in all it was a nice way to spend a day off.  It's completely empty in this video, but you can get a rough idea of the layout.  I chose not to narrate this one, (after hearing my voice on the Chase video I decided not to subject you guys to that again for awhile) so I will describe it a little bit here.  You will see me walking in the front door and scanning around the store part, then walking through a door into the office area, and then heading through the back into the storeroom.  Also you will notice the counter area which is still a work in progress because Todd is building it.  I promise to go back one day this week and get the "after" shots so you guys can see it with everything inside.  It is definitely alot bigger than the old store which is great! PS-I tried not to Blair Witch you guys too badly but I am still working on my videography skills...

Insouciant

Insouciant–adjective
free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.  
No I'm not giving you a vocabulary lesson, but I learned this word in one of my books last night and it applies perfectly to this post.  Plus, its fun to say so I may start working it into regular conversation ;) As most of you know, I have had the luxury of being out of work for quite a while now.  2 weeks over Christmas plus 6 days this past week.  Big surprise, while I've had all of this free time I've been doing ALOT of reading.  A few of you are always asking me what I am reading or what books I think you would like so I decided to do a little book review post before I go back to work and no longer have the time to check out 15 books at a time from the library.

1. My wonderful hubs got me this set of Sookie Stackhouse books for Christmas.  I read 1-8 in no time and I am dying to pick up #s 9 and 10 as soon as I can find them.  The show True Blood on HBO is based off of these books so if you're not into vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural things you may want to give these a pass.

 

2. I stumbled on a trilogy at the library the other day that I really really liked.  These books fall into the cowboy/romance novel variety so again, if thats not your bag you may want to skip them.  I loved all three of them though.

3. I happened to be wandering down the H aisle and ran into a section of Kristin Hannah books.  I have loved ALL of her books so far so if you haven't read Firefly Lane, True Colors, etc. I definitely recommend them.  But I was excited when I found one that I hadn't read yet...this one falls into the historical fiction/mystery category and it goes back and forth from World War II to the present.

So, if you get a chance to pick any of those up let me know what you think!  Do any of you have any good book suggestions for me?  I am about to head to the library this afternoon....

Home Sweet Home

Well, we were holding our breath until we got the results of the CL-100 back yesterday...but it looks like we are termite free and good to go!  Obviously after what happened last time we were holding off getting too too excited until the whole process was complete.  We are going to ask them to fix a few minor things from the home inspection and get the appraisal done soon so if everything goes as planned, it looks like we will be closing on the 25th of February.  Soo...who's coming down in March to help us paint, tile, install floors, etc? ;)

Here is a picture of the house for those of you who haven't seen it yet..

Christmas 2010

It was alot of fun getting to see everyone over Christmas.  It was unbelievable how much Chase has grown and how different he is since we last saw him at the wedding.  Please ignore my voice in the video--but I did want to capture him doing all of his tricks he has learned in the past few months.  Todd and I were amazed that after only seeing us for a few hours he already knew who we were and was trying to say our names.  He was also fascinated by all of the dogs running around and tortured them pretty much the whole time we were there.  Note Todd, Matt, and Jake playing video games in the background...of course.

I was awful about taking pictures and only managed to get a few right before we left.

And here is a picture of our tiny first Christmas tree, which thanks to Todd's dad and Julie and his mom we actually had some cute ornaments to put on it.

First Post!

Hey guys!  Since I am absolutely terrible at phone conversations (as most of you know) I decided to start this blog to keep everyone updated on our goings-on.  I was inspired by my good friend Lisa, who has had her blog for several years now.  It is a great way for me to keep up with them, especially since I don't get to see them that often.  Hopefully this will work the same way for us...even though we love living down here, we are definitely far away from friends and family.

Pretty soon I will do some "before" pics of our new house and try to keep everyone up to date on the "afters" as they come along.  Enjoy!