We are all moved in!!!

Well, Saturday was moving day. Thankfully, it was the one beautiful day of the weekend! We had lots of friends and family help, and got everything out of the apartment and into the new house in just over 3 hours. A big thank you to everyone who helped - we REALLY appreciate it! Ben's dad had a small encounter with some ice and our nightstand and ended up needing 6 stitches in his chin, but other than that things went well. We are loving the house and can't wait to spend Christmas there.

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at home. Church was canceled, but we did venture over to Ben's parent's house for lunch. We live on a cul-de-sac, so we are about the last people to get plowed. That's why it's nice to only live 2 miles from my parents who have a plow truck. :)

We decided to paint the room blue. And not just the one wall - the whole room. We LOVE it. Pictures will be coming soon... our internet at the house is getting hooked up on Tuesday, so I'll upload them then.

Hope you all have a wonderful and very Merry Christmas!

Carmelitas

I brought in some of my favorite treats to work this week for our holiday foodfest (people sign up for a day and take turns bringing treats in), and I thought I'd share. These bars are so delicious and people always rave about them. One little thing - this recipe is for a 7X11 pan, NOT a 9x13. Enjoy!

Carmelitas

preheat oven to 350

36 caramels
5 Tbsp evaporated milk (you can use milk with some non-dairy creamer mixed in as well)
Melt caramels with milk in microwave. Set aside.

1 C. flour
3/4 C. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 C. dry oatmeal
1/2 tsp. soda
3/4 C. melted margarine

6 oz. chocolate chips

Combine flour, sugar, salt, oatmeal, soda & butter. Press half of mixture in a greased 7x11 pan. Bake 10 minutes. Sprinkle chocolate chips over oatmeal mixture. Cover with caramel mixture. Top with remaining oatmeal mixture. Return pan to oven. Bake an additional 15 minutes. Cool and cut into bars.

Note: It's best to make these bars when you have a few hours to let them cool on the counter. If you refridgerate them, the carmel gets kind of hard and chewy.

Help Us Choose

We get keys to the house tomorrow!!! We aren't moving til next weekend, but hope to spend some of this weekend painting. The main floor is currently painted a tan with white trim. It's nice and neutral, but I want to add some color... plus, our couch is tan.

This is our couch:
We are thinking of painting one wall in the room (the angles/staircase, etc) make it hard to know where to stop/start as the walls lead to other rooms, so I'm think we're just going to do the back wall behind the couch. We have it narrowed down to two colors: a dusty blue or a deep burgundy. I found this picture of our couch online, but couldn't find one with burgundy walls. I quickly created the burgundy image... ignore the color on the floor, etc, and picture it just behind the couch. Also, the shade is slightly off (it's a little too pink), but it gives you the idea :)


The carpet is cream. The wall we would paint doesn't have any windows, but there is a large bay-type window on the wall to the left of it (when you are looking at it). So, what's your vote: Dusty Blue or Deep Burgundy?

Finalized

It's a go. The last inspection on the house is done. It's going to cost $2000 to fix, but the seller's are going to cut us a check to cover it at closing. That way, we can get it done and the warranty will be in our name. Yay!!!

Closing is a week from Friday. We get possession two weeks from Friday. C.R.A.Z.Y. I picked up a bunch of packing boxes from work and will be spending most of my upcoming free time packing... aside from the holiday eating, Christmas tree cutting, and family/friend time. Thanks for all the well wishes through this process!!!

Update on the house

Well, we're still waiting. Inspections went fairly well, but there was something found toward the end that we weren't crazy about. We got the sellers to agree to pay for a specialist to come look at it (it would have cost us $400), which is happening tomorrow. Depending on the results, we may or may not walk away from this house.

We're disappointed for sure, but if this doesn't work out, we'll just keep looking.

Photos and Color - fun way to waste time :)

I love color. Always have. I also love pictures. So, yesterday, reading one of my favorite blogs (This Young House) I saw their post about the new Multicolor Search Lab and I found myself quite entertained. You select a color, and it pulls a bunch of different pictures from Flickr that are the selected color. Then you can add another color, and another color (up to 10, I think) and it pulls pictures with those colors. Go play around with it - it's fun! Here is an example of one I tried.

First, I selected blue:

Then, I added green:
And finally, some yellow:

Trees

One of my requirements in the house hunting process was that our yard would have lots of trees. For the majority of my life, I've lived surrounded by trees. My childhood home was right night to a nature center and had a crick running through the backyard. My parents current home is on 3.5 acres and has over 100 trees on the property. I could never live in a clear-cut development where you can look right through your backyard into your neighbors house. I need shade. I need privacy.

One of the things I love about this house is the yard. It has nice open green space, but plenty of trees. Although there are houses behind us, we can't really see them (well, maybe in the winter). And although it may mean lot of raking, at least we'll have our own private place for our kids to play. Here are some pictures of the yard:

Looking out the window

The shed and hot tub (yes, hot tub!)

Right side of shed - we plan to make a dog run in this corner

Not Much to Report... and a little preview

This past weekend was wonderful. Friday night was spent at dinner and playing games with friends. Saturday I woke up, and honestly didn't know what to do with myself. I had NOTHING that I HAD to do. I enjoyed a lazy morning, made some chicken and rice soup and brownies... and other than that, I can't really remember what I did all afternoon. I haven't had a Saturday like that in awhile.

This week is a little busy at work, but we have a fairly open weekend. Inspections on the house are Saturday morning - pray they go well! I wandered around Pier 1 tonight looking for ideas, but wouldn't let myself buy anything until inspections are done. Sorry for the bad picture (it was getting dark, and I just had the P&S along), but here is a little preview of our home:

We Have a House!!!

We put an offer in on a house on Monday, and have been going back and forth since then. This morning, we agreed on a price!!! Plus, rates dropped below 6%, which is wonderful. Hopefully everything will go smoothly with inspections, etc, and we'll move in mid-December! I can't wait to post pictures, but am going to wait until things are finalized - I don't want to jinx anything.

The house is in Wyoming - Burlingame and 44th area. It will be so nice for Ben to have a shorter drive to work everyday. I AM SO E.X.C.I.T.E.D!!!!

Another Year Older

Another birthday gone by... another year older. I don't feel older (yet), but I am officially now in my upper 20s. When I was young, I imagined I'd be married at 21, which means I'd probably have a few kids by now - crazy! I really like my life and where we're at, though. Some day (hopefully) we'll have kids, but for now, we're having a great time just the two of us.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. For awhile, nothing too exciting was going on, and then this past week was crazy-busy. We've still be looking at houses and found one we really like this weekend. We're going to look at again tomorrow and then might be putting an offer in within a week or so. I'm taking my camera, so if our offer is accepted, etc, I'll definitely post pictures.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. I'm blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful friends and family! Happy Birthday to my Uncle Karl as well! I was born on his 16th birthday - can you imagine a better birthday present? :P

It's All Gone

I got my haircut!!! It hasn't been this short in 5 years! I couldn't find a good recent picture of it before, but you can kind of see what it looked like in the Cali pictures below. Here is the new hair... please excuse the crappy pics from the webcam on the laptop :).

It's almost mid October?

Seriously... where does the time go? I had great hopes of this fall being less busy and having more time to relax and home and spend time with Ben, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I can't imagine how busy life will be some day when we have a family.

This weekend Ben and I, along with his parents and brother, are heading to Iowa and Minnesota for a wedding. We're leaving tonight, and I really hope I can go. I haven't been feeling very well since Saturday. Ben and I are not ready to start a family, but I was feeling so crappy I even resorted to taking a pregnancy test to see if there was a surprise!!! (It was negative) :) . I'm taking it easy right now, taking meds, and hopefully will be feeling good enough for a long car ride. Not fun.

A few weeks ago my sister picked me up at work on a Tuesday and we headed out to Grand Haven to take a few pictures of her and her fiance Jay. They were having their actual engagement pics taken downtown (check them out), but wanted a few in Grand Haven, since that is where they got engaged. We had fun, but it was REALLY windy. Ben had met us in GH after work, so I just rode with him. Well, the next morning I walk out the door and the truck is not parked out front. I think to myself "Well, maybe Ben accidentally took the truck instead of the car", so I went around to where we park the car and that was gone too. My next thought is "Someone stole the truck!!!", and to be honest, I had a brief moment of excitement... I've been waiting to get rid of that thing! And then it dawned on me... I had left the truck at Calvin. Luckily, I live close enough I can walk. It just wasn't how I planned to start my morning.

Anyway, here are a few of the pictures we took:

The Golden Gate and The Coastal Redwoods

PCH - 17 Mile Drive

Driving up PCH - part 1

California - Hearst Castle

Tuesday morning we left Los Angeles and started our drive up the coast. We drove about 4 hours from LA to San Simeon, stopping in the really cute town of San Luis Obispo for lunch. That afternoon we toured Hearst Castle - an amazing estate built by William Randolph Hearst. Talk about gorgeous!!! The place constists of the main house (la casa grande), 3 guest houses, a GORGEOUS outdoor pool call the Neptune Pool, beautiful gardens, amazing views, an indoor pool that is completely tiled, and much, much more. After touring Hearst Castle we spent the evening in Pacifica, which has a really cute downtown area, and then walked on the beach.

Californ-i-a Part I

We went to Chicago this weekend, both to visit my friend Steph, and to see the White Sox vs. Tigers game. However, it rained ALL weekend, and needless to say, the game was canceled. We had a great time anyway - with the exception of the drive home. It took us 6 hours to get home from Chicago - six hours... and it wasn't a snow storm. They closed 80/94 just over the Indiana border due to flooding, so 5 lanes of traffic had to get off at one exit. Many other road were closed in the area as well. Basically, it was chaos.

When we got home I decided I need a little sunshine, so I sorted through a few of my Cali pics. These are from our first few days there, which were spent spending time with friends. We spent Saturday and Monday at the beach, where Brian taught Ben how to surf. We also got to catch up with some of my college friends. It was wonderful. The pics of Ben surfing are from the same day. It started so gray with a thick marine layer, and less than 3 hours later the sky had turned into a beautiful blue! (And if you notice... I got a bit burned).

We're back!!! We actually got back Saturday night, but as things tend to happen, life has been busy! School started at Calvin on Monday, so work got a lot busier for me. On top of playing catch up, I had a bunch of other things to take care of us well.

Ben and I have started the house hunting process, so we've been busy this week searching GRAR, getting pre-approved for a loan, and touring some homes. We found one house that we love, in our #1 neighborhood that was recently foreclosed... which could be good for us! It will take a few weeks to go through the legal processes before it is back on the market, but we still managed to get an appointment to go through it - TONIGHT! I am really excited, but also a bit nervous. I'm afraid I will fall even further in love with this house. It's at the very top of our price range, so if it comes back on the market even cheaper, that would be great!

The rest of our Cali trip was wonderful. Napa was beautiful, but hot! It was over 100 degrees both days we were there. It rarely gets that warm there. It was still fun though. I've been sorting through pictures and hope to get some up soon.

Vacation

Just a quick update...

We're having a great time in California!!! We got some nice sun at the beach, Ben learned to surf, saw some great friends, went to Hearst Castle, drove up PCH from LA to Pacifica (so far.. over 2 days), went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, drove 17 mile drive and stopped at Pebble Beach... I love vacation!

Tomorrow is driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, seeing the coastal redwoods, and on to Napa!!!

MANY pictures to come.

S.O.B

No... not THAT... S.O.B = sister of the bride!!! That's right - Jay and Janae are finally engaged! He totally surprised her Thursday night with the proposal. She and I are both pretty difficult to surprise, so what better way to do it, than on a date she had planned? I'm so happy for them and can't wait to celebrate and help. The wedding will be sometime next summer, mostly likely July or August. So fun!

Aside from that, I've been really busy with work. Lots of meetings and things as I transition to a new position. Plus, with school starting in a few weeks and freshman moving into the dorms, it's always busy this time of year. I'm sneaking out on some of the busy-ness this year though - Ben and I leave for California on Friday!!! I am so excited. I'm looking forward to seeing good friends there, as well as seeing some parts of the state I have not seen yet. I think we're taking the laptop, so I'll try and update as we go.

Hope you all enjoy the last week of summer!

June's Legacy

4 years ago next week, my maternal grandma passed away. She was an incredible woman who had a heart of gold and touched many people's lives. In her memory, a woman who cultivates lillies created a new variety and named it "June's Legacy" in honor of her. Each family received one of these plants, and every time we look at it, we are reminded of what an incredible woman she was.

Two years ago, my mom transplanted it to a new place in the yard, and last year it did not produce many flowers. This year, however, it is flourishing and producing so many beautiful blooms. Last weekend I stopped out there to take a few pictures:

Redneck Olympics

Seeing how I finally have a night at home - and am spending it watching the REAL Olympics, I figured it'd be a good time to post some pictures from the Redneck Olympics.








The last picture is of Randy showing off his prize. The winning team members each got a scratch off lottery ticket... no one won anything though.

The evening ending with a fundraiser poker tournament for Sportspersons Ministries International. It was fun, as it is every year... I made it to the final table. I think I finished in 5th - not too bad. My hubby finished in first for the second year in a row and won $100!