New House

The house is painted and the outside is almost complete! It's on to the inside. Yesterday the dry wall was completed and the house now looks like what we bought. It's amazing on how just putting that up changes the whole look. We are excited!!

Cannon Beach 2011

We just got back from a fabulous time at Cannon Beach, OR! The temperatures were perfect and we had mostly sunny days. The place we stayed at, The Seasprite, was awesome and right off the beach. We were so lucky to get 5 nights there and Emmett was able to celebrate his birthday in a beautiful setting. We had so much fun and also took a day trip to Portland to see my uncle. While in Portland, we tried Voodoo doughnuts. They were ok, but a lot of fun to see all the novelty doughnuts that they have come up with. I also found a great crepe place in Cannon Beach and might be a little addicted now. It is owned by a cute family of 3. We also went to Hug point to check out our engagement spot and took a little drive to Tillamook to get some of the best cheese and ice cream ever! It was so hard to come back home, but back to work tomorrow. I will miss my evening walks on the beach each day. Next trip is in 2 weeks to Lake Powell with all the fam!

PS. We loved the little bunnies all over the hotel grounds. Except the one that tried to attck Emmett...not so cute.

House in progress

I don't know why the pictures have to come up in reverse order of how I uploaded them, but oh well I guess. So obviously the bottom is pre-house and the top two are the most current. I thought I could have patience, but I don't. I want it to move faster. It's been fun to look at the house everyday to see what has been done!

I LOVE the patio cover! I sooo can't wait to use it!!

So far our closing date is September 30th. We haven't packed a thing so I guess we should get going with that!

It's a go

Well, we have done all the paper work and we qualified...which amazes me! We are building a house through Coleman homes! We are very excited and even more excited that we get to do it together and make it fully ours. They started digging on 6/23/11 and everyday we go and take pictures to document the progress. I will post some later.

We decided to build for a couple reasons: 1. There are 4 houses for sale in the area that are not short sales and we don't like them. 2. It is so cheap right now because the interest rate has hit rock bottom at 4.25% and people want work so they do it for cheap. 3. We are looking at long term and by building we can dictate what we want instead of settling on major things.

We wanted to do this now while the market is low and we are able to afford it. If the market changes any little bit, this would not be do-able for us. The house we are in is too small (amazingly) to expand a family in, but that is due to the layout and only ONE extra closet. I want to do it now before having kids added to the mix. I wanted an "ours" house.

The stats:
-Coleman homes is the builder who is sooo awesome compared to others
-We chose The Reed floor plan off of Mcmillam and Black Cat-yes 2miles down the road
-We got a bonus room and porch addition
-24oo sq ft-almost double our other house
-an office
-3 bed 2 bath
-lots of extras like granite and faux wood floors in certain areas

We have had to make lots of decisions and some stressful moments and some fun. It has been an interesting process. I highly recommend knowing exactly what you want and settling on some small things or the price jumps really fast with too many extras. All in all we got all this for $188,000 or for $73 a sq ft which is such a HUGE deal compared to what it used to cost. Our payment only went up $150/mo which is very do-able for us.

What about the other house? Well the market still sucks to seel, but the rental market is awesome with all the foreclosures so we are going to be landlords for awhile. Either we will keep it as an investment or sell it when the market goes back up it we can't stand being landlords.

I am going to miss our current house for everything I put into it like the yard. That took a lot and I love my trees, but we will begin again I suppose. I'm sentimental...I'll live.

To be cont....

P.S.

P.S. I love my kitchen aid and becoming a pro at homemade bread. It's so yummy. We also painted the living room and it looks great. So much nicer than oatmeal colors. We got a new kitchen table and desk so we could finally complete some rooms.

I know...I know

Yes, I know...It's been awhile. Seems like time has flown and not much has happened.

We both just keep plugging along at work. I can't even think of anything big that has happened. Emmett is taking summer classes so he can at least keep moving along with that, but the poor guy hardly gets sleep on the days he works. I am helping him with a Bio class needed to graduate and the rest is all him. Hopefully, though, after fall semester he will graduate with an Associates and move on to a B.S.

We have some exciting news coming up, though. I want to get farther along in the process before I post it. No, I'm not pregnant. Different news so stay tuned.

Oh yes. We did take a trip to Seattle, WA and it was a blast. It was a nice long weekend and fun to be with Emmett there since he was stationed in the area and kinda knew what to see and do. We stayed with one of my high school friends. She's getting her MD and it was great to catch up with her! We went to the tulip festival, sooo pretty and so close to Vancouver, BC. I wanted to drive just a little farther to be there again. We went up to Fort Lewis where Emmett was stationed, did all the fun Seattle sites like Pikes Market, and ate such yummy food! I love traveling to large towns because we finally get some good food! Boise's restaurants suck. Overall, a nice mini-vaca. Pretty drive, too. One of my "I wish I could live there" places is Seattle.

Talk again soon!

Christmas! Part one

Santa visited us and was very nice to us this year! We were spoiled and got tons of goodies! It was so great to be able to spend it with Emmett and enjoy ourselves. We had a late morning and great food later... just the two of us. Emmett is super thoughtful with gift giving and actually remembers things I want so that made it wonderful too!

This was my first clue as to what I was getting!

Santa was super good to Emmett and brought him a PS3, which Santa was reluctant to give such a gift and an iPod shuffle to replace the broken one.

The big reveal of the RED KitchenAid!! Soooooo excited and love it!!!

Sadly it looks pink in this picture, but it really is cherry red.

Stay tuned for the next installment of Christmas! There is just so many pictures to share.