Happenings

Well, hello there! I never really intended to take such a long hiatus from blogging, but life happened! Here's a rundown of what's been going on around here the past couple of months:

• Had a garage sale
• Memorial Day, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, graduations, birthday parties, baby showers, weddings...typical spring and summer stuff
• Surgery - minor, outpatient surgery related to my miscarriage. All is well for now!

And, probably the biggest turn of events...WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! We've been searching for awhile and had been exploring several options, including building but could never find a house or lot that really fit our wish list and our budget. Then a couple weeks ago we went to look at a house that I really wasn't expecting to be seriously interested in, liked it, looked again, made an offer and the rest is history! We close July 15 and basically every spare second has been spent cleaning, decluttering, and doing random projects that we'd been putting off in order to get our house spiffed up and ready to show! Adding to the stress was the fact that I had decided to begin painting all of the trim on our main level about a week before we found our house (I don't even want to talk about it!) and then some ongoing physical issues still hanging around after our second miscarriage. I've basically been a ball of energy and emotions, which, as you can imagine, has been a real treat for Dave ;)

And now for the fun stuff - details about the house! It's about ten years old and is located in a quiet neighborhood in a smaller town nearby where we currently live. Both Dave and I hail from small towns and are looking forward to a slower, more relaxed pace along with a smaller school district for our kids, if we choose to send them to public schools. 

The town has the most adorable town square with a park and cute little shops all around, including a local pizza place which we tried and loved AND a cute little cafe that sells yummy sandwiches, ice cream and coffee. Good coffee is a must :) They are just finishing construction on the first and ONLY grocery store, a convenience I am happy I won't have to live without. And it's really only between 15-20 minutes to get to some bigger cities with better shopping. 

The town is also near a lake and we are super close to a nice recreation area and swimming beach! And there's a nice library. That's also a must for us :)

The house itself is bigger than our current home, with four nice sized bedrooms. As with any house (unless you happen to have an unlimited budget!) there are things we will want to change, but the biggest selling feature for us was the lot. It's almost half an acre and super private. There are houses behind us, but we're separated by a tree line and can hardly even see them. Towards the back there is a creek with a little bridge across it. 

The current owners actually live in Texas and have been renting the property for the last three years, and there will be some minor maintenance that we will need to do but overall it's in pretty good shape. The tenants have two HUGE dogs (Great Danes!) and a cat so we asked for an allowance to replace all the carpet. The home was a little under our budget, so we hope to also have room to replace the hard surface floors on the main level and possibly upgrade the kitchen. Some of that will depend on how much we are able to sell our current home for!

Do you wanna see some pictures? I thought you would ;)

Yes, there is a slide off the deck, which is just cool. Possibly dangerous, but cool :) We can't wait to get in there and make it our own!