All moved in....for the most part.

We live in a house now!! We spent our first night in the house Sunday night, after a long and productive day that we would not have gotten through (and it would have probably taken us all week) without Larry, Betty, Earl, Joyce, Brady and Shane (and Lester). There were many trips up and down the apartment building's three flights of stairs and some bee stings, but we made it through! So thank you thank you thank you to those of you who helped us move!


Since Sunday, we've just been settling in slowly. Patti, Tony and Mandy, John and Katrina have all been over to see the house in the last couple of days, it's been so fun to give tours! Also, I went for a run in the neighborhood last night and I decided that I absolutely love living here. I felt totally safe and it's so nice and quiet here.
Jesse had Monday and today off of work and has been unpacking and moving the last things over to the house. He even mowed part of the lawn today! Also, perhaps most importantly, thanks to Jesse, we now have a kitchen faucet!Today, we got our cable, internet and land line all set up. Now I can blog again!
For those of you wondering, Sam is adapting quite well!! Surprisingly, she made herself at home almost right away. As you can see, she finally tried out her housewarming gift from Larry and Betty and seems to like it!We went appliance shopping tonight and will hopefully have a new range, washer and dryer in the near future! But for now, microwaveable meals and Parkway Pizza are working just fine :)

Finally, we are looking forward to the visit from the Prosen's later this week! Happy Birthday Blake and Happy (early) Anniversary Tim and Sara!

Long time, no post!

Major recap of what has been going on:

My my, it has been a busy past week! My mom came up to the cities on Monday and stayed through Thursday morning to help out with some house stuff, and boy did she (with help from Kathy) get a lot done! Between the two of them, the bathroom is almost spotless, the fridge is sparkling clean, the yard and front of the house (see above picture) looks awesome, and practically the whole house is super clean (down to the last windowsill).On Monday evening, Amie came to visit and brought us this lovely housewarming gift! Then my mom, Jesse, Amie and I had a great meal at the Highland Grill. It was so good to see her and before we knew it, we had spent two hours catching up!

On Tuesday night (so many visitors, yay!) Kathy and Jack were over and brought us our very first flowers for the garden!! I'm so excited, they do look a little lonely all by themselves though. More good food was had that night at Pepitos!Finally, guess who got their first housewarming gift last weekend? Yes, Sam (our cat) got her very own perch to look out the window on from her grandma and grandpa Nelson! On that note, I'll leave you all with a baby picture of Sam. **BIG move is tomorrow!!!!

hyedithepainter??

You may be wondering "what's the occasion for having two posts in one day?" Well no real occasion, but we did have a very productive day. Larry and Betty are here (and have slept in our house before we have!) and as of 11:07 pm the dead crab apple tree is history, the dangerous step leading up to our walk is almost fixed, TWO closet organizers were installed, a bedroom was painted, our shower works and the two messed up light switches are fully functional now. Today was amazing and for sure would not have happened without them.

You also may have noticed that the title of this post is "hyedithepainter." Well, that may be an overstatement, but I definitely got a personal painting lesson today from the one and only Carol The Painter! We painted the master bedroom in less than half the time it took Jesse and I to paint the guest bedroom. I learned all sorts of tips and tricks of the trade :) I may start my own business (haha).

Jesse and Larry working hard!
Dad! The stud finder works great! Closet #1...we call this the "practice closet"

Lester is tired from all of the work!

Good-bye Raspberry Bushes!

Yesterday, Jesse went to work on getting rid of some of the raspberry bushes that were overtaking the entire front of our house.

BeforeAfter
Today we are going to paint the master bedroom, get the closet organizer up in the guest bedroom (which looks impossibly difficult to assemble), get the shower in working order, cut down that dead crab apple tree and clear out the rest of the raspberry bushes (after we eat some of them :) )

Random Picture Dump

It's been a super busy week for me so far so Jesse has been spending more time at the house this week. However, I did listen to the home run derby on the radio Monday while I painted! Also that night, Jen B. and Ang stopped by for a tour! Anyways, since there hasn't been too much to document so far this week (for me anyways) here are a few random pictures I've taken along the way!

Our shelf of tools!

Larry and his professional taping

Taking down the "For Sale" sign!

Changing the locks.

I actually like this!I'll leave you with a picture of Jesse and the only thing in our fridge right now.

Our First Visitors!

Ok, I have to admit that I'm just now getting around to writing about this past weekend, but better late than never, right?? On Sunday, Jen and Matt came over to get a tour of the new place and I took advantage of the nice, sunny day to take some outside pictures of the house and yard!

My car in the driveway
A view of the street from the house (can you guess what picture is coming next?)
Yup..picture of the house from the street. I'm so predictable.

Then we ended a great weekend with a great meal (and, ahem, a bottle of wine) with Carol, the best (read: family) Realtor ever!

The Pink/Blue Room. Before and After.

The pink and blue room is not pink and blue anymore! Jesse's grandparents were kind enough to give us some leftover paint, which we (and by we, I mean Jesse and Larry) mixed together to use as a primer to cover up the pink and blue in the guest bedroom! I can't even believe what a difference it made!

Before (obviously)

After!

This week we will be painting the master bedroom, shampooing the carpets, having the furnace/water heater, etc serviced, do some yard work, meet with a draftsman to go over our grand remodeling plans...and then my mom comes into town next week!!

"Before Pictures:" Part II

Before: Random room that previous owner added on, attached to the kitchen. The room is not in good shape at all and serves little purpose, it is most likely just going to get torn off.

Before: Kitchen. Small. Cramped. etc. The idea here is to open up the kitchen so that it flows right into the living/dining room. We'll eventually be totally remodeling the kitchen.

Stairs leading to the "scary" basement...which isn't all that scarySee? Not so scary. It's actually about half finished.This is part of the reason why I say it's about half finished.

More pictures coming very soon! We've started painting and cleaning up the yard, etc. Jesse's dad was in town part of last week and really got us going on some projects (thanks Larry!), so I'll be putting pics up of the progress we've made since then.

I like to call these...The "Before" Pictures: Part I

Before: Bright blue trim

Before: Master bedroom. (sorry that I didn't use a flash)

Before: Guest bedroom. Painted exactly half (extremely bright) pink and exactly half blue

Before: Master bathroom. Besides being someone else's bathroom at one time (which grosses me out) not too much wrong here for now

Before: Living/Dining Room. Lots of changes to be made here.

Old Realtor cards. No one bit. Their loss!

Next post: The "before" kitchen, basement and yard pictures. Exciiiiting! Also, I added some pictures from closing day on yesterday's post. Hope you are all having a great weekend!

We're Officially Homeowners!!

Yep, we did it! It only took 70 days from the day our offer on the house was accepted to the day we actually closed. I'm not going to lie, we almost threw in the towel a few times; but now the relief that we actually own a home is turning into excitement that we actually own a home. Another post to come soon, a big recap of the last week.

Edit: Thanks to Carol, our fabulous realtor (for life) for taking this picture! Also, I added a few pics below.The stack of scary papers we had to sign at closing

Carol making sure that the scary papers weren't too scary before we signed them

Awww, look what was waiting for us when we got to the house! Thanks Jen and Matt!