Under Construction

It was a crazy week trying to get our house ready to be moved in to, but we survived and the place is looking really good already.

Here's Kolby helping his grandfather cut some wood for the pantry cabinet that he made for us. We haven't put it in yet, but I know it'll look really great and we're so thankful for Grandfather's hard work!

Our dads/handymen making room for the pantry cabinet.

Kolby using the drill to take the hinges off the doors. Unscrewing hinges that had been painted over for 50+ years was not an easy task!

Me just sanding away at one of the door frames. You never realize how much trim there is in a house until you have to sand all of it!

Here's a picture of Kolby's grandparents, who came in town for a few days to paint our kitchen for us. Thank you, again--- it looks amazing!

When we moved our stuff in on Saturday, Maya recognized all of our furniture instantly and just plopped down in our bedroom like nothing had changed since May! She definitely knew that we were finally HOME.
It was a long series of full days and late nights, but we got all of the sanding and the majority of the painting done before we moved our furniture in (our main goal). There is still a lot of stuff to be done and everything seems to be taking much longer that we anticipated, but we make a little bit of progress every day. We don't have any of the interior doors re-hung yet and all of the new light fixtures that we bought are still in boxes in the garage. At the top of our priority list for the weekend is putting a gate across the driveway so that our backyard is enclosed for Maya and then installing an automatic gate opener for it. We also hope to put in our new pantry cabinet so we can get our kitchen organized.

I'm really excited to put together a photo tour of the house to show everyone, but I want to wait until we get more settled in. Right now there are boxes everywhere and nothing is decorated. It could be a few weeks, but know that I will make it happen at some point!

89 Days

Kolby and I slept in our own bed last night for the first time in 89 days!!!

Yep, we were nomads for a solid 89 days... a bit longer than we had planned to say the least.

BUT, we have the most wonderful little house now and I fall more and more in love with it every time I walk in. It is so perfect for us and is so much better than I could have ever imagined. It feels so good to have a place of our own again! And our bed is even more comfortable than I remembered.

I promise I'll post some pictures from this past week soon. We have to get the outlet in our living room grounded in order for AT&T to come hook up our cable and Internet. By Thursday we should be up and running, so I'll upload some pictures and write more about our moving week.

MOVING DAY!

It has been a long and hectic week but we just finished moving all of our stuff from our storage unit to our new house! It's so good to see all of our furniture again and I think it'll look really great once we get everything put back together and in the right place.

We got the keys to our house on Tuesday morning and have been working non-stop since. We had the bright idea to repaint all of the doors and trim because they were dingy and yellowed, and they turned out great but it was a nightmare of a project. We just took the panting tape off this morning and the fresh white trim definitely makes a huge difference in sprucing the place up. We also repainted the kitchen because it was a coral/salmon color that would have clashed with our red kitchen stuff. It is now taupe and looks really good.

And by "we"--- as in "we just finished moving all of our stuff" or "we repainted the trim/kitchen"--- I mean Kolby and I with the indispensable help of several key workers. The list of lifesavers that we are ever indebted to includes Kevin (Kolby's dad), Kassidy (Kolby's sister), Brad & Remy (my brother and SIL), Brittany, Alayne & Tommy (friends), Gran & Daddy Monk (Kolby's grandparents), Kolby's Grandfather, and our friends Zac, Kathy, and Mark. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There's no way on earth we could have pulled this off without your help!

Right now we're at Kolby's parents house to take a break and pick up Maya. Maya has been such a trooper in dealing with all the transition this whole summer, but this week I finally started to see signs that she has had enough. We haven't seen her hardly at all this week because we've been spending all of our time either at work or at our new house and she's used to at least one of us being around most of the time. When we got home really late on Thursday night she came up to me and put her paw in my hand and wanted me to hold it. I did, and we just sat on the floor holding hands and watching TV for half an hour. Anytime I would let go she would put her paw back up in the air and ask me to hold it again. That's how a mute dog tries to tell you that she doesn't want you to leave anymore. Little does she know that we're about to load up and head to our new, PERMANENT home... and that she even has a yard!

Now it's back to work, but I'll post some pictures soon.

Birthdays

We just got back from the most wonderful weekend at my parent's new ranch!

My mom and I both had our birthdays on Saturday (yes, we have the same birthday... old news to most of you!) so our family headed down to the ranch to celebrate. We were also celebrating the completion of the ranch, which isn't totally finished but is finished enough for us to spend the weekend there. We spent Friday evening unpacking dishes, putting sheets and comforters on all the beds, hanging curtains, and just getting things settled. The boys installed the backboard to the basketball goal and called mom out to take the inaugural shot (she played college basketball).

Nothing but net!

Dad cooked a big pancake breakfast on Saturday morning... so delicious!

He even grilled the bacon outside so we didn't have to smell it all day. He's a keeper. Then, we kids pretended to head home after breakfast but really went into town to run errands for the HUGE SURPRISE PARTY we were throwing for my mom that afternoon since it was her 50th birthday. My dad took her to lunch and when they got back we had the ranch set up for a smashin' party and a lot of our extended family had already arrived. I still have no idea how we were able to pull it off, but she had NO IDEA about the party... not even the slightest suspicion. More and more people kept arriving and mom's voice kept getting more loud and shrill every time someone new walked in... especially when her best friend from high school and her college roommate arrived. I'm told I do a great impression of her, if you're ever interested :)

The party was incredible and Mom was so happy you can't even imagine. She was thrilled to see everyone and get to show them around the ranch. Planning that party was insanely complicated (and I mean C-O-M-P-L-I-C-A-T-E-D!) but it was probably even the best birthday I've ever had because it was so awesome to see her BEAMING with joy and hopefully realizing how much we (my dad, brothers, and I) appreciate her. And I know how to plan a great party--- if I do say so myself. I got that from my mom :)

Fun in the Sun

Maya decided that this afternoon--- when it was 97 degrees outside--- was the perfect opportunity to head out to the backyard and catch some rays. I don't know how her fur didn't light on fire!

All is Right

Kolby is home from Santa Fe and all is right with my world again.

We found out yesterday that the tentative date for our BIG MOVE is August 22nd. This is much, much later than we expected, but it's totally out of our control so we're just going with the flow. If everything goes as planned, we'll spend a few days the week beforehand doing some projects around the house and getting it move-in ready and then we'll move our furniture in over the weekend. We're so excited! I'm tired of waving to our house as I pass our neighborhood on my way back from work--- I'm ready to GO HOME to it!

In other, trivial news, I have a new favorite thing about Maya. It probably holds true for most dogs now that I think about it. Maya is SO easy to surprise. When the day came to go pick Kolby up from the airport, I told Maya all morning long about how today was the day we get to go bring Kolby home. I said it straight to her face--- multiple times--- and yet she was still completely shocked with excitement when she saw him. She didn't even know what to do with herself she was so surprised and happy to see him. And then that evening we decided to take her to the dog park and even though we said the words "dog park" out loud in front of her... she almost peed her pants (fur?) when we pulled up to it. Dogs are smart, but they obviously aren't that smart.

August will break our marriage-long streak of living off of a single income. I have now started a real job and Kolby will still get a paycheck for the 2008-2009 school year. But don't worry, we'll be back to our old ways in September. We wouldn't want to spoil ourselves! I worked part-time while I was in school and Kolby is doing the same, but a handful of hourly wages just doesn't compare to a salary. We're fielding ideas for what we should do with the extra money this month, but I'm leaning towards getting a horse for our backyard. Or saving for a car. It's a toss-up.

Work is still going really great but it's definitely a rough adjustment to have such an inflexible schedule. How I miss the life of a student! My best friend, Laura, spent several days this week shopping for a wedding dress and it nearly killed me to have to miss out. Then Kolby and I spent this evening going over a timeline for getting the work done to our new house the week before we move in and I hate that I won't be able to help out during the day. Basically I'm having to finally grow up and I don't think I was quite ready yet.

All in all, our life is wonderful as always!

Hopefully Kolby will put a post together about his time in Santa Fe soon.