In!

I think we set a record.

We were just a few days shy of it being 3 months since closing when we moved in...haha. We took our time...no one can argue with that. In the end, I'm glad we did it this way. The new paint on the walls looks great, and it would have been a lot more difficult to do all the painting with our furniture and other stuff in the way. 

Thanks again to everyone who helped us move on Saturday!! We couldn't have done it without you! I think everything was loaded up at Baugay's and unloaded into our house in about 1 1/2 hours....it was great! The weather cooperated too (no rain!), so we were glad about that. It's definitely a lot harder to get everything packed while working though. Every other time we've moved in the past, we were still in college, so we'd just spend 3 or 4 days straight getting everything boxed up. This time, though, we're in the working world, where unfortunately surgeries and helicopter modifying don't come to a standstill so you can have time to pack and move. I was literally throwing stuff in suitcases and duffel bags after people got there on Saturday to load our stuff up. Talk about last minute! It definitely wasn't for lack of trying to get it finished sooner though. 

So, our stuff in officially in the house, but the house is nowhere near presentable yet. We do have a bed with sheets on it to sleep in, and a shower with a curtain on it, so that's good news! The kitchen is probably the closest to being finished of any room in the house, and that's because I already had a bunch of my kitchen stuff put away before we moved in. The main thing left to do in the kitchen is buy/hang curtains and pictures. So, here are the "before" and "after" pictures of the kitchen:

"Before"

"After"

"Before"

"After" (ignore the boxes on the floor...haha)

"Before"

"After" (this picture turned out a little dark...sorry)

"Before"

"After"

"Before"

"After"

So, there's our first room transformation! As we get more stuff unpacked and organized, I'll post pictures of the other rooms. Hopefully it won't be another 3 months before everything is completely in its place! A big thanks to Mom and Dad for buying our kitchen table and chairs as our Christmas present. I love it so much! Pineapple is one of my favorite fruits, and the chairs are actually really comfortable. 

LOVE :)

It still feels weird to be living here in some ways. Last night when we left church, it felt like we should come by our house to put the trashcan in the garage (b/c that's what we did every Wednesday night for 3 months!) and then go back to Baugay's to take her trash out for her. Old habits are hard to break I guess. We really do miss seeing you every day, Baugay! Saturday night was our first night to sleep here, and I actually didn't sleep very good. I kept hearing all these "strange" noises and waking up all night. Ever since the first night, though, I've slept great. This neighborhood is really pretty quiet at night, which is awesome for sleeping! :)

Last week, we noticed that Travis's car was getting louder and louder when we drove it, and we could see that the muffler had a huge crack in it. So, yesterday morning we took it to get the muffler replaced. Well, they got it fixed by the afternoon, and the mechanic took it out to test-drive it around, and he got hit while he was on Hwy 72. Apparently, some guy in a Dodge Charger didn't see him as he was changing lanes because Travis's car was in his blind spot. I haven't seen it for myself, but apparently it's not too bad. There's some damage to the driver's side door and back left passenger door, but both can still open and close. The guy in the Charger has insurance too, so that's good. So, they called the police and filed a report, and we may just end up pocketing the insurance money if the damage isn't that bad. After all, Travis's car is 16 years old...it's probably not going to be around that much longer anyway. The mechanic was going to take it to a few different repairs shops to get some estimates this morning, so we should have the car back by this afternoon. It's always something! :)

This weekend, we're going to spend most of our time getting things organized around here. Travis wanted to go to the A-Day game in Tuscaloosa, but we've just got too much to do to spend all day Saturday there. Plus, he's leaving Sunday night after church for Nashville for work, and he'll be gone til Tuesday night. So, it's going to be a busy weekend/week next week!

Speaking of busy, I better get busy around here. I've got to run, make cookies, write thank-you notes, and keep unpacking. Hope you're having a great day!!! :)

Milestones

Today is a special day.

5 years ago today, Travis and I went on our very first date. He picked me up at Riverside, the dorm I was living in, and took me to Depalmas, an Italian restaurant in downtown Tuscaloosa. I remember being pretty nervous beforehand, but he was easy to talk to, so we had a great time. (And the food was awesome!). After supper, we went back to his apartment at good ol' Preston Place to watch a movie. Now don't ask me what movie because I can't remember....I think I was still too nervous to pay attention! I guess he thought I was a keeper (and vice versa!) because the dates continued until here we are...been married for over 3 years!

Just for fun, I thought I'd post some pictures from way back when :)

This picture was taken in June '06 after my first visit to Huntsville!

Summer 2006 (after eating at Cypress Inn)

Eating lunch at the lake house (summer 2006)

4th of July weekend (2006)

We've come a long way since that first date! Can't say I would have thought 5 years later we would be married, living in Huntsville, and about to move into our first house...

Speaking of our house...

This is a special week.

It's moving week!!!!

Are we packed? Nope. Have we started? Barely. 

That's ok. It'll get done somehow. As of today, the weather is supposed to be pretty good on Saturday. Partly cloudy, 82, 20% chance of rain. I'm sure it will change about 5 more times before Saturday gets here though :)

Last weekend, we got the shelving mostly done in our bedroom closet. Here are the pictures to prove it:

It may not look like much, but this was a lot of work!

Travis's fancy tie and belt rack :)

It slides out!

 We've still got to pop the bottom row of shelving in on the long wall (my wall), but we're waiting to do that until we take our clothes over and figure out how much room they take up.

I think this would be a good time to tell everyone how awesome Baugay has been for letting us live with her off and on for the past 3 years. She's certainly kept us well-fed in popcorn, dessert, and stories of her childhood and raising a family! :) Baugay has been the best landlord/grandmother we could have asked for, and I've really enjoyed getting to know her and spend time with her while we've lived here. Now it will be our turn to have her over once we get settled in our house! Thanks for everything you've done for us, Baugay!! :)

As if today's blog didn't already celebrate enough special things, I have one more:

This is a special post. 

This is officially my 100th blog post! I've been blogging since September 2008, and I've really enjoyed doing it. I think it's been a good way to document our first years of marriage, and it's kept some of you who don't live nearby informed on what's going on in our lives. It'll definitely be fun to look back and read this one day! 

Some of you may not have been reading my blog when I first started out, so here's a recap of some of my favorite posts: 

• The first 9 months of being married (in pictures)
• Turning 22
• Thanksgiving 2008 and the Iron Bowl Beatdown :)
• Our first anniversary
• Valentine's Day 2009 (and a scavenger hunt!)
• Reflections after my cousin Lindsey died
• Our first home...all 425 square feet of it
• The start of summer 2009
• Our second apartment in Tuscaloosa
• Thoughts about a major back surgery
• Graduating from nursing school! 
• Our trip to Pasadena for the National Championship game
• Surprising Travis
• Travis gets a job!
• Getting used to the working world...
• Random lessons learned
• We put a contract on our first home!
• "Before" pictures of our house
• You gotta learn to work together!

So, there you have it. 100 posts gone by, and hopefully many more to come.

I've celebrated a lot of milestones for one blog posting! Oh, and here's one more: Happy 26th anniversary to my wonderful parents!! I love you!!!

Hope you are having a fabulous week!

One final thought for the day:


"There are exactly as many special occasions in life as we choose to celebrate."  ~Robert Brault

I'm choosing to celebrate this week!

We're really moving!

Mark your calendars for April 9th...that's our moving day! I promise :)

Until recently, our house mainly felt like a big project that was never going to be finished. It was a place to paint and renovate, but it didn't seem like we would ever actually live there. Well, the day is soon approaching! 


We put up the new shelving in our pantry on Saturday, and I'm really excited about it. The old shelving was sticky and rigged up with tape and wooden pieces. When we took it down, we patched up at least 60 holes before we painted. Guess how many holes it took to put up the new shelving? 11! The new shelves are also 20 inches deep (8 inches deeper than the old ones), so I have much more room for my pantry stockpile! And, the shelves can be adjusted to different heights if I decide that I want to change things around!

Before

After

We also have the shelving in our master bedroom closet almost completely finished. Lowe's is out of the shelves that we need for one wall, but we've got the system in place, and that's the tedious part. Once we buy the shelves, all we have to do is pop them in where we want them. 


The next step in the process is packing...our favorite! We've done a lot of packing since we got married. We moved into Presidential where we lived for the spring 2008 semester. Then, we packed up some stuff to move to Baugay's for the summer. Then, we moved back to Presidential for the fall 2008 and spring 2009 semesters. Then, we packed up everything and moved it into storage for the summer. We moved back to Baugay's for the summer, and then we unpacked everything from storage into our apartment at Rivermont for the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters. Then, in May 2010 after Travis graduated, we moved all of our stuff back to Baugay's where we've been ever since! Now it's time to move again! We've gotten pretty good at packing, labeling, and organizing in the past 3+ years! The good news is that even though we're saying that we're moving April 9th, if we don't get everything moved on that day, it won't be the end of the world. I don't think Baugay will be auctioning off our stuff before we have time to come back for it...haha :) 


Well, I'm going to make this a short post because I've got a lot to do today! Hope you're having a good week so far :)

This is THE week...

...that we've been looking forward to all semester! Travis is graduating on Saturday, and I am so thrilled for him! He has really worked hard this semester, so I know he's glad to be finishing up for good this time. He has finals tomorrow, Wednesday, and Friday, and his senior design project demo on Thursday, so by Friday night, it'll be time to start the celebration!

I'm really looking forward to the graduation cookout on Saturday. I hope everyone has a good time, and the weather turns out nice. Right now, they are saying there's a 10% chance of rain Saturday with a high of 77, so that's sounds pretty good to me.

Although I'm really looking forward to Travis graduating (because that means we'll be reunited in the same city again), I'm not looking forward to leaving t-town. We've made some really great friends there, and it's going to be sad to leave everyone and not come back in the fall. I guess you have to grow up eventually though. I hope we'll be able to get football tickets for at least a game or two this fall, so that'll be a good chance to see everyone again. If we can recruit a willing photographer, I think Travis and I are going to take some pictures on campus next week before we move. I'd like to get pictures on the Quad, in front of the stadium, and just different spots around campus that were meaningful to us. It'll be a good way to remember what everything looked like while we were students there because I'm sure things will look a lot different in 25 or 50 years.

Next week is going to be filled with packing and moving. At least we'll finally have all our stuff in one place for the first time in our almost 2.5 years of marriage!

I'm working tomorrow and Wednesday before heading back to Tuscaloosa Wednesday afternoon. Yay for a short work week! :)

Pics of our new place!

We are loving our new place! We finally got everything set up on Friday afternoon, and it is so awesome! We are especially enjoying having carpet, a dishwasher, washing machine and dryer, and extra counter space in the kitchen and bathroom! We've had people over the past two nights, and it's been really nice to have the extra room. Here are several pictures so you can all see what it looks like:

Our front door and hallway

Standing at the front door looking in

Our living room

Another angle of the living room

The entertainment center

Different angle again...

The Daniel Moore wall!

The new microwave cart we bought!

Dining room...

Another angle of the dining room...

My new canisters from Target that I love!

The lovely kitchen...

Other side

Head on shot

Our bedroom!

Looks similar to Presidential...

Travis's desk

Our closet!

Linen closet and opening to the bathroom

Inside the linen closet/extra food that won't fit in the pantry

Bathroom

Shower curtain

Other angle...

Laundry closet...

Our patio and extra storage closet

Soon to move again...

This is our last week in Huntsville for the summer. I'm really going to miss everyone here...we've got a lot of great family and friends here! Here are some pictures of a 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment in Rivermont (the apartment complex we're going to be living in this fall and next spring in Tuscaloosa). It's not our exact apartment, but it's set up exactly the same:

One picture of the bathroom (with Travis taking the picture!) Behind the mirrored doors is the washer and dryer area...

Bathroom!

One view of the bedroom

Our bedroom (we'll have a walk-in closet...yay!!)

Our kitchen (with a lot more room than Presidential!!)

This is our dining area off of the living room...

This is the living room (the door leads out to the back patio), and there's a fireplace on the left wall!

This is the view when you walk in our front door (you're seeing part of the living room and the hallway where our bedroom and bathroom are).