Back on the Blogwagon

I know, I know. I feel off the wagon....hardcore. I have been neglectful and failed to "document the journey" as of late. I apologize. Later tonight/tomorrow photos of the finished house will be posted, I promise. So let's see what's happened since Thanksgiving when I last posted:

1. Jeremiah's parent's came to visit over Thanksgiving. Since we were able to start moving into our house unexpectedly early, we then immediately put them to work on Black Friday helping us move. So much for shopping.

2. The house was officially finished that Monday, November 30th at 3:00 p.m. Literally an hour and a half later I was getting home from work, packing up the Mazda with the rest of our belongings in garbage bags from Erik and Jess' and moving in to our house for good. We spent our first night there, and it felt amazing to "be home"!

3. The next week we stayed up way too late every night feverishly unpacking things just so I could then immediately turn around and decorate said things for Christmas. I was bound and determined to have Christmas decorations up even though some of our clothes weren't even unpacked yet.

4. Let's see...next 3 weeks were a blur of unpacking, Christmas shopping, finishing up the semester at work, and repacking to go home to WI for Christmas. Craziness, thus no blog posts.

5. We had an amazing Christmas at home with family and friends that we REALLY miss. We had coffee talk, Racine Kringle and good pizza. We watched lots of movies and solved the world's problems over good conversation with Jeremiah's parents. I Christmas shopped with my mom, and had birthday breakfast with my Dad. I saw Anahi so proud of her new bedroom and told Emma made-up stories on Christmas Eve. I sat by the cozy fire, and watched both of them dance around in the homeade tutus that Auntie Em had made them Christmas morning. Priceless.
I cried real hard in the car leaving my parent's house Christmas Day. I miss our families a lot. It's going to sound weird, but it's kind of nice to miss them in some ways. It makes me appreciate those relationships all the more, and forces me to make more of an effort to keep them strong. We had one of the best Christmases ever, and I think it's because we appreciated that time so much more and didn't take anything for granted.

First AZ Thanksgiving

Mico's spot after dinner under the table

Buddy's spot after dinner at the table with Carrie and Cody. As you can see, he's making new friends. Progress.

Erik and Jess hosted all of us misplaced people.

"Champagne" toast - Day 10

We went over Wednesday night to have a toast to our new home with our roomies, Erik and Jess. We are so thankful for such good friends to put up with us for 4 months. We sat on the floor in the sawdust and drank out of the same paper rodeo cups that our friends drank out of when they got their new house. A night to remember.

ALMOST DONE!

So funny story about the champagne.... We had champagne left over from Jeremiah's 30th birthday party, so we decided we would bring it over to the house that night and properly toast our new home at the last minute. Since it wasn't chilled, someone suggested to put it in the freezer. Um, yeah, note to all of you - do not put champagne in the freezer! The cork popped and there was slushy champagne all over the frozen vegetables and ice cream. So, we had to improvise, thus the Boone's Farm from the gas station on the way :-)

Jess pretending to pop the cork

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Anyone else feeling like this lately?

Pile o' ceiling fans and light fixtures

The ying and yang of home improvement

Patches and Patio Doors - Day 3

We got there yesterday and they had patched every little crack or hole (sounds inappropriate) in the place, which were many.

Here are our new french doors out to the patio (not finished yet, but installed). Bye-bye cheap, ugly, broken sliding door!

Windows and Walls - Day 2

These are some pictures after Day 2 of construction. The first two are the repaired windows. They both had a crack, one from a rock (or a bullet if we were in Raytown.)

Here is the repaired wall after they took out the entertainment niche and the floor all ready for new wood laminate with all the tile ripped up and the floor smoothed out.

Out With the Old - Day 1

Here are the kitchen cabinets with the door removed ready for new countertops and new paint.

Here is where they have ripped out the entertainment niche and the tile floor in the living room, adding lots of space and making room for wood laminate floors in there.