It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Today is December 5th.  There are 20 more days until Christmas!  Are you done with your shopping?  Or are you like Jeremy and me, and have you not even started yet? :)  Have you sent your Christmas cards yet?  Or are you, once again, like Jeremy and me, and have you not even bought them yet? :)  Oh well, none of that matters because it’s Christmas!!

We bought our Christmas tree on Tuesday, but just got around to getting it decorated last night (we may have been slightly distracted by the Wii that we purchased).  It’s a beautiful 8 foot tall Noble Fur and it smells wonderful.  Here is a picture of it in all it’s glory!

In addition to getting the tree up and decorated, Jeremy put lights on the house.  We’ve never had lights on the house before because A) this is our first Christmas in THIS house and B) we thought we’d get in trouble by the rental company if we put lights up on the rental house that we used to live.  So, this was quite the exciting event for us…ok, maybe just for me.  We have lights on the ground level of the house, rope lights around our pillars, colorful lights on our yard tree, a reindeer and a red and green bulb in each of our porch lights.  Ta-da!

Speaking of Christmas decorations, check out this gingerbread house!

Pretty impressive, right?  Guess who made it.  Did you guess?  Well, you’re probably not right, so I’ll just tell you.  My co-workers and I made this!  Can you believe it??  I really think I’m still in shock that it turned out this good. 

You see, every year we have a Christmas party for the students that work in our office.  There is always some type of “crafty” thing for the students to do, and this year it involved gingerbread houses.  Well, before we knew it, and with the help of a co-worker, we quickly turned it into a competition, more specifically a “Gingerbread Throwdown!” (Yes, it was my idea and watch Food Network too much.)  The competition was broken down into three teams: the Admissions Staff (my team!), the Admissions students and International Admissions.  Anyways, to make a long story short…I created some rules (all the contents of one gingerbread kit must be used, aviation theme, 75% edible, etc.), trash talking between students and staff started, and the competition was on. 

Unfortunately though, everyone on my team lost enthusiasm for it and at the beginning of the week none of us wanted to do it, including me who was in charge of baking the house.  However, come Thursday morning when we all forced smiles on our faces and started decorating, things made a positive change and viola, our gingerbread house, complete with a  sea plane even, was finished!  As you can see from the picture, there is the main house (there are stained glass windows on the sides and back), the garage, magical fruit trees (we had Runt candies we had to use), a Twix chimney, and a sea plane!  Also, though you can’t see it, there is an “air conditioning unit” in the back (a.k.a. where the battery pack for the lights inside the house went) and it was surrounded by a graham cracker picket fence!  Needless to say, we won the Gingerbread Throwdown and I’m still in awe of the mad gingerbread house skills that some of my co-workers possess.

20 days until Christmas!!

Home Improvement

Home Improvement was a great show, wasn’t it?  My family used to watch it all the time.  Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor and Al Borland were always doing something funny!  You don’t find too many family shows like that anymore.  How sad.  But enough about the show, let’s talk about our home improvements.

Jeremy’s parents came out to visit us about 2 weekends ago, and his dad stayed a week longer to help with some improvements to the house.  The main things they did were: cabinet/drawer handles in the kitchen, lights in our backyard, new lights near our front door, built in soap dispenser in the kitchen, and sealed/painted the garage floor.  I sure they did some other small things, but those are the basics.  Here are the pictures!

  

Kitchen handles.

Garage floor.

One of our new light fixtures.

Soap dispenser and disposal button.

New Security Door

Since before summer began, Jeremy and I have been talking about getting a screen/security door.  The weather is really great up here and it’d be nice to have some airflow in the house.  Plus, we thought that Diesel would like to sit near it and watch the world go by. 

It’s beautiful and it’s just what we wanted.  We’ve had it opened this evening and Diesel already likes to sit near it and watch people walk by and play in the park.

 

Before.

After.

The Big Move!

Hello to my six readers out there!  Did you miss you me?  I've missed you!  In fact, I've missed the Internet in general.  Does anyone else feel completely out of touch when they don't have Internet access?  Seriously, if I had to go any longer without it, I may have gotten the shakes.  Anyway, the reason I haven't had Internet access is because we FINALLY MOVED into our NEW HOUSE this weekend!  YAY! 

Last Saturday was the big day and we were very productive.  Throughout the week, Jeremy and his dad took boxes and little things over the house and then on Saturday, we rented a U-Haul and packed up the rest.  I got to the house at 7am on Saturday, in order to let the carpet guys in...they were supposed to finish the carpet on Friday night, but they had to come back on Saturday morning for a few hours.  Oh well, what can ya do?  I organized the kitchen for a bit, while Jerm and the gang packed up the furniture and remaining items from the old house.  By "gang" I mean: Jerm's dad, my mom, my dad, Jared D., Jared M. and Paul.  They arrived at the NEW HOUSE around 10am and we started unloading.  It was great having the "guys" there to help (thanks you guys!) because we (a) have a lot of heavy furniture, (b) have a staircase that isn't the easiest to maneuver a couch through, and (c) have two "old" (and I mean that in the nicest way) dads who should be lifting heavy stuff!  With the teamwork of everyone, we were all unloaded in about 1 1/2 hours!  Amazing!

Unloading.

Jerm and one of the Jareds.

Just painted walls + hard to maneuver staircase + dresser = SCARY!

These pictures crack me up...just how many people does it take to get the couch upstairs?  Apparently, 5!

The rest of the day was spent putting together furniture, breaking for lunch (yum, In-N-Out animal style cheeseburger!), making another trip back to the old house (thanks to Jake and Kayla for stopping by to help us,  in between work and signing your docs), and unpacking all our stuff.  Why is it that you never realize how much crap you have until you move?  Seriously, I didn't know that we had half of the junk that came into our NEW HOUSE.  Our "good will" box is growing more each day with random items that don't need. 

The day ended with my parents departing back to Scottsdale, all of us being exhausted and per the request of my mom and father-in-law...with Jeremy carrying me over the threshold. (insert cheesy "awww" right here!)

We're Homeowners!!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I'm very pleased to announce that Jeremy and I are the proud new owners of this very lovely house!!!

 

We closed on the house last Tuesday, December 9th and we're super excited.  I haven't mentioned anything on our blog about the house until now, because I was scared that we were jinxed and that something would fall through like our previous experience earlier this year.  For those who want a recap of the terrible event, please refer to my post entitled, The House That Almost Was.  There have been two other houses that we've put offers on since "the house that almost was," but the bank took too long to reply on one and  we got out bid on the other.  Then, just as we were very discouraged and about to give up, we found this house...in the neighborhood that I wanted to live in from the beginning and for a great price.

Though the housing market totally sucks right now, we got a killer deal on the house.  It wouldn't appraise for the asking price, so the bank had to drop it $20,000!!  SWEET!  It's approximately 2200 square feet, 2 stories, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms and a den.  Plus, I'm so excited for my favorite room of the house...peace out - little, cramped kitchen...hello -beautiful, new kitchen with an island and granite countertops! 

 

The houses in this neighborhood have small side yards, but we're right across the street from the community center (where I can work out) and the park.  We're looking forward to having the park right there, because we're highly anticipating a four legged, furry friend joining the family in January or March...but more on that later!

 

So, we bought a house!  We're not planning on moving in until mid-January though because we are going to paint, get new carpet and do some other modifications.  In fact, our personal General Contractor (Jeremy's dad)drove out from Cali last week, has been staying with us and is almost has most of our improvements complete!  So...come visit us in our new home!!

Paul & Julie...You Guys Rock!

In my evening check of the blogs I read daily, I came across the following post on our friend's blog.  I immediately started laughing and called Jeremy into the room! 

Here's a little background: Paul, Julie and baby Thomas live next door to the house that Jeremy and I want, and currently have an offer on, to buy.  We often joke about how Paul should walk around outside in his underwear and Julie should just start screaming randomly...in order to scare away prospective buyers.  We also have joked about having them take all the flyers from the "For Sale" sign...

Thanks Paul!  You da man! :-)