giving thanks

I have a lot of things to be thankful for right now.
To name just a few:
1. Our house. We LOVE it.
2. Having internet again!
3. Good friends.

Before we moved in on Thursday, we wanted to get the initial cleaning and painting done for our home.

I've been a little (or more than a little) anxious about it because Kent works all day and I'm no longer able to do much work.

Kent keeps telling me that I'm working on a much more important job, but it's still really frustrating to me to not be able to do all that I want to for our house.

But that's where our great friends come in.

Dallin and Cindy and Mark and Anita were at our house for probably 8 hours a day last weekend. Their babies played together on the floor, the guys took down the nasty curtains and taped rooms and painted, and the girls helped me scrub the cupboards and unpack the kitchen stuff and clean the showers.

Dallin even dug through the garbage the previous owners left behind to find me a few "like-new" garbage cans to use in the house!

Then they came back on Thursday to help us move in. It was so nice!

I have a lot more posts to do, but for now here's a glimpse of our new wall color (and poor little Jayden asleep on the floor while his parents helped us into the late hours of the night).
Stay tuned for exciting posts about Kent's birthday, setting up our house, poodles, and more!

ninety-seven cents

We bought a house yesterday.
It all seems pretty surreal.
The weirdest part was driving into the garage for the first time. I think that's because you never drive into the garage when you are visiting someone else's house.

Yep, this house is ours.
Kent carried me (and our baby) across the threshold.

I have a crepe myrtle tree in the backyard. I gave it plenty of water yesterday because it was starting to wilt a little.
There was something unbelievably fulfilling about watering my own tree with my own hose in my own backyard.

At the title company yesterday we signed all of our papers (overwhelming!) and then we went to Wells Fargo to get a cashier's check for our down payment. The biggest check we'd EVER seen.
We returned to the title company and gave them the check.

The lady looked at the check and then she said,
"I'm sorry, I can't give you your house keys. You're ninety-seven cents short."

So we went to the car, dug through our spare change and my purse, and returned to the desk with a handful of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. To purchase our home with.
In the perspective of the $122,000 we just paid (and borrowed) for a house, that $0.97 seemed really, really funny.

So I took a picture.

The moral of the story is:
Always keep spare change in your car. You never know when you'll need it to buy a house.

for posterity

Our final walk-through of our house is today at 5. We sign our life away to finalize everything tomorrow at noon.

We have 11 paint cans sitting here next to our front door.

Our new fridge comes on Saturday.

Our washer and dryer come on Monday.

And I'm at the point where I'm realizing that we're about to purchase our very own very first home.

So I thought I'd dedicate this post to all the "fun" experiences we've had living in apartments, particularly this apartment. Not to complain (I'm too excited about the new house to complain about this apartment), but to record them for posterity's sake.

Let us begin.

• We lived here to save money--and we were happy to learn that our first month here was free. Sometimes that thought has been all that's kept me here.
• Cockroaches. Absolutely yuck!
• We've had the maintenance guys here literally every week. And every time we ask for them to come we have to go in the next day to ask again.
• The last time they came they left the bathroom fan hanging from the ceiling. It's still dangling.
• We can hang pictures just by pressing them up against the walls. The paint is super sticky.
• Although I cannot figure out where they're coming from (and I've tried!), we have a fruit fly infestation.
• Who needs TV when you can watch real life cops settle real life disputes right outside your window?
• We're learning Korean (or maybe Chinese) by listening to the couple next door yell at each other.
• "Screaming boy." Is there a hotline you can call to report someone to the Super Nanny show?
• And of course, the Great AC Flood of '09.

We've learned a lot of "life lessons" from our time in apartments. We now know to ask if there's a specific move-in time, to make sure your mail forwarding is working, to never try to keep the AC set at lower than 70 degrees, to walk softly if you live above someone else, and hopefully, we've learned how to laugh at the little things.

And starting tomorrow, we're homeowners.

keeping cool

San Antonio is hot. Really hot.
During May I was thinking that maybe I had just remembered it from last summer as being worse than it had been. May was quite tolerable, sometimes even nice.
But then June came. And I remembered.

It's hot in San Antonio.

Luckily, we've found a few ways to keep cool:

Going "toobing" down the Comal River. We went on Saturday morning (you HAVE to go early before the crowds come with their beer coolers).
Truthfully, toobing the Comal river is my favorite thing about living in this place. Kent probably got tired of me saying how much fun I think the river is.
But when something makes me so happy, I just can't keep it inside. On Saturday night we went to Dallin and Cindy's to "roast marshmallows and eat ice cream." When they called to ask if we'd bring a bag of ice, I almost didn't even dare to hope that meant they were making homemade ice cream.
They were! And we ate it!
And then, they even gave us their old ice cream machine! Oh joy! So of course, our Family Home Evening activity on Monday was making homemade strawberry ice cream. Right here in our dining room.

The recipe I found online was from the early 1900's, and it directed that you heat the strawberries and sugar until boiling, then "remove from the fire and let cool."

Kent was a little bit anxious about us messing up the recipe--I don't always exactly follow recipes, but it turned out absolutely delicious, even without boiling over the fire.

family

We took family pictures when Kent and I were in Logan in April. I just got them, and I love how they turned out! We wanted to get them done because the next time we are there Josh will be in Michigan on his mission.

And we took family pictures in California when we were there, too, because Mason is now in Montana! I think it will be fun in a few years to look at these pictures and tell little Nicholas that he's there in the pictures, too.

compromise

is sometimes hard to find.

We've been spending nearly every spare moment of the past two weeks looking at things we want for the house. Light fixtures, paint colors, decor options, even furniture. And for all of these, three things have to come into harmony.
1. Me
2. Kent
3. Our Budget

Here's what we're up against--

I like:
Big, open rooms, light colors, bright kitchens, white furniture, natural wood, blues, greens, yellows, beadboard or white paneling, a sort of whimsical-retro-beachy-cottage feel.

Kent likes:
Multiple living areas, curtains and blinds, muted light, granite, espresso or black furniture, reds, browns, white trim, a craftsman-traditional style.

Our budget likes:
Almost none of the above. This style:

Let's just say we're working on it.

wendys

Last night Kent and I went to Wendys for dinner.
Because it was hot and I am pregnant and Wendys has a great dollar menu.

We went inside to eat, because it's more "fancy" than just eating in the car.
And because their AC is set a lot lower than ours.

I sat down to wait for Kent to order and receive our food.
It took a long time, so I sat there alone for a long time.

Also waiting for his food up by the counter was a tall man in a bright red shirt. He kept looking back at where I was sitting.
Alone. And smiling (I was excited to get my husband and my food).

After a while, this tall, red-shirted man came towards my table, stuck out his hand, and introduced himself. He asked me what my name was. And then--he asked if I was waiting for someone or if he could join me.

I told the truth. I was actually waiting for my husband, who was still up at the counter, oblivious to the fact that his wife was getting "hit on."

What could I have said to ease that poor man's embarrassment? He backed away so fast he nearly fell over. He apologized profusely. He went back up, got his food, and left, probably sacrificing the fanciness and AC of eating inside to eat alone in his car.

Kent came back and I told him. We laughed. But also felt sorry for the man.
(Of course, I have to admit that it made me feel good about myself. I must hide seven months of pregnancy quite well.)

Kent was afraid that he's got competition and that he's going to have to woo me.

No, there's no competition. But by all means--woo me.

together

Thanks Heidi! I love how our pictures turned out!