HOMEOWNERS

Well, we haven't had internet since moving on Friday and won't have it until Wednesday, which is a bummer, but since my parents had us over for dinner tonight, I'm using my Mom's laptop to quickly update everyone: we've moved! We're in our house and are thrilled to be there! I have lots of news to share and pictures to post, but I'm way worn out from the hundreds of trips up and down the three flights of stairs to move out, and then moving boxes and furniture into cars and into our new house, and then unpacking and sealing the grout in our tile. PHEW! Anyway, the house is beautiful, the dog is good and we tired. I promise to give some blow by blows soon! (And, of course, pictures).

Family Photo

Things with Maverick are smoothing out. We're getting the hang of things and a schedule is slowing evolving. Many thanks to my Mom for coming over and helping out this afternoon!! She was even nice enough to take a family picture!

I think Maverick's a pretty big fan of Mom's ear rubs :) She's good like that.

I've noticed that I call Maverick by his name only after 12pm... in the morning I mostly refer to him as "Spaz" :) Do you think that confuses him?

Sleep, beautiful sleep

Thank goodness, things are looking up! Last night I'd say Bryan got a solid night's sleep and I managed at least 5 hours. That's pretty good for a 3rd night!! (Bryan can sleep through almost anything, haha - especially with the aid of EARPLUGS!) I bought earplugs yesterday, and they definitely helped both of us. Especially combined with Advil PM. Well worth the investment :) And he really was quieter last night, even when he was howling and crying, it was softer. No idea why, but our neighbors said they couldn't hear him at all ... which I don't quite believe, but maybe so! And even if they do, they're being very nice about it!

I thought I'd leave you with a few pictures of Maverick checking out his future digs. He was less than impressed, actually. I think he just wanted to take a nap .... and that's okay, haha.






The antibiotics and ear drops the vet gave us for his ear infection is really helping him out. He's no longer in so much pain and he's becoming quite playful!

At first he absolutely refused to do anything on his leash, but we finally figured it was too heavy for him and got a smaller one .... and sure enough, we took our first very tiny "walk" tonight and he loved it! He especially loved all of the attention and cuddling he got from friendly strangers. He is so sweet with kids! Good sign, good sign :)

Goodnight! I'm shooting for SEVEN whole hours tonight. I know, I know, big money.

Snuggie Sleepover

Maverick wasn't feeling very well last night and he was lonely... this unpleasant mixture caused him to howl/bark/cry ALL. NIGHT. LONG. Literally. Until 3am, when I gave up, took him downstairs to go potty and then curled up on the living room floor with him in a snuggie. He fell asleep almost immediately .... and so did Bryan. I was at first too nervous that he was going to roam all over the apartment and have bathroom accidents while I slept uncomfortably on the floor. But eventually even I succumbed to an entire night of no sleep! Bryan woke me up this morning when he went looking for us :) I'm so glad he was able to get some sleep - he works long and early hours! The puppy and I snoozed until about 6:45am when he decided life was far too rough again and started crying and crying. I finally called the vet and asked if we could bump up our appointment from tomorrow afternoon to this morning. Praise Heavens, they squeezed us in! Turns out that in addition to an allergic reaction to his first vaccine, he also has a pretty severe ear infection, which is causing him a lot of pain. Although the vet appointment wasn't enjoyable - for either of us! - I'm glad he's now getting treated, and his ears will feel better. Poor little man.

Bryan and I are still exhausted from the very little sleep we got last night ... but the puppy has been feeling good enough to nap all day. I feel like we're starting a very bad nocturnal cycle, but I can't get him to wake up enough to play ... or do anything, really. Oh well. I know this phase is short, even if it is really painful at times.

We really hope the puppy feels better ASAP, that all THREE of us manage to get a good night's sleep tonight & that our neighbors will be tolerant and forgiving. We'll see!!

Meet Maverick!

Well ... we did it. We expanded our little family.

Friday after work Bryan & I drove up to McKinney, Texas and stayed at a Day's Inn. (Side note: the water smelled so bad!!)

Then Saturday morning, we were up early as always, and decided to drive to Arlington since we had time to kill and toured UTA - the first university Bryan attended before transferring to A&M.

Around 11:30 we met up with some friends who live in McKinney - Matt & Krissy, and their now-5-month old little boy, Kamren. He's so sweet!

And then, the moment we'd been waiting for .... 2:15! We played with 4 little puppies until Bryan made our final choice and we took one home with us. His name is now Maverick.

It's been an interesting day and a half or so ... he's very sad to leave his momma and his litter mates, so he's cried and whimpered quite a bit. He's also been sleeping lots! (which is great). We haven't been able to make him eat much though ... hopefully that won't take too long to change. Mom and Dad were really sweet to let us stay the night last night to let Maverick howl out his anguish in a relatively open space (instead of irritating our apartment neighbors). Hopefully tonight will be better ... and tomorrow night even better ... and so on and so on ...







I really want our future children to grow up with a family dog, but didn't want to raise a puppy & a baby at the same time ... seemed like a bit much at one time. So instead we're going to do one at a time! (Puppy first.)

Wish us luck - this could be a rough week! New puppy, new job and new house! wowzers.

I had another birthday

I turned 24 on Thursday, March 17th. It was a great birthday!

It all started when I picked up MeMaw & Paw so we could drive to The Woodlands and meet my hubby for lunch at Salt Grass - yumm :)

After lunch Bryan went back to work & the three of us went to downtown Tomball and checked out Granny's Korner while I bought the little side table for our entry way.

Then at 3pm Bryan & I met our builder at the house and had our Orientation/Walk Through!! We made a list of things that needed to be fixed before next Thursday's walk through/Friday's closing. It's looking great! Plus we got our appliances in - yay!

Then we attended a little seminar at Petco on house training new puppies.

To end a good day, Bryan & I went to Los Cucos and enjoyed some *green* margaritas :)





It was a great day! Many thanks for all of the birthday wishes & blessings all day long!

Packing Stinks

I've dedicated several days to packing up our apartment. Bryan helped me a little bit this weekend, which I appreciated. I really have no idea how we manage to accumulate so much stuff ...

Our "office", living room, "dining room", utility room & holiday stuff is all just about done, and I've started on the kitchen. I'm trying to get myself into the mood to finish attacking the kitchen or start on our bedroom. I AM excited about moving into the house ... it's just the packing that isn't much fun!

We pick up the puppy on Saturday in McKinney, TX at 2:15pm, and then he's going to come home and spend our last week with us at the apartment. It would REALLY be ideal if I could have this place mostly packed up before there's a puppy roaming around it (highly supervised of course!).

In order to not have boxes all over our small apartment, which would really stress me out, we decided to take apart our dining room table, and store it and everything else (once boxed up) in our "dining room" area. Nothing that's not boxed up and ready to be moved is allowed in that space. It's been really helpful in gauging how much is left to do.

Now I just need the motivation to finish! Yuck! :)

Mr. & Mrs. Powell

This past weekend Bryan and I were both a part of Laura & Collin's wedding party. Friday morning (while I was in my interview) Bryan helped set up the reception hall, and then Friday evening we attended the rehearsal at the church & the rehearsal dinner at Los Cucos. It was really nice!

Then on Saturday morning, Bryan joined all the guys and I joined all the girls to get ready, have lunch and visit. I hope Laura enjoyed this time with the women of her family, bridesmaids, and nursing friends. From what I heard, Collin very much enjoyed having his close friends around. It was so nice that so many of his friends from Holy Cross (which is in Massachusetts) could come!! They were some really wonderful people.

Around 3pm, everyone headed to the church to change and take pictures. This is when I finally remembered I should take pictures ... :)





Then the ceremony, which I don't have any pictures from for 2 reasons - (1) I was in the wedding and (2) photography would ruin the sanctity of the wedding, according to their pastor. So we had to settle for posed pictures after the wedding and many at the reception!

The reception was at Tin Hall, and I'll share a few photos of those with you too!

Employed

Yep, that's correct. I have a job! My interview on Friday went really well, and now I'll be working as a tutor for kiddos from PreK-12th grade in various subjects. For those that know me really well - no I did NOT say I could tutor advanced math or science!! I'll keep to my areas of knowledge :)

My first assignment will, naturally, be working with a Pre-K child. I think God really wants me to be with this age group, because he keeps arranging it so perfectly. It will probably be MUCH easier with just ONE instead of 18 though!

We've had a busy few days between the rehearsal/dinner/wedding and all of that. I'll be sure to have a legit post a little while later including a few pictures!

Counting Down

Well, you may remember that I was supposed to have an MRI on my brain & spine today. Mom had decided to drive to our part of town for moral support, so I felt badly when I got a call this morning after she was already half way there letting me know our insurance hasn't yet confirmed their intent to cover the MRI, so I have to post-pone it until next week at some point. I was a little frustrated, because I'm wanting some answers... but that's how it goes! I will wait to reschedule until they have received confirmation from our insurance.

Since Mom was already on her way, she just kept coming! We had a really nice meat-free brunch at Ihop and managed to make it just in time for the Ash Wednesday service at Prince of Peace. Then we swung by their old house to talk to the woman leasing the house, and then to (of course) our house! Talked to our builder for a few moments, and then we got busy taking measurements of all the windows for later reference when we start looking for (or sewing) curtains. Why not do it now? We'll be busy moving, painting or decorating once we close, so now I have all the measurements on my phone and we won't have to worry about it should we find something we like!

The stone guys came back out to recess the outlet above the mantle, they fixed the A/C, and the backdoor with it's awesome "inside blinds" was installed! Plus the shutters have been stained & are drying:





Mom's just silly :)



Then we drove to my apartment to unload some boxes & packing supplies Mom & Dad had left over/kept from their previous move. After Mom left, I got busy & got lots packed up! Especially in our office & kitchen. I even started on our clothes, sorting through what we'll need in the new few weeks vs. what can already be packed away.

Since we'll be picking up the puppy on March 19 or 20, we want as much does as possible before that!!

In other news: I have an interview for a tutoring agency on Friday! We'll see how it goes!

Countdown to Interview = 2 Days
Countdown to picking up the puppy = 10 days
Countdown to closing on the house = 17 days

Not that anyone's counting down of course .... :)

Our House is BEAUTIFUL!

Today I stopped by the house as always, hoping to see the carpet all in, and it was! Not only was the carpet all in, but floors were all uncovered and the house was clean. It is so incredibly pretty. I really had no idea that it would look this good when we started this process in October.

Before all the pretty flooring pictures, here are the other updates. First, my bathroom mirror has been installed with the inset plug and second, a guy came out to fix the outlet above the mantle so that it will be recessed, and finally, the powder room now has its toilet & sink! The updates are pretty much finished, though, so there's not going to be much more to share.





Here's the carpet, which looks much more socially acceptable than the carpet pad did yesterday with its logo printed over and over and over, haha.



It's so nice and squishy and comfortable!! I love it!



I think the wood floors go really well with the cabinets in the kitchen! And it contrasts nicely with the tile.



Since the hardwood floors are uncovered and no one was working on them, I went ahead and took lots of pictures today! (The carpet on the stairs are in these as well. Looks good!)





Yay!!

So as far as timing goes, here's the plan:
Thursday, March 17 @ 10am - Orientation & Walk Through
Thursday, March 24 @ 10am - Final Walk Through
Friday, March 25 @ 10am - CLOSING! (aka lots of paperwork & money transfers)

Bryan & I will start moving our belongings on Friday. And then our big "move day" will be Saturday!! We have some family who are going to help us move, which we are very thankful for. We also hope to have most of our furniture that we ordered delivered on Saturday. Sunday will be more moving the little things over, and then on Monday and Tuesday Mom & I will start doing some of the painting and decorating. Wow. It sounds intense and busy and fun :)

More Comfy than Concrete

Just like we were told, the carpet started today! Carpet pads were everywhere they were supposed to be, and they were working on the stairs when I was there. The carpet is all cut out and rolled up and ready to go in each room. I couldn't resist stepping on the pad to see how cushioned it is :)







Outside on the driveway where they were cutting out the carpet for each room:



More pictures tomorrow when hopefully the carpet is completely ready to go!

Also, how many times do you think I'll need to vacuum each room before it stops shedding ridiculous amounts?

Weekend Uno

Remember when I said March is awesome? Well, it still is!

Weekend #1 is almost over, and it was a beautiful way to kick off one of the best months of the year!

First, I got to see one of my favorite people as I hung out with Janie and her Mom, Beth, on Friday afternoon. And then, once the menfolk were off of work, Bryan and I joined Beth, Dean and Janie for dinner at their house. They sure do know how to make fajitas! I love it when Janie visits Texas!

And then, Saturday, Bryan and I were able to sleep in (whoop!) and then get our homeowners insurance taken care of. Turns out we really WERE able to save quite a bit of money by switching from StateFarm to Geico! Same coverage, much less expensive - both auto and homeowners. It's a shame their commercials are so irritating :) Still, I can put up with cavemen and reptiles if we can save $700 a year! (Even bigger WHOOP!)

Saturday night Mom, MeMaw & Paw, Bryan & I met Dean, Beth & Janie at Minute Maid Park to watch the Aggies play Rice. Too bad we never really got our bats going, but it was still a fun game! Made me crave Olsen Field like crazy - Aggie Baseball is too much fun to miss out on. Dad was planning on going to the game with us, but had to miss because of a last-minute trip to South Korea for work. We're ready to have him back in Texas safe and sound!







Because the drive from downtown to Conroe is quite long and it was quite late by the time the game was over, Mom stayed the night with us. I'm so glad in the future we'll always have a guest room for overnight guests! It was wonderful to have her. Then this morning we were able to attend church together and get some serious vacation planning done!! Turns out our Costa Rica vacation is going to be a San Francisco/Napa Valley vacation instead. I'm super excited about it and I think it will be much easier to do with 9 people! Plus Bryan got all of the remaining financial items in order for closing later this month. We are READY!

And now I'm relaxing and watching my favorite musical on PBS - Les Miserables. A wonderful way to end the weekend!!

Final Touches

The last few days have been big for the house. Ready for lots of pictures? Here goes!

Front door (minus the glass), looking lovely:



The stain on the door will go very nicely with the wood floors! Of course, the floors are mostly covered up with the tape and paper, so we won't really know how it all flows until they're uncovered.

The guest room is painted! This is the only room that will have a color other than beige until we move in:



I apologize for the terrible angle of the photo. It's sometimes awkward to take pictures when the guys are working on something. I don't know that they'd be thrilled to end up on my blog, haha. But the blue is really pretty!

And, very important to ME in particular, was that they would change the direction of the powder room door. My best guess is that a man designed the way the door is "supposed" to go, because surely no woman would have the door swing in so that it would bang against the toilet every time the door opened and the person needing to use the restroom would have to hump the sink to get around the door to shut it ... But now it (happily!) swings OUT - yay! :) And notice that all the doors now have knobs, too. Perfect.



In all of the bathrooms, the towel racks, toilet paper holders, and mirrors are all mounted and ready to go! Plus, in the master bathroom the glass for the shower was installed:



And finally, blinds are now in every window!! Here are two examples: one at the kitchen's window seat, and the other in the front bedroom:



Lots of stuff! Plus I didn't even mention some of the even more minor details.

In other news I got to see my good friend Laura yesterday for the first time in a while, which was really nice. We ran some errands like Hobby Lobby and picking up my bridesmaid dress for her wedding next weekend (I had it hemmed up - can you guess why that would be necessary?). Then she saw the house for the first time, which she appeared to really like, and then we had lunch. Very nice outing. And, today I had a really nice lunch with my Dad at Lubys - yum! I do love their fried fish and good company :) The advantage to my parents having lived in our area before is that they still come to the Tomball/Spring area to take care of things and I get to see them!

Today, I also finally went to the doctor about the chronic head/neck/back pain I've been having for the last year or so, and much more severe the last few months. This last week I really couldn't even sleep it hurt so bad to move, so (as Bryan has been insisting I do), I made an appointment for the doctor. After seeing him, he wants me to get an MRI of my brain/spine, which has been scheduled for next Wednesday afternoon. I'm ready to get my answers - and hopefully find some solutions. In the meantime, he prescribed a stronger anti-inflammatory to help with the pain, especially at night.

Back to a happy note - we will probably have carpet next Monday! Stay tuned!