We've got the keys....and are moved in!

Remember me?  The person that does in fact have a blog at this site?

Well, I am back with some exciting house updates. 

We have officially signed our life away, ahem, I mean we are officially home owners.  *Squeal*


Maybe I really am a grown-up. :)

And we now are all moved in.  Phew.  While every box has been unpacked, I am still in full-fledged organizing mode.  Call me crazy, but I actually really love organizing.....at least most of the time.  I think my husband will testify that there were moments when organizing the kitchen was driving me bonkers. 

You know, just when you think you have absolutely unpacked everything and it is in it's proper place, then you find the box that has the dishes that were in the dishwasher from the morning of the move.  But anyway.  This post is not titled, Ramblings of a housewife's determination to get the house organized....

So, now that it's really real, I will proceed in giving you the details.  As promised.


When we moved here, Dan and I knew that it was unlike the the last two moves that we had made where we lived somewhere for a matter of months.  It was more for a matter of years.  Now this was all contingent on the fact that Dan liked his job.  And thankfully, he does.  With his career, we know the best thing for him is experience.  And to get experience you need time.  So we were prepared to stay for awhile.


But not being familiar with the area, we decided it would be best to rent for the first little bit in order for us to get our barrings and see where we would like to buy.  So we did just that. 


And a few months before our lease was up, we started looking at houses. 


We looked and looked and looked.  And we learned a ton.  Here's just a little of what we learned.


We learned:


- houses in Arizona are different than houses in Wyoming. 
-basements are really non-existent.  And if there is a basement, there are no bathrooms in the basement.  They have to sub-pump the sewage which makes for problems.  You do the math. 
-most houses in our price range are one level.  And that is quite common around here anyway. 
-we don't know much about landscaping here and most yards have very little to no grass.
-Three car garages are not nearly as common here as they are at home.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that the weather is not as cold? 
-we value sidewalks more than we thought. We live in more of a rural town than Laramie.
So after having looked for a few weeks, we thought we found the house we were going to make an offer on, then on our way to look at that house for the tenth fourth time, our realtor randomly stopped at a different house in that same subdivision. 


After looking at the exterior of the house, I commented to Dan on how ugly the stucco color was.  I believe I referred to it as a mustard yellow. (I since have changed my ways.) And then I asked if we really had to look at it.  But I quickly learned that you never should judge a book by its cover.

We now refer to it as "gold".  And Dan says it was meant to be since we are in fact, brown and gold fans.  All we need is a bucking horse hung over the garage...


It took just that one time for Dan and I to really start considering it instead of the other house.  And soon, we put an offer on it, and got it! 

We ended up buying one of the model homes so all the decorations came with the house.  I know, every girl's dream, right?  Who doesn't want their home to come decorated?  While I do like most of the decor, I will be changing some things as my budget allows because after all,  this is my home and I want it to feel like mine....and not someone else's.

It's the perfect starter house for our family and we look forward to making our house a home.

A few pictures just for fun.

A view looking down the hallway into the family room.

 Looking back down the hallway towards the front door.

 The colors look a little dark in this pic, but you get the general idea of our kitchen.

And how could I not let you see this little gal?  She is seriously growing like a WEED!  She is in 3T clothes and really starting to look like a little girl not so much a toddler anymore.  Get a load of her cowboy boots.  She HAD to wear them.  And by the way, she is in LOVE with the backyard.

Do you think I could capitalize anything else in that paragraph....sheesh.

Home Again

Layna and I are home. 

After being away for three weeks we are finding that we need a vacation from our vacation.  Actually was just need to recuperate.  Mainly we are recuperating from the nasty flu bug that hit us the NIGHT BEFORE our plane ride home.  Wow. That was interesting to say the least. 

After being up half the night, we somehow managed to get to the airport (thanks for your help mom and dad!), entertain Alayna until we boarded the plane (thanks, mom!), survive the plane ride (thanks to a portable dvd player and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and manage the drive home (thanks, Dan!). 

I am fully recovered.  Thank goodness.  And Alayna is getting there.  She is still trying to get over her runny nose and cough that she got before the flu.  Lovely, I know.

There really is no place like home.  While we miss all our family and friends, it feels so good to be home and reunited with Dan/Daddy.

We missed him terribly.  And apparently he missed us because he had a little gift for each of us.  Here's mine:

There's nothing like a fresh bunch of tulips to brighten your day...especially when you have the flu.

They make our home look so springy.

And while we're talking about homes, I thought I would mention a new home.

This home specifically:

Yep. You guessed it.  We are buying a house!  We close the middle of this month.  And this is not an April fool's joke.  :)

We are thrilled. 

You can bet we will be filling you in on all the details soon.  Once, we have recovered from our travels.  :)

The blogging break is over

I will pretend that all of you were missing me terribly and it prompted me to get back in the blogging game.

 That.

And certain family members kept kindly informing me that I had yet to give a tour of our house. So here I am finally getting all my ducks in a row.

 Here we go. Let start by a look at the outside of our house. (I just want to note that there is snow in the mountain behind our house. It has been somewhat "cold" here.)

A more close up look of the front.

And a look at the back of our house. We know. We've got some nice weeds going on. We hope in the future that they will magically disappear. Here's the view from the front door. To the right of the front entry way there is a door to the garage. To your left is a hallway leading to Alayna's room, the spare bedroom, a bathroom and the laundry closet.

But anyway, this is our living room. (FYI: the lighting is off in all these pics. Sorry. Every thing has a yellowish tint.)

Another view. You can kind of see a doorway before the entertainment center. That leads to our master bedroom.

Oh, and what do you think of the entertainment center? We finally upgraded from the card table. Not to shabby, huh? In fact when we unpacked it, we both commented that it felt weird having some nice, quality furniture in our house. Everything else we own (furniture wise) has pretty much had a previous owner.

Looking from the couches back at the front entry way.

This is a shot of the kitchen from the living room.

Another picture of the kitchen from the living room.

And yet another view of the kitchen. I have loved the size of my kitchen. I have not loved the sweeping that a kitchen this big entails. :)

This door is the pantry. It is a nice size and I love having an actual space that will fit all of our food/food storage.
Now, let's go back to the master bedroom. Here's a shot from the door way. Who could that little girl be?

A picture from the bed looking out. While in terms of space this room is marvelous, I would have to say that this is one of my least favorite rooms in terms of decorating. Do you ever feel like all the leftover decorations end up in your room and they never achieve the look that you want?

And here's a picture looking from the bed to the bathroom area. The door on the left is the bathroom. And the door on the right is our walk-in closet.

The bathroom. Don't worry. It's not really light green. It's just the lighting again.

And a look into the closet from the bathroom.

Now let's go back to the front entry way. Remember how I said there is a hallway to the left? Well, here it is...mostly. There is a door before the door you see on the left. The unseen door is Alayna's room.

A look into her room from the doorway.

Another view.

What you see when looking out her doorway.  The laundry closet.  I predict that behind those doors is a basket of clothes waiting to be folded.  The joys of life.

Here, in the second door to the left, is the spare bedroom or the computer/craft room.  The view from the doorway.

The wall on the left.

The wall on the right.

Now, the bathroom at the end of the hallway.
A shot from the doorway.

One last pic.

And there you have it. 

Our house. 

I am loving living in something other than an apartment.  The only room not pictured is our garage, but I figured you didn't really need to see it since they are pretty standard.  Dan would probably say that it is my favorite room since it allows me to work on projects that I have long been wanting to do. :)

Hope the tour satisfied our family members until they can get out here in person (hint hint).