Seafood and Wine Festival

We had a great time this weekend at the coast. The weather was absolutely horrible, I mean it was a solid down pour of rain almost the entire time. Once you finally got into the tent it was much more pleasant. We saw so many people we know which was a lot of fun to chat with them. We found some wine we love: Valley View, it is so good! And of course we found delicious cheese, yummy!!

My adorable husband and I Us with my mom and Randy (I am holding the camera girls glass)
From left: Shannon, Amy, and Anne.

The last picture is of the girls on the trip, I didn't capture the guy picture, dang. We stayed at the Bauer's beach house as they were so gracious to let us. It was a lot of fun.

We are anxiously awaiting to move into our new house, I took the day off work today so I have been packing and doing laundry all day. I could really get use to this staying home thing!

Anyway, I better get back to packing, just wanted to share our weekend :)

It's ours!!!

Well not officially until the 28th which is when we closed, but we signed for it today! It was a solid hour and a half of signing, whew! So exciting!!!!

We have had an interesting few days dealing with our lender, Van, I kind of think they were trying to take advantage of us which made me very angry. But I am fortunate to have a husband who doesn't take any crap! Man, he was amazing on the phone, he was like, "So basically you're saying we should have gone with another lender," and lots of other good stuff. See, I am the least confrontational person ever, it's a bad thing I know, but it's me. But not my husband!
The last time we met with Van he GUARANTEED us the interest would not go higher and reassured us several times. Last night he mentioned to Brian what it was locked in at, which was higher than he guaranteed us, Brian said, "No, you said it would not go higher than *.**%," and Van was like, "If that's what you remember I'll change it." Excuse me?!?! Are you calling us liars?!?! Way to be condescending, real professional, and if it's so easy to change, how about you take it even lower. You've got to be kidding me.

Anyway, there were other issues about closing costs and property taxes that they had wrong. I mean, isn't he suppose to look up the property taxes? Well he didn't, he was using the number WE gave him from the first house we made an offer on, not the current house. Are you kidding me?! I knew the whole process was going too smoothly :) But I just have to remember to look at the big picture and be thankful for my wonderful husband.

I leave you with pictures of our very first home, yay! FYI: The stuff in the house belongs to the current owners, these are pictures from the website:

Kitchen:

Kitchen from another view:
View from the front door:
View from the stairs:
We feel incredibly blessed to be buying our first home. We have both worked sooo incredibly hard and it feels so good to see some of the results from our sweat and tears. Although college taught me more than I could imagine I was stressed for 4 years straight, I am lucky I didn't die of a heart attack! We are so happy to call this place home and all the support we have received from our family and friends. Love you all so much!

Still Waiting

Move in day will be here soon and we can't wait. We started packing this weekend and got pretty far, 2 1/2 closets and part of the kitchen, whew!
We went up to Tualatin this weekend for our friends, Marcus and Gretchen's housewarming party. We had a lot of fun and loved their house, it has a gorgeous backyard with a nice deck, hot tub, grass area, and concrete patio, so nice for entertaining!
Then we headed back home for Tiff's 30th! She is 30 and looking good :) We got her some fun gag gifts: "30 and looking good" socks, "30" coasters, and an "Old winers whine" sticker that we put on her favorite bottle of wine, good times.
Sunday was a lot of fun because I met Jenny, my mom, and Ali at the new Coffee Culture Cafe which was so nice. The decorations are to die for, so cute!
So it was a good weekend.
This weekend is Seafood and Wine Fest, yay!!! We leave on Friday night and get back Sunday. But I have work off on Monday so it will be a 3 day weekend, yesss. I will probably spend it packing, oh well what do ya do.
I was going through old pictures and thought I would post some favorites:

Us at the Armstrong Family Reunion, we rock!!

Here is the clan with my Grandpa and Grandma
All because two people fell in love...
Jenny and I knitted hats for kids, here we are modeling them
Here are the 2 hats I made, can you believe they both have baby blue in them?!

That's all for now, I'll keep you posted on the house stuff!

Case of the Mondays and an Engagement...

It never fails, every Monday seems to drag on, I'm grumpy, tired, and I justwanna go home. I've got a case of the Mondays.Oh well, soon it will be over and the week will continue.

On to good news....Bauer and Amy got engaged this weekend! They went to LasVegas to support some of our friends that were in the Cheerleading competitionand he proposed. Congratulations you two :) We are anxious to hear all theplans!

Tonight we are going to my mom's to watch 24 (since we don't have cable), it's a2 hour special so it should be gooood! Wednesday (Valentine's Day) we might go to Mama Linda's which is a deliciousItalian Restaurant nearby, but we also might go to Home Depot, yes, Home Depot.Romantic huh?! Well, there is a new store opening up and they are going to havesome sales, if there is a washer and dryer we need to go check it out since wewill need one for the new house. Not ideal, but a necessity for sure!

This weekend should be pretty packed: Friday night we are going to Craig'sgirlfriend, Caren's opening night for her play, Saturday afternoon we areheading to Marcus and Gretchen's housewarming party (friends we met throughBauer), and Saturday night is Tiffany's 30th Birthday Party! Tiff's actualbirthday is the 21st, and the following weekend is the Seafood & Wine Fest whichwill be her 10th year in a row of going!Sunday I am going to coffee with my mom, sister, and Ali (Lance'sex-girlfriend). I should also probably get some packing done since the nextweekend is Seafood and Wine and the next weekend is moving day!

I am getting so excited about the house. We made our first big purchase for thehouse: a new couch! This will be our first non-hand me down couch, a woohoo!It's a light tan colored sectional and very comfy. I tried to find a picture online but no luck. When we get it in I will.

Well, I better go, but thank goodness Monday is over!

House Stuff

So we are moving right along with the house stuff. The inspection was on Tuesday and since it is 3 years old it went pretty smooth which was good. We are meeting with our mortgage lender tonight as he said he thinks we can still reduce the monthly payment, yay! We have started looking for a couch to put in the living room and found 3 this last weekend. They were all sectionals but varied in size. Well, the one we found at Costco is gone now (they never last long at Costco), the one we found downtown is too big (Brian measured when he went there for the inspection), and we're not sure about the 3rd one, so we're going to keep looking. No real hurry as we don't move in until the beginning of March.

The Seafood and Wine Festival is coming up, it's the last weekend in February and I am so excited! We spend Friday night at Bauer's beach house in Lincoln City and Saturday at a hotel close to the Festival. Last year was my first year and it was so much fun! You have to dress warm though because it's not inside, it's under a really large tent, really large.

Brian has been talking about all the things he wants to do to the house when we move in. Yeah, that's right, it's only 3 years old and he has tons of improvements already, I can't keep up with him! He has some great idea$ that I love. He wants to tile the upstairs bathroom/laundry room, replace the shower doors in the master bath (they are a flowery frosted glass and we would rather have a clear glass), crown molding, new front door, granite counter tops in the kitchen, a pergola in the back yard and I'm sure there are others he has mentioned. Now I am all for making improvements but I am exhausted just thinking about that stuff, not to mention I am wondering where he is hiding the money that we are going to use for this, LOL! But I do like his drive and ambition, that is one of the many things I love about him. A lot of the stuff will come a little ways down the road anyway, but he does want to do the tile soon. My dad knows how to tile so he wants to spend some quality time with pops, can't blame him there, my dad is pretty cool :)

Well, that is all for now but I am going to try to keep on blogging. I was good for awhile and then trailed off! Have a great Thursday and remember, it's almost the weekend!!!