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!!!

First Time Home Owners

I have been putting off blogging until I could confirm some exciting news, but the exciting news took awhile to confirm so that is why I haven't blogged for awhile :)

Brian and I put an offer an a house a week ago and sadly did not get it. We were bummed but tried to realize it was just not meant to be. Boy was that the truth. We found the perfect house for us last Wednesday, put an offer in on Friday and found out Saturday we got the house.
We could not be more excited!!!! We spent the next half hour calling friends and family to share the good news. They were all very supportive and excited for us which means more than I can say. It really helps to have your family and friends so positive and encouraging when you are going through a major life event! I think we have driven by the house about 10 times, it is just crazy to think we will be in there in a little over a month, woohoo!
I will try to post some pictures a little later, so I can "sensor" them, you can never be too careful! It was built in 2004 so it is pretty new, it is about 1600 square feet with 3 bedrooms plus an office. The backyard is a good size and has a large concrete patio that will be perfect for entertaining.

Let's see, this past weekend we did some much needed groccery shopping at our favorite store, Winco. Then we stopped by my sister's house they are building in North Albany to check on the progress, it is going to be so beautiful. They are putting such detail into it, which I know has been a huge stress on my sister to make decisions, but it is gorgeous. We watched my nieces and nephew on Saturday while they celebrated Schuyler's 30th. Then we went for a night cap at Applebee's where our friends Sarah and Travis bought us drinks in celebration of our house purchase.

Sunday we helped Brian's sister Sara move to Corvallis and then she took us out to Los Dos Amigos, yummy! We rested a little after that as it had been a long weekend and I we didn't get to sleep in as late as we would have liked (I'm not gonna say what time since I know those with kids will roll their eyes! ).

Anyway, this week looks pretty normal, month end at work again. Where did January go?!?!
I better go but I just wanted to share the good news about our new house......we are home owners, YAY!!!!

I love Sunriver!

So this weekend was awesome! We all had a blast and it was so good to go skiing since I haven't been in seriously like 10 years.
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We had Friday off work so Brian and I woke up and headed up to Keizer and loaded up the Armada. We of course made a stop to Dutch Bros. (sorry Jenny!) for some warm coffee and then off we went. Our first stop was in Detroit for some snacks and a much needed bathroom break, the coffee went right through me! Then we stopped at Hoodoo for some sledding. We found a perfect little hill for sledding and spent an hour there before we headed back on the road.

Brian is ready for some sledding.

Nate and Amy tumbling down the hill.

Our next stop was in Sister's where we ate at Subway and met up with Nick and Mindy (Bauer's little brother and his girlfriend). You would think by now we would finally just head to the cabin, but no. We went to the shops in Bend where we met up with my sister as she was so gracious to let me borrow some of her ski stuff, love ya sis. Then we went grocery shopping for the weekend and finally headed to the cabin. We got settled in while the boys went to pick up Caren and Craig at the Sunriver airport, they flew in.
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Later that night Marcus and Gretchen arrived and the party started. We played SkipBo, foosball, and a bunch of other card games. We attempted to go to bed somewhat early as the skiiers (Me, Brian, Bauer, Marcus, and Gretchen) were getting up early to hit the slopes. The sledders (Nick, Mindy, Amy, Craig, and Caren) were sleeping in and heading to Bachelor a little later.

From left: Nick, me, Caren, Craig, Mindy, and Amy playing cards.

Brian and I are ready for bed!

Saturday morning we headed off to Bachelor and I was so excited to ski. I grew up skiing but around high school I started snowboarding. I decided to go back to skiing as I was better at it and had more fun than snowboarding, however, I was pretty rusty since it had been so long. Brian was patient and spent time reminding me how to ski, it took awhile but it started to come back to me. Although I am pretty sure I was a better skier at 13 because I had way more confidence than I do now (college cheerleading will do it to you), so everytime I got going fast and Brian would yell, "Yeah, that's it, you look great!" I would panic and want to slow down because I could just envision myself tumbling down. At any rate, it was really fun and Brian was a natural. The guys enjoyed going off into the trees and doing jumps, they also had some good falls ;) I think the funniest thing is when we were going down a narrow part of a slope and this snowboarder ran into the back of me, nearly knocking me over. We didn't fall right away so we are just skiing down this slope together, unable to stop or break apart. We finally started to slow down, at this point we are both laughing hysterically, when we turn and fall. Now, I fall on my stomach and he falls right on top of me, his snowboard gets caught in between my skis and so my legs do the splits. We are still laughing as there is nothing else to do in this awkward situation, and he finally gets up and is very polite and asks if I am okay, still laughing. It was quite an experience and I would say that is a great way to pick up girls, if they are single of course. Brian found it pretty funny and made sure to ski behind me from that point on.

Beautiful view from Mt. Bachelor

Brian, Marcus, and Bauer

Brian and I stopping for a bite to eat at lunch.

So we skied all the way until 4 pm that night and had a blast, man are my calves sore! We took it easy Saturday night and just played some cards and watched TV. Sunday came too fast as it was time to head home and back to reality. But we have the pictures and the memories that will last forever.

Sunriver 2007!