Big changes...


So it all started a few months ago when the business unit I worked for consolidated with another business unit in Woodburn (about an hour north). The word "consolidation" is not something you want to hear in your business as it means, people will lose jobs. We have been a little worried especially since we just bought our house. Well, the coporate big wigs came to our work and had an all day meeting on Thursday with the managers. Friday came and I was up in the front of the office making copies when by boss asks if I have a minute, "Sure," gulp. As I walk by my friend and co-worker Sarah I wave and whisper, "well, see ya later." I sit down in the chair and try to look as calm and collected as possible, I don't think I did a very good job because he started by saying how he knows the feeling of being anxious about your job, great thanks.
Well, the good news is that I did not lose my job. Instead I am now in charge of more accounts, I will be traveling to Woodburn half the time, Salem (half hour north) one day a week, and at my normal office the rest of the time. There is no set schedule so it will change from day to day. Mine and Brian's first thought was yay, I didn't lose my job! We are very grateful and consider it a huge blessing. I am not exactly excited about driving so much and not knowing where I'll be each day, but I'll plug along.

So the weekend started by having dinner with my Mom and Randy (stepdad), and Sarah and Travis (co-worker and husband) at a cute eatery in town. We watched the U of O game and for the first time in my life I rooted for them. Brian and I both graduated from the rival, OSU. But they are representing the state of Oregon in the tournament so I can't be a hater :) Sarah and Travis came over and we watched Idiocracy which was an okay movie.
Saturday we woke up bright and early, ran to the paint store because we finally picked the color we wanted for the rest of the downstairs. I will post pictures when I get a chance to download them from my camera. We came back and painted our hearts out, we got sooo much done!! Then that night Tiff and Eric, Kristie and Dar, and Craig and Caren came over and we had drinks and socialized. It was really fun and we got to show off our new paint job!
Today we painted another wall which almost completes the downstairs. My mom and Randy were so nice and brought us bark mulch so we did some yard work, it was a gorgeous day to be outside.
It was a very productive weekend for us which is nice. It is so hard because we want to finish the inside decorations and paint, but we also want to spruce up the yard and get the grass looking good. So much to do so little time!!
Well, I better get to bed. I am headed up to Woodburn tomorrow :( Wish my luck on this new adventure!

Happy Spring!

Spring begins today, yay! I wish this meant it was sunny and warm from here on out, but Oregon holds true to the saying April showers bring May flowers. Actually, Oregon takes it a step further: April, May, and part of June showers bring a few days of sun in July and August, hehe.

We found this picture at Target and loved it! I put the key in front to signify our new home :)

I wanted to post pictures that I have taken the last few weeks and haven't had a chance to post. Brian and I watched the kids a few weeks ago when Jaime and Schuyler wanted to get some packing done for their move. I just love the pictures of Porter and MJ, MJ is so good with the kids and it was so cute because she would just go and sit by Porter, adorable :)

I also took some pictures of the living room after we have moved in, we still have some painting and picture hanging to do, but it feels like home :)

Here is our new couch (this was taken before we painted the kitchen red)
Us on our first night in the house, exhausted!
Brian and Porter chillin, so cute!
MJ watching over Porter.
Brian's mom and stepdad came over last night and took us out to dinner, Izzy's, yum! I had a delicious salad, pizza, and some frozen yogurt. I was pretty proud that I didn't stuff myself because that is easy to do at a buffet. They gave us some ideas for the backyard which is good because we need all the ideas we can get. Mom also gave us a cordless vacuum that we can use on the hardwood floors. I have been stressing and researching about the best way to clean hardwood floors since I've never had them. My dream is to have a Dyson, but that is a ways in the future, so for now I have been sweeping and then using a mop that we got from Home Depot. This vaccum will be nice for a quick clean and also under the couch and corners where the dust bunnies hide.

I am looking forward to the weekend, not for any particular reason, but just time off work! We still haven't picked the exact color for the living room, I would like to start that room this weekend, but we kind of need the color to do that ;)

We're connected :)

We got the modem from Qwest yesterday, but of course we had technical problems with getting internet hooked up so we had to wait until today.
We painted our kitchen this weekend! We are both really pleased with how the color turned out, it's exactly what we wanted. It's called stolen kiss and it's from Sherwin Williams :) It's crazy how paint can make a room feel so different, it feels more cozy.

Here are some before and after pictures:

I painted myself in a corner :)


Brian played poker on Friday night and won (of course!), he's so good :) Bauer(Nate) will disagree, but I'm pretty sure he's just jealous ;-) Amy, Mindy (Nate and Nick's girlfriends) and I talked about wedding stuff since Nate and Amy set the date for September 22nd! Amy had tons of brides magazines so we looked at ideas for bridesmaid dresses and centerpieces. The poker game went until after midnight so we were pretty tired and ready for bed when we got home!


For St. Patrick's day on Saturday we went to a place called Murphey's and enjoyed a live band and some green beer. It was packed when we first got there so it was a good thing our friend Shane made reservations so we were able to sit at a table instead of stand. Once the band left it cleared out quite a bit and we could hear each other talk :) Man, I sound old!



This weekend I am hoping we can get started on painting the rest of the downstairs and do some yard work. Well, I'm gonna go spend some time with my hubby, have a great day!

I Miss the Internet!!!!

I have missed blogging so much!!! We have not hooked up internet at our new place yet so I am blogging from my mom's house. We are hoping to get internet sometime this week, crossing our fingers :)

So the move went great! It took half a day and a lot of our friends and family, but we did it, we are all moved in :) We are pretty much unpacked and some pictures are hung. Brian hung 2 large shelves in our garage so that's all organized and both our cars fit with room to spare. I didn't bring my camera so I'll have to post pictures next time, I took a bunch!! Next week our goal is to choose paint colors for the whole downstairs. We are thinking a deep red wall for the back kitchen wall and a mocha color for the rest of the downstairs. Since this is our first house we are thrilled to be able to paint whatever we want!
We are planning to have a housewarming party closer to summer so it can be an outside BBQ. We have lots of extra bedrooms so friends and family are welcome to come visit!!

The weather lately has been great here, almost 70 degrees. That is unheard of in March around here, but we are loving it. I love walking around our neighborhood and smelling all the BBQ's going. By the way, we love are neighborhood and are excited to start a family here :)

One of the things I hate about moving, aside from packing and unpacking, is switching all the bills. Man that is a huge pain in my arse! We have had this huge battle with Comcast and they are trying to charge us for the modem, which we did not rent from them it was ours to begin with. So Brian called and they basically called us liars because she was telling him he had to bring it in so they could make sure it wasn't theirs or we had to pay $25 for someone to come out and look at it and ensure we were not lying. Yeah, that's great, I would love to pay you money so you can come out and look at our modem and call us liars, NO THANKS!! So now we are going with Qwest :)

So, I am hoping we get internet soon so my next post will come soon and with pictures! Stay tuned.......

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!