Catamaran Tour

Hawaiian Reception

Homeowners - Officially!

Our lease at our apartment in Kirkland was up May31st. The weekend of May 8th - Jim and I decide we better start looking for a new place to stay before we found ourselves homeless. After 10 months of living with squeaky floorboards and two large cows over our heads (one of which made it a habit to use the restroom every single night / morning in two hour intervals until the sun came up), we thought maybe finding a rental house would be our best option.

We looked...and looked...and looked. We looked at townhouses, condos, apartments and rental houses. It's hard to find exactly what you're looking for at a price you're willing to pay.

And then - we were convinced it was time to consider being homeowners. Hadn't really crossed our minds.....I mean really, I had JUST finished school and had been employed for only two months, we were trying to save up for our wedding that was only a month away, and our savings account had dwindled to practically nothing during the 12 months I was unemployed and in school. We hadn't really considered that option.

Until May 9th. It's amazing the kinds of deals that you can find out there in this economy, just to sell a house. We looked at a couple of new neighborhoods - but couldn't find anything we could afford. We had no down payment, no money for closing costs, nothing really. And then we found Trail Run. I think the timing was perfect - had we started looking at buying a week earlier, our house wouldn't have been available; had we started looking a week later, I'm convinced our house would have already been sold.

Trail Run is a new housing development in Auburn, right behind the old Valley 6 Drive-In Movie Theater. What we love most about this neighborhood is the location (we are once again living close to our family and friends), the surroundings (city life with a country feel since the Carpanito Bros planting fields surround us), easy access to the freeway (5 min to 167), and easy access to shopping (we are right in the middle of three cities - Covington, Auburn, and Kent).

Anyway - our house is perfect - it's everything we could have ever dreamed of: 2370 sq ft, 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath, 2 living rooms, bonus room upstairs, amazing kitchen with all the upgrades, and the best part - is that it's OURS! This neighborhood is a "build as you buy" kind of neighborhood - but fortunately for us, our house had recently been purchased, built with the original owners upgrades and specifications, was ready for move-in.....and then the dad got laid off. We would have had to wait 6 months for our house to be built. But with our timeline being two weeks before we needed a house, that wasn't an option. We looked at this already built house...discovered that the original owner and I had A LOT in common as far as ideas and preferences for upgrades, and we were sold. The only change I will be making is the color of the walls. They are kind of a light butter cream type yellow color. I prefer white....or closer to white.

Outside of House:

Us!

First Living Room Inside Front Door
(We don't know what we're going to do with this room yet)

Second Living Room With Gas Fireplace
(We use this as our TV / Family room)

Secret Closet Under Stairs
(This was the girls' favorite part of the house - they wanted to sleep their the first night)

My Amazing Kitchen / Breakfast Bar / Dining Area

Powder Room Downstairs

Stairs

Bonus Room At Top of Stairs
(We turned this space into our home office / kid's TV room / video game room)

The Master Suite - It's Huge!

Master Luxury Bath

Kayla's Room With Walk-In Closet

Katlynne & Kelsey's Room

Our Little Engineer

I forgot to mention something in my last blog that happened last month. Kayla's school was holding a Young Engineers Fair where the kids where encouraged (especially the girls) to build a bridge out of Popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue. They could only use 120 sticks and it had to be one of four different kinds of bridges. The competition was to build a bridge that could withstand the most amount of weight. They had this cool machine that applied weight to the bridge until it cracked. The kids were then sent to talk to a panel of judges where they had to answer questions about their bridge. They were scored on two parts: A) Amount of weight the bridge could withstand and B) The judge's interview. With Jim's help - Kayla built her bridge and it turned out pretty dang good! We think it may have held more weight had we not done all the gluing the night before. It was still a little bit tacky in some spots because we waited until the last minute to put the bridge together. Shame on us. But, they divided the contest up: K - 3rd Grade in the morning and 4th - 6th Grade in the afternoon. Are you ready to hear how she did??? See the pictures below to find out!

Kayla's Bridge: A Truss Bridge

Here she is at the Young Engineers Fair

Waiting in Line For The Weight Test

The Bridge Being Loaded Into The Weight Machine

Adding More Weight

The Breaking Point: 262 Pounds!!!

Kayla Got Second Place!!!

Even if engineering isn't something that interests her - I'm still proud of her for doing it and actually being put in front of a panel of judges and answering their questions. I thinks he did a great job! Go Kayla!

So Much To Do - So Little Time

I'm thinking I just might have to make the title of this blog the title to my life story. I swear I just spent an entire day blogging about Valentine's Day and now here I am, the beginning of April, trying to get everyone caught up over the last two months!!! I guess times sure flies when you're having fun...or just really busy. On to the latest happenings in our household!

1. Hang on ... ... ... (okay I'm back) 84 Days until Jim and I finally tie the knot! Sorry for the brief pause back there - I had to open my blog in a new window to see my wedding day countdown for accuracy. But anyway - less than three (3) months away! Can you believe it? Last time I really thought about the wedding (like - REALLY - thought about it), we still had about 9 months to get it all together and save up some major greens for this trip! But alas - the final weeks are approaching and I'm stressing - but also getting pretty excited! Wanna know what I'm stressing about the most??? I haven't picked out my dress yet. I haven't even looked or tried anything on. I'm dreading it. I've been working out - a lot - hoping to drop a couple of dress sizes. I'm slowly getting there - but refuse to try on wedding dresses until I drop just one more dress size...just one more. Hopefully by the end of this month. We'll see how that goes. I may have to cave and try the no-carb diet (even though I know it's unhealthy in the long run - it just might help for that brief period of time). Wish me luck! The good news - is that we have almost everything in Hawaii taken care of thanks to my mother and our awesome wedding planner over there who is taking care of just about everything for us. We leave for Hawaii June 19th, get married June 25th and come home June 29th. It will be a great 10 days! I can't wait!

2. Kayla got her cast off a few weeks ago. I forgot to blog about it then - alright well I didn't forget, I just haven't had time. She's pretty excited but still has to stay of the monkey bars for another week or two, just to make sure everything is okay. I take her back in a few months for more x-rays to make sure the bones continue healing properly and also to verify that new bone growth is occuring. If not - this poor child will have to undergo numerous surgeries throughout her growing years to manually elongate the bones in her wrist. How sad would that be? We're keeping our fingers crossed. I'm just excited that her shirts all fit again!!! It was such a headache trying to find clothes every morning that fit over her cast. Never again.

3. We are moving...again. I thought we had until the end of May to move. I could have sworn that's when our lease was up. But I was wrong and we recently discovered we have until the end of April to find a new place to live. We like where we live. The location is nice and the area is safe. But with the hardwood floors - it's cold. And it's expensive. We've decided we can afford a mortgage payment the size of our rent payment. So - we're attempting to become new home owners. We've been looking in the Auburn, Bonney Lake, and Renton areas. We'll see how that goes.

4. And now for the big news...I'm done... Completely done with Dental Assisting school! Last week I finished up my extern hours (all 150 of them), took my Organic Chemistry final and now I'm done. I have one more class that I need to take for my Dental Hygiene prerequisites. But I seriously just needed a break from any kind of higher education. Sadly - I'm not done with school though. Over the course of the next 10 months, I need to take my Public Speaking class, take the HOBET test, and fill out my paperwork to apply for Dental Hygiene school. Everything is due in February 2010. I've had mixed feelings about going on to Hygiene school. I've found myself to be content with where I'm at. But - I know my long term goal was to go to Hygiene school, so I feel obligated to myself to follow through. All I know - is that I love the dental field. I don't know why it took me so long to figure it out. But I love it...which leads me to....

5. I have a job! A new job that I absolutely LOVE. But not just any job. It's not often that you walk into a position as the lead Dental Assistant in a Dentist office. Seriously - you have to pay your dues...usually. I somehow managed to make it happen. I started my extern at an office here in Kirkland around February of this year. In the middle of March, I was officially offered a position as lead dental assistant once I was done with school (their assistant was having a baby and decided to be a SAHM). So I'm done with school - and my first day was March 30th. I love it! I love the office - I love the staff - I love our patients. It's been a great experience.

I think that's it. We've been keeping busy. If it weren't for my mom - I think we would be postponing the wedding. She has been the one to keep all the plans going. I owe her big time. But okay - expect another update after about June 29th....I just might find time after that time for another update.

Peace!

Our Valentine's Day Weekend (Picture Blog)

A lot has been going on the last couple of weeks, so I'm just going to quickly post a picture blog of our Valentine's Day Weekend. We picked up Jim's girls Friday night and took all three girls out to dinner because we were heading out of town on Valentine's Day for my cousin's wedding. We had a lot of fun!

Kayla's Valentine's Day Party - Checking Their V-Day Goods


She Got Extra Excited Over Something...I Never Figured Out What

Yummy!

Snoqualmie Falls - Valentine's Day

The Girls @ Snoqualmie Falls

Our Family on Valentine's Day

My Parents & The Girls

Kayla & Kelsey After The Hike Back Up

Kayla & Grandpa

Kelsey's Fishy Face

Kayla & Kelsey Helping Uncle Randy On The Tractor

They Loved The Tractor

Our Family @ Cousin Richard's Wedding

Jim & I On Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm just now realizing that today is also Friday the 13th...not that it really means anything. But apparently people are pretty excited about a couple of scary movies that are coming out today. Seems a little bit odd to have horror movies coming out Valentine's Day Weekend.

I've never really been a HUGE fan of Valentine's Day. I mean, what girl really wants her significant other to actually put some thought into planning a special day for his loved one and go out and spend a TON of money on overpriced flowers and a nice evening out when everybody else and their grandma's dog are doing the same thing? Okay, I'll admit! I DO!!! But not necessarily on Valentine's Day. I only feel this way on Valentine's Day because I'm reminded how often we DON'T get to spend a nice evening together. Some day.

For now - I have been having fun this morning, baking Strawberry Valentine's Day Mini Muffins for Kayla's Valentine's Day party at school. They turned out better than I expected and hopefully they will be a big hit (so I don't have to bring any home and ruin my diet even further).

I am reminded why I HATE baking.......the mess:

The finished Product:

Good times! Tomorrow we are taking the girls to Ellensburg for my cousin's wedding. Should be fun to get away from the house for a day. We are going to go a little early and find some cool trails to take the kids hiking on. Hopefully it's not too cold!