The Hunt

Here's the story!

Last October we moved out of our apartment and in with my parents. My dad basically begged Steve and I to move in with them! My mom was soo excited! She had a full house: me & steve, rusty & jessica, mom & dad, and lexie.  So for the past year we have basically been living in fantasy land! Every Sunday my mom would make us breakfast, we all took turns making dinner each week and we hardly had any bills!  It was quite nice!

Before we moved out we decided we wanted to be in a house by may...well we weren't quite ready then but we did start looking for houses in may!  May, June, July, August all came and gone and we didn't find or win anything we liked.  Talking with our realtor (Ethan Hardinger)  we thought more houses were going to be released in october so we decided to not be as aggressive in looking and kinda slow down a bit.  That next week I saw a few houses on MLS that interested me so i sent over the ML# to Ethan to see when we could go see them.  

We ended up going to 2 houses. (this is on Sat. Aug. 24, 2013)  One was a one story but trashed and had a weird layout.  We kept saying we wanted a one story three car garage, but every one story we looked at was older or not in the right area.  This other one was a two story up in Providence.  We didn't really want a two story and we didn't really want to live in Providence because we didn't want to pay all the fees.  But we were already there and decided to go in and check it out.  

Usually when i look at houses i am super thorough and look in everything and turn everything on.  Well we walk in this house and i just get this feeling like this might be our house.  We do a super quick walk through, i hardly touch anything but steve and i just both had this smile on our face.  We loved the layout! It was a 3 bedroom with an office downstairs and a loft upstairs! 

As we leave the house i tell steve that i had that feeling and he said he did too!  As we were walking down the stairs he said "next time i touch this wall it could be mine!"  So we went home to discuss what we wanted to offer.  The market at this point in time was a sellers market.  Home prices were going up and if you really wanted the house you had to offer more than asking price.  Well it was listed for $179.999 so we were discussing $185.  We went to cafe rio with my family and i was just freaking out about it. I didn't know what to do.  Finally i said to steve lets just offer $180 and if we get it then it is meant to be and if we don't then there is something else out there!

Well we officially signed our papers to submit the offer on the next day, Sun Aug 25, 2013.  We decided to drive up there and look at the house and see if we were going to be ok living all the way out in Providence!  Well it started pouring rain on our way up!  For those of you who don't know we LOVE the rain-its kinda our thing-we played in the rain the first day we met and it has rained on a few other important days in our life.  So i look at steve and say "its RAINING! on the day we put our offer in on this house! What if we get it!" 

On monday the next day i get a call from Ethan saying that our offer was ACCEPTED! holy cow it just got real! i got scared/excited!  All sorts of emotions were going through me the next few days.  It is a scary decision but we prayed about it and everything felt right!  It was a traditional sale so it was going to go fast!  We got everything ready, filled out, and handled!  It closed like 2 and a half weeks after that! 

We got our keys September 17, 2013.  That night we were at the house getting things ready to be cleaned and i noticed the date!  We met October 17, 2010, were engaged November 17, 2010 and now officially got our house on Sept 17th!  It is crazy! i decided 17 is our lucky number!!  

went up to see our house the day we put the offer in!
WE LOVE THE RAIN!!

a heart in the clouds!

This is it!

moving day

Guest Bedroon

Living room 

Nail and eyelash room

Kitchen being put together

Loft

Office

Master Bedroom

Its all coming together!!

OUr Adventure Aug 15-20, 2013

Steve and I have this love for roller coasters.  When we lived in our apartment we would watch the travel channel and the top 10 roller coasters in the world.  Well all these roller coasters kept showing up at Cedar Point so steve and i kept saying one day we will go there!

We didn't have any big plans so i was talking to steve about planning a trip.  I asked him if he wanted to go tropical or go on our roller coaster adventure.  He chose the coasters!  So i began to research!  After weeks of planning and researching we got our flight and booked our hotels!

It was such an amazing trip and something that we will have to do again one year! We flew into Cleveland Ohio and drove to Sandusky where Cedar Point was located.  The next morning we got up and started our journey there.  OH MY GOSH...THESE ROLLER COASTERS WERE AMAZING!!! The biggest, fastest, longest roller coasters you have ever seen!  After every ride your head is all shaken up! Not to mention the view! It is located right on Lake Eire so every time you go up a roller coaster you just see all this water! It is absolutely beautiful! The next day we went back to Cedar Point to ride the rest of the rides and do the water park that is connected! It was such a great time!

On Sunday we woke up and drove down to Cincinnati. On the way down there we stopped at the Columbus Ohio Temple.  It was beautiful, it looked just like a picture.  It was such a beautiful drive down there.  It took us about 3 hours and it was soo green and had a ton of corn fields.  I loved seeing that part of the country.  We tried Skyline Chili which is a sweet chili that they serve on spaghetti.  And we played monster mini golf which was a blast!!

On Monday we went to Kings Island which was a lot of fun but definitely not as good at Cedar Point.  But the view from these roller coasters was also amazing.  All you could see were trees!  Huge green trees.  You couldn't even see the other roller coasters in the park because the trees were covering them! it was awesome. The roller coasters were comparable to six flags which is still a lot of fun, but after you experience Cedar Point nothing is as wild and crazy! We were able to ride all the rides and hit up the water park.

On tuesday we woke up and drove through downtown Cincinnati and Kentucky!  It was pretty awesome!  We went mini golfing at then headed to the airport!  It was such a great trip! i love traveling with my husband and making memories throughout the world!

The Captain let me sit in the cockpit!

Top Thrill Dragster in the back...our favorite coaster!

Columbus Ohio Temple 

Soak City Water Park

Elephant ear!! kind of tastes like a churro!

BIRTHDAY BOY!

Happy 27th Birthday to my Husband!

You know that i love birthdays! well steve on the other hand makes it really hard for me to make his birthday special! He always does such a great job spoiling me and making such a big deal out of everything and to be honest i have not been that great at doing the same!

The problem is this boy loves so many expensive things! :) don't get me wrong, this boy gets spoiled!  It just doesn't happen on his birthday because he buys his birthday presents for himself like 3 months early.  So this makes it really hard for me!! 

BUT

This year i decided i need to make it special so i had to get creative!  I have a few things planned for him that i will update after the weekend!! 

UNTIL THEN...LOOK AT THIS  HOT  GUY!

don't tell anyone but we are getting close to 30! crazy!!

This we his birthday present!!

We have to remember the mustache he grew when he was 26! He loved it!

GOOD BYE 26...HELLO 27!!

4th of July FUN!!!

As we all know we love the beach! It was an amazing trip as always. There really isn't too much to say because we usually do the same thing when we go down there, but we've started going to Huntington instead of New Port which has some pretty fun things!  We usually take a walk up by the pier and there are some cool street venders with all sorts of things going on! This time we got some ice cream and snacks that were delicious!

Something else that we love is Baum Burger! Just up from the beach there are a ton of shops and places to eat.  Baum Burger is usually where we stop!  I must say it is pretty Baum!!

One of the highlights of the trip was the Angels Game we went to on the 4th of July! The Angels came back in the 6th inning and hit a home run and won the game! It was beautiful weather and beautiful fireworks!

I just love all the memories we create!!  

So grateful for our mini vacations we get to take every year! it is just nice to get away from everything and do whatever we want!!