Steven And Kristen

It’s about time I get some pictures up from our vacation this year.  Here you go!  Travel with us won’t you??

In order to not overload you with pictures there are just a few from each day.  Just enough to whet your appetite.

Our hotel room at Disney. They even made Mickey out of the towels

The Haunted Mansion

If you could only actually tell how hot it was outside.

Steven's a pirate!!!

Waiting to ride the Riverboat

We had dinner the first night at the Grand Floridian

Epcot was also not crowded. Awesome!!

Fireworks at Epcot. The show has not changed in years.

Steven in front on Mount Everest at Animal Kingdom

Tree of Life. This thing is amazing!

We missed Jack so we tried to find a goat that sort of looked like him but they wouldn't let us take him for the night

The castle at night

This is an all new show. It was great! The fireworks came from all sides and it has an entire pirates section. Awesome!

Rockin Rollercoaster at Hollywood Studios

The car stunt show was amazing! Where do people learn to drive like that??

Our hotel in Sanibel (it was actually in Fort Myers)

The view from our hotel room

On our sunset cruise

At the J.N. Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge

At dinner with Kristen and Chris in Fort Myers

The lighthouse on Sanibel

One of the coolest things we did. The Sanibel Thriller is a high speed catamaran that takes a tour around the island and does somewhat of a dolphin cruise.

One of the many dolphins that played in the wake of the boat

Riding the Thriller

It has been a long day already but we have our curtains installed now too.  Here are a few pictures.  Mainly so Steven can see what he is missing while at work.  =)

The color is not as bold in this picture as they really are...

Hopefully with my 4 day work weeks over the summer, I will get a chance to edit photos from our vacation tomorrow and get those posted as quickly as possible.  However, in the interim, here are a few new pictures of some decorating done in our house.  We are having our dining room table and server delivered tomorrow as well as our curtains installed so expect pictures of that soon.  We are also getting around to putting up pictures in the house so our walls are not so bare.

This half wall is one of my favorite things about the house. I love that I can decorate it and it shows up in two rooms. Plus, it really helps to open up the floorplan.

Not my best picture... we are getting a larger tv (before football season) too but maybe not for a while.

I am in love with my new pillows. They are going to match our curtains perfectly!!!

Finally found a place for the Olympic torch! Maybe now people will notice it.

Guest bedroom

Guest bathroom

So, I have a few new pictures showing random rooms in various states of decoration that I plan to try to post tomorrow but I wanted to get these pictures online so we can get some feedback on just what tried to infiltrate our yard today…

This evening Steven was trying to see if our sprinklers have been rerouted yet to the correct side of our fence and he decided to call me outside to have a looksie at something.  He called me out and informed me that I needed to view what was in the valve box (which is likely not the correct terminology for something like that but he can correct me because that’s what my laymen’s terms wants to refer to it as.)  Immediately my thought was, “Great, a snake.”  He told me just to “check it out.”  There was a four foot (give or take) snake curled around the valve.  I swear we have seen more wildlife here than we ever did in any of our other houses.  The day we meet a bear on our walk with Jack, I’m never leaving the house again.

I brought Steven a shovel and we got rid of the snake so no worries about that… but here is Steven with his first “save the family” moment in the new house…

I probably could have gotten a better picture, but I was terried to get any closer regardless of whether or not it was dead.

Because that is all my brain can handle at the moment.  8 meetings today and technically there were 2 at the same time 4 times.  I’m DONE….

Our piano on the wall next to the kitchen (behind the "living room")

The formal dining room

Guest bedroom

Second bathroom

One side of our office

Other side of the office (by the door)

The fence being started

The other side of the house with the posts for the fence. When it was like this, I felt like we should own horses for some reason.

Having a horse would be fun...

Fence... coming soon!

From one corner of the backyard to another

The fence is now finished and we got a few new decorative items for the house that I hope to take a picture of soon.

Everyone tells the same horror stories about closing and the first few nights in a new house (specifically a newly built one where you have all new things that have never been used) but this past week has been crazy for us!

Let’s start with Friday, shall we??  My parents and little bro came into town to help us move.  Friday before they got here Steven and I went to the new house to take over a load of odd shaped items like we had been doing for days.  Well, we got there and tried our garage door opener and it didn’t work.  So, we went inside and tried it from the inside… still didn’t work.  Steven tried to unlock the door and raise it physically but the lock appeared to be jammed and we were unable to open it that way. We eventually unplugged it from the ceiling and strung an extension cord to the wall before figuring out how to open it manually through the main unit on the ceiling. Bad things happen in threes right?  I didn’t think that of that but there were at least two more things to come over that weekend.

Saturday we loaded up the trailer and four different trucks plus my car and my parents’ SUV with a few very helpful friends of ours.  We got almost everything into the vehicles we had and only ended up needing to do one load.  We hired movers from a few of our larger pieces of furniture.  They were supposed to be there between 11 & 1…. guess who didn’t show up until closer to 3 or so??  They were running late at their prior job and didn’t make it on time.  Even with being late these are the best movers we have found thus far.  They are super fast but very careful and they have moved us two different times.  Neither time did they even bump a wall or door.  The first time was into our condo so anyone who had ever seen that place knows how hard it probably was to move in when we had three floors and our condo technically didn’t start until the second floor of the building.  Steven was already at the new house waiting for the cable guy who was set to be there between 2 & 4.  Guess who didn’t show up until closer to 7 or so??  These people were getting ridiculous.  He hooked up our cable but it was too dark to bury the cable so he had to return on Sunday to do that.  Saturday night was our first night in the new house and Jack was not the happiest of dogs.  He stuck very close to us all night and most of Sunday but he is fine now and has adjusted very well.  He seems to like the new house and definitely seems to like having carpet again.  He doesn’t just spend all his time in his bed but actually sits with us some since he can lay on the carpet.  It’s nice to actually have a dog again.

Sunday we spent part of the day unpacking the kitchen.  That is definitely the final room you pack in a house and the first room you unpack (as long as your clothes don’t count because that it technically first).  We loaded up the dishwasher to wash the glasses that had been packed in newspaper and lo and behold the dishwasher has NO power.  We spent an hour flipping breakers and trying different things before giving up hope we could fix it ourselves.  To make the best of the situation and get something done, we decided to wash the dishes by hand.  Part way through washing the dishes I realized that the water was not hot.  Yeah… the hot water heater was not longer working.  While most of what we needed done could be held off a few days, not having hot water was not an option.  The plumber didn’t get to our house until close to 10:15 on Sunday night and we didn’t get hot water until around 11:30.  Apparently there was some sort of power surge or someone “dry fired” the water heater and one of the elements in the water heater blew out.

Monday night when we got home we had a smoke detector beeping.  By the way, Jack is terrified of that noise.  I can only imagine how loud it must seem to a dog.  We have already replaced the battery in this detector once so we knew that wasn’t our issue.  When Steven pulled it down from the ceiling we realized that of the three wires that hardwired it into the house, only two were hooked up.  Steven was luckily able to fix this one himself.

The garage door person came this morning and it is likely that a power surge is what threw our garage door off but it is fixed now.  We have the electrician coming on Monday for the dishwasher and the carpeting person on Monday as well to remove whatever is causing the lump under the carpet in our master closet that they forgot to work on before we closed and we didn’t notice until after closing.  I also have to be at the old house tonight at 5pm so they can show it to a potential renter.  I can’t wait to have just one house again and have the time to actually unpack and move into OUR house.  I’m tired and Steven and I have both been sick this week with all the activity, lack of sleep, and increase in stress.  It’s time to live in one place and not have to worry about all of this.  I’m definitely ready for that.

Here are some pictures of the add ons we have been putting into the house since closing last week.  We move next week and the house is already starting to come together.

Our new fan

We have one in the livingroom and a matching one in the master

Our washer and dryer. You practically need a masters degree to operate these things

Our new light in the nook. Way better than that ugly white light... now we just need a new table for the nook.

Our light over the bar/sink area. The guy said it would look great over a pool table too.

Although the picture doesn't really show it, our new living room furniture is actually dark brown. Not black. You can tell in the sun but it is very dark. Still love it!

Our new bedroom set. Finally! A king bed!!

Our new comforter set. I'm not sure yet how I feel about the bed skirt yet. Steven hasn't seen it yet so he will get to make the decision about whether or not we use it.

It's like a Marriot bed with all the pillows

1. Be prepared to provide the same 10 pieces of paper (bank statements, insurance docs, etc) at least 17 times to the same person before closing.  Don’t worry.  They didn’t lose them… they just assure you that even though you have email documentation proving that they have it, they somehow got lost in the email vortex and they never recieved them.

2. You think you spend a lot prior to closing in good faiths, studio deposits, and closing costs but it is nothing compared to the money you spend once you close.  Ceiling fan installation, delivery of appliances, furniture costs… it never ends.

3. You will not get your final numbers for closing until no more than 30 minutes before closing.  Apparently while you were stressing for months on end, everyone else was goofing off and forgot how to do math until an hour before you close.

4. Even though you set up closing for 2 in the afternoon, be prepared for stress (and frantic phone calls to your loan officer) to start around 9 am and continue until 5pm when someone hands you the keys.

5. It is vital you eat at least one meal on the floor.  What is buying or moving into a new house and not needing to eat on the floor?  A travesty… that’s what.

6. You will be required to take random times off work the week or two after closing in order to accommodate all those people you had to hire to come out to your house for any given reason…. and all those people will have questions about the housing market which you must just be an expert in now that you have a house and made it through all the required hoops to get a mortgage.  Just nod, smile, and agree with whatever they say.  They will work faster if you don’t distract them with your thoughts and maybe you can go back to work.

7. There is no such thing as having “too many friends” when you are trying to move.

8.  Be prepared because something will go wrong.  Whether it is an extreme arguement over a light fixture, having construction crews steal your power, or chasing teenagers off your lawn (and you aren’t even old and ornery yet)… something will go wrong.

9. With all the people coming and going during the move in process, someone is bound to track dirt on your new tile/carpet/flooring.  Remember the vacuum and don’t freak out.  It’s just carpeting and it is likely your 110 pound dog will “break in” the carpeting when he arrives anyway.  (Maybe that last part is just us and our oaf of a dog but I’m sure his nails and our carpet won’t be friends.)

10. You have to take time to laugh about the process.  Stressing continuously over whether or not the bank has everything, whether your stove will arrive by closing, whether the paint rollers are losing fuzz when you try to use them, or any number of issues… they will be funny one day.  Make sure to take the time to create the memories because it is something you should never forget.

Now, we have lived in a “house” for some time (as opposed to a condo or apartment) so we are well aware of the difference in maintanance for a house vs. another type of living situation.  However, we were not necessarily entirely prepared for living in our own house, much less a brand new one that no on has lived in before so they may not have been nice enough to leave a fan or something.  We started our morning halting all ongoing construction on the homes around us when we turned up and the workers were running their saws and other electric items off of our outlets and our power.  Negative Ghost Rider!  That’s not going to work.  They got very angry, stared at us until their supervisor showed up at which time they yelled at him, and then somehow found a magic generator that was able to power their electric stuff without having to run off our house.  Technically our power doesn’t change to our name until Monday but we had to set a precedent today so we don’t get a huge power bill for the month we didn’t even live there yet.

We started our first full day as homeowners very early this morning.  So early in fact that I am wondering why I am writing a post now instead of sleeping.  We first stopped by Lowes to pick up some board to put in the attic so we can put Christmas in the attic.  We stopped at Lowes before realizing that the specific board we wanted was at Home Depot.  So, we trudged on over there (they are across the street from one another so really it wasn’t much of a trip).

We got the board and went on to the house.  Steven put the board in the attic with the help of his parents while I did something inside that I no longer remember…. oh, I cleaned the windows on the inside and the inside and outside of the glass doors.  Our front door looks so great!  Thank you Mom and Dad Young!!

The blinds guy was supposed to be there at 10 but he was running a little late.  He made it by 10:30 so it really wasn’t a big deal.  I must admit that I am so glad that we hired a company to put the blinds in because we would still be there yelling about the first one.  He finished in less than an hour and they look amazing!  Thank you Mom and Joe!!

While the blinds guy was working we worked on painting the garage wall.  We had primer and had to do two coats but it was worth it.  It took us the majority of our day today to do that but it was the plan anyway and it looks really good now.

We had some lunch in between the two coats of paint and had a “picnic” in our garage.  We even had fun background noise with them working on every house around us.  Saws are not the best type of lunch time ambiance noise.  It’s worth it though to have neighbors soon and you can’t hear it inside the house anyway.

After lunch, while we were working on the second coat of paint Sears showed up with our appliances.  Those delivery guys were awesome!  They brought in our washer, dryer, and refrigerator without even nicking a wall.   It was great and our house finally looks closer to being “complete.”

After all of that we really hit a brick wall in home ownership.  Thursday night we finally found a nook light and a bar light… somehow we were talked out of paying for installation through Lowes.  Not good for us.  After arguing for what seemed like forever this afternoon and finally giving up, I spent an hour in Lowes having them help me set up installation on the lights.  From now on we always pay the extra for installation.  My sanity is worth more to me than whatever they will be charging for installation.

This afternoon we also found out that our awesome tree must be kind of like some sort of lookout bluff were kids go to make out or something.  We look out back and there are two high school aged kids “necking” under our tree.  I went outside (very loudly so I would be noticed) and our conversation went something like this…

Me: “Hi… you’re hanging out at my house I see?”

Girl: “You live here?”

Me: “Yep.”

Girl: “Oh!  We thought no one lived here.”  (Did the house built on the lot throw you off… really?  Of course someone would sooner or later…)

Me: “Yeah… so you can hang out for now but just as a warning: we will be putting up a fence and do have a pretty large dog too…”

Then silence… and they packed up and left as soon as I walked inside.  They had a full on “picnic” going on themselves.  Blanket, food, drinks… It was kind of crazy.

We sealed the garage floor after the appliances were delivered and after we argued about the light.  It looks pretty good and I’m glad we did it now because we can’t put anything on it for about 3 days which gives us plenty of drying time before we move in two weeks.

We went to dinner tonight and Steven and his mom are out walking Jack now.  My feet hurt too much for that.  Tomorrow we have big plans too.  Steven and I were supposed to go in the afternoon to Palatka to see my grandparents before they leave but my grandfather might be in the hospital for an extra day or so before they leave so we may not make it up.  We have a ton to do at home though too so I’m sure we’ll be able to busy ourselves.

Here are some pictures of the happenings and new items in our house.

Our picnic in the garage

Our new blinds in the nook

The top of the blinds

Working hard