New Toy

Want to know what Kyle gave me along with my beautiful flowers??

THIS:

That's right. A nook. I am SO EXCITED.

While Kyle is at "guys night" I will be enjoying my new toy with a bottle of wine and a chick flick on in the background.

Happy Friday Night!


p.s. I am proud to announce that the old house is CLEANED and DONE. No more ghetto-ville!

Surprise!

I came home from work yesterday to find this in the house:

Kyle has been extremely SWAMPED (times 2) at work so I have been handling unpacking and cleaning up the new house, plus other odds and ends...and Kyle just wanted to say "Thanks." The flowers did a wonderful job, but he topped it off with another gift, too!

You will have to wait to hear more about "the gift" until later...just so you know I am SUPER excited!!!

Gold's Gym

That's right...I'm getting back onto the bandwagon and starting to hit up the gym again. The last year my life has been turned upside down...my support system left in Fargo, my fellow friends that workout left in Fargo, and it was up to me to find ways to work out on my own last year. Do you think that happened? No. I have issues working out alone. I need someone telling me what to do, or I need to go with someone. So not much happened last year...

BUT

...I am starting fresh. I've spent a year without my close friends and am getting used to it (tear!) but even though I am not huge on New Year resolutions (obviously as it took me a whole year and a month to get a membership) but I do set goals. And I have a huge reason to get back into shape....my bestest friend in the whole wide world is getting married in JULY.

So, as I sign up for Body Pump and Cycle classes, I can already hear my body moan and groan...but I miss feeling sore after a good workout. After experiencing the Texas cuisine for a year now, I realize it is way too good to avoid, so I might as well start working out so I can enjoy the Mexican goodness covered in queso and the ribs that are to die for and the goodies brought to work...

So. On to the gym! Wish me luck :)

Vertically Challenged

We are now on an indoor volleyball league for the winter. And, might I add, we actually have a winter! It was in the 20's last night...I even had to defrost my windshield as I sat in my car this morning (I lost my ice scraper LONG ago). High of 48 today...not bad...but I miss the 70 degree weather.

Anyway. Volleyball. This time we actually knew everyone that is on the team minus one person. We used our sand team, and subtracted a couple and added a couple different ones. Again, everyone on the team is not from San Antonio. I'll explain.
Left to Right. Alia, originally from Florida. She is in law, and has hopes of moving on to CA someday. Me. Jason, originally from Spokane, Washington (works with Kyle). Kyle. Stephanie, originally from Kansas. Her husband was supposed to join us as well, but had work conflicts so will not be on the team this season. Chris, now fiance of a player who is not pictured. He is originally from El Paso, but has lived in Scottsdale, AZ for the past 10 years and recently relocated to San Anotonio with his girlfriend, Breion (not pictured), not too long ago. She is from the Midwest originally, and now is a doctor here in San Antonio.

Even though we come from all over the country, we have fun and play volleyball, and hopefully will do more things together. We all have common interests, so should be a fun year! Now let's hope our volleyball season goes well too...so far 1-1.

Have a great weekend!

Not-so-Little Tuck-Man

Can you tell what my life revolves around? House and dog. So, since I have focused on the house more recently, I'll show you a few pics of Tucker I took via my phone the other night. Kyle and I were busy assembling some shelving (something along those lines) and all of a sudden I was like, "Kyle, I don't hear Tucker. Where is he?" (It's like a toddler. If you can't hear them...they are more than likely doing something they shouldn't be!)

We both were ready to jump up and look for him when he popped his head up...he was laying on our bed! He had jumped up and snuggled right in. We do NOT want him on the bed or furniture, but he was so darn cute and sleepy it was hard to move him! It's harder now than ever because he is solid muscle and he finally found out how to coordinate his back legs with his front and jump. So before we shooed him off the bed, this is what he looked like:



Even though he is not a tiny puppy anymore, he is a medium puppy and still Oh So CUTE. I have never seen anything melt Kyle the way this dog does. Kyle caves in a second once Tuck lays his puppy eyes on him ;)

I'm Confused...

Not sure if it is just because my life has been revolving around buying a house/moving this past month, or if it is just because I am growing up and my priorities are changing (can't be! ;) but lately I have been day dreaming about things I usually don't dream about.

Usually I dream all day long about fabulous heels, like these:




Now I find myself dreaming about going to Home Depot and the Container Store. You read right, the Containter Store. Have you ever heard of it? It's an organizer's dream come true. I stalk their site and dream of doing things to my closet like this:



I also would love, LOVE, to have my spare closets organized...just like the Container Store shows here:


It doesn't help that the Container Store is DIRECTLY across the street from me and they are having a CLOSET SALE going on right now. Maybe during my lunch...

Anyway, I am sure my love of shoes will come back to me once we are unpacked and done living out of boxes. :)

Have a great weekend, hope you do something fun. I'll be unpacking!

Girl Time

I am going to spare you boring details of the house today. Not much new...started moving items over last night and hope to be done moving before the rain hits this weekend.

But, other than that, I have been realizing lately that I miss my girlfriends! It's not the same feeling as being homesick, its more of a "I miss talking to my girlfriends" feeling. Being down here in Texas is great, and I am having a wonderful time seeing new places, meeting new people, etc, but I am missing out on one key factor. My girls! I spend too much time with the boys!

Just so I don't drag this out and make it too sappy or too much of a pity party, just a shout out to all my wonderful, amazing, talented, gorgeous female friends up north! Missing you all!

Move In Ready

This is where I would LOVE to be right now. Away from the 'cold' (45 degrees) and getting a massage for my beat-up body. Being on a beach in a tropical location never hurt, either ;)

After this weekend, I feel like I've been hit by a bus...BUT; Good News. We have all the painting 100% DONE. All the outlet and lightswitch covers are on. Light Fixtures are back up. Blinds are back up. Garage is even painted! You know what that means? WE CAN MOVE IN!

It only took all night Friday night, 12+ hours on Saturday, and about 10 hours on Sunday to 'finish up', but we did it. It's ready. There were trials and tribulations along the way, and only about 10 bruises on each leg from our lovely ladder we borrowed from Kyle's work. Its nick-name is "The Widow Maker." (Note to self...we need a ladder). We are missing 2 outlet covers, and decided to retire the old shower curtain rod and use it as a 5-Gallon paint stir stick. All-in-all, we did pretty good. Nothing major lost or damaged, and no tools lost!

So, now we can move in. Think I have everything packed and ready to go? NOPE.

On to the next chapter...

Sneak Peek

Just wanted to share with you a sneak peek at the colors we are painting in the house. I have to admit, we are about 92% done with painting, and the house is looking GREAT! I can't wait to move in!

Here are some (not all!) of the colors we chose:

Hopefully after this weekend I can take pictures of the FINISHED paint job so you can see it all together!

Have a great weekend, and if you do something fun, think of me...painting. ;)

House Update

I thought since the cat is out of the bag and most everyone knows we purchased a home, it is time to update you on what is going on. (Since that is currenlty consuming our lives, I'll blog about it!)

The house was previously owned by a single bachelor that fell onto hard times, and recently became a chain-smoker. Needless to say, there was the smell of smoke in the house. Not what we wanted, but the house has so much potential, we decided to power through.

We began by cleaning. If you know Kyle, cleaning is a must. Not just "wipe down" and be done. Cleaning with Kyle is a "get on your hands and knees and SCRUB!" So that is what we did. We wiped down all the walls, trim, ceiling and floors with bleach. We also wiped down all the wood blinds and kitchen and bathroom cupboards. We washed all the light fixtures and ceiling fans. We replaced every single lightbulb in the house (the smoke stays on the lightbulbs, so we changed them!) I lost track of how many ash-color buckets of water we went through, but in the end, I am glad Kyle made me scrub! After our week-long cleaning was done, the house smelled better already. FYI: This was the first swipe Kyle took on the walls. Can you see why we cleaned so much?!?!

Once the cleaning was done...next up was priming. Kyle did a ton of research (anyone surprised??) and decided to go with an oil-based primer to ensure the smell would be gone. After finishing priming in a day, if that oil-based didn't kill the smell, it was going to kill us. I am pretty sure we were all high at the end of the day- that is very powerful stuff! We had 2 of Kyle's co-workers come and help us out, we knocked out all the priming in 3 hours. (Kyle and I finished up a few spots the next day, but 95% was done in 3 hours.)

Some of Kyle's co-workers that came to help us prime.

After all the priming was done...the house was a blank canvas. Even just in pure white primer, the house looked 10x better than what it did. (Maybe I was still high at this point?! haha) So, a few days before Kyle and I left for MN, we painted. Kyle had the sprayer from work, so with the help of a friend we painted the ceiling and all the walls. Everything had paint before we left. Only the trim was left.

This week, we are trimming. Last night we worked until midnight finishing trim. (NOTE: At this point, we are both fully prepared to set aside X amount of dollars on our next house to PAY a professional to come and paint for us. Once is enough ;)

We are hoping by the end of the week all painting will be done and we can start moving in!

happy new year

Happy New Year!

After a couple weeks off spent at home, I was able to see family (my seeing-friends trip was canceled due to SNOW) and have a ton of fun.

The 19 hour drive home went as good as it could, and Tucker slept the ENTIRE way home. He did amazing! He made instant friends with Chester and Trigger, and even payed his respects to the older pups, Maggie and Hershey. He was also spoiled rotten by every other family member. He is bored and lonely now in TX!

We were able to go out and enjoy a warm(ish) day in the snow at the Bruns', and snapped a few pics while we were at it. Tucker loved the snow, and I even had fun in it! (I am not a huge snow fan). We got the four-wheeler out and took the sled for a run.

I have way more to post about and more pictures to share and more thoughts to type...but this is a nice short and sweet post, a welcome-back post. These pictures, on the other hand, remind me that snow can be fun, but I am still loving my warm TX weather... ;)