Trunk or Treat

Last night we had our Trunk or Treat at the church

Here's our little bum:

He's a pretty cute little hobo if I may say so myself...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Hilarious Video

Terror and joy, together at last.

Catch Up

Wow, I haven't posted in MONTHS -- and usually that happens because nothing new has happened and our lives are temporarily boring -- but, this time our lives have been anything but boring. We've had a ton going on and I think I'm finally catching my breath enough to get organized again.

So here's what has been going on with us:

March:
Luke got a job offer at a pharmaceutical plant in Colorado. He accepted it and we had 4 weeks to finish our massive master bedroom/bathroom renovation and then get packed up so he could start mid-April. The clock was ticking and boy, did we work our tales off. My wonderful sister, Amy, even came out for a week to help out. She was a lifesaver! She even let Luke and I sneak away for a night in Chicago (our last big hurrah in the big city before the move). She's so great.

Seth also learned to walk during her visit. He just decided it was time and got up and took off. I'm not kidding. He had taken a few steps between Luke and I before, so Amy and I were having him practice walking between us and he stood up, walked down the hall, precariously made the corner into his bedroom and that was that. He's been walking ever since. That's so Seth's personality though. He doesn't do much unless he knows he can do it, and do it well.



April:

We got everything packed up, said our good-bye's, left our cute little house, and set off for Colorado. Luke's company put us up in temporary housing (read: a hotel) and that's where we lived for two months. You may think living in a hotel sounds fun, but after about 2 days it starts to get really old. Seth wasn't a big fan. He would wake up from his nap, go to the door and say "shoes." That was his way of telling me we needed to get out of that claustrophobic room. We spent a lot of time hitting all the parks in the area (which surprisingly, there are a ton of them).

Even though he likes all the swings and playground equipment, one of his favorite things to do at the park is to plop down and play in the dirt. Yep, he's boy through and through.

April was also filled with a lot of house hunting. We only had 60 days of temporary housing, so we knew we only had about a month to find a house. We were blessed with a super great realtor that was so perfect for us. She led us through the ups and downs of the process (3 offers, 2 bidding wars, lots of frustration, etc.) and we finally found the perfect house mid-May, just in time to close before our temporary housing was up.

May:
Like I said, we found our house in the middle part of May. It was quite the saga, and if you have no interest in our house hunt, skip the next part because it is a long story.

We had been looking and looking and we finally found a home that we liked, so we decided to put an offer on it. While we had an offer on that home, Sandy, our realtor, called me and said a home just came on the market in a neighborhood that we had our eye on, and asked if we were interested in looking at it. We figured it couldn't hurt, so we met up during Luke's lunch break and took a tour. We really liked it. In fact, we liked it even better than the home that we had an offer on. Because the sellers of the first home had not responded yet, we decided to pull our offer and put an offer on the second home. After a few hours of waiting for a response, Sandy called and said that there was another offer on the 2nd home and they had sent both offers back and told us to submit our best and final offer. We did and we lost.
Back to square one.
A couple of days later, we walked through another home and loved it. All the way through, we were both saying, "This might be it." We talked about it on the way to the next home we were scheduled to see, and by the time we got there, decided we wanted to put an offer on it. It was perfect. Sandy called the office to get the paperwork started and she was told that the home had just gone under contract one hour before. Ahhh!!
About a week later, we walked through two homes that we really liked. They were surprisingly similar, but the second one just had a good feeling to it. Nice floorplan, needed a little work, but nothing we couldn't handle, and a huge, gorgeous backyard and good neighborhood. We put an offer on it. At this point, we were feeling like we were putting an offer on any home that wasn't a dump --- but that wasn't the case -- we were seeing dozens of homes between these offers. But, it kinda felt that way. A couple hours after submitting an offer, we got a call from Sandy who told us that there was ANOTHER OFFER on this home!!! We got into a massive bidding war for this one and lost. The other buyers ended up $30,000 over asking price!
Now we were really discouraged. We were running out of time and just plain sick of looking. It was such a crazy thing. Sandy said she'd only been in a handful of full-out bidding wars in her 30 year career and none in the last 5 years -- and then she's in two with us!
About a week later, I saw a listing for a foreclosure that looked really nice. I was hesitant because it wasn't in the neighborhood that we had our eye on, it was a foreclosure and you never know what you are going to get with those, and it was at the very top of our price range. But, I kept going back to the listing all day. I couldn't get it off my mind. Finally, I gave Luke a call and we decided to take a look at it. Sandy arrived before we did to open up the house and turn on the lights and as soon as I walked in and saw her face I said, "This is it, isn't it." She nodded and said, "Ya, I think this is finally your house."
We toured it and both of us knew that our home search was over. It just felt SO right. The others we liked, and we could see ourselves in them, but this one was meant to be ours. We just knew it. Unfortunately, we viewed it on a Friday evening, and being that it was a foreclosure, the banks wouldn't be open to review our offer until Monday morning at the earliest -- leaving the whole weekend available for other offers to come in. But, we submitted our offer very carefully (foreclosure offer paperwork is the devil), said a little prayer, and waited. And waited.
On the previous homes, I had sent my mom and sisters pictures of the homes because we figured that they'd be ours soon, but on this last one, Luke and I said, "We aren't going to send any pictures. In fact, maybe we shouldn't even tell anyone about it or it'll jinx it."
We didn't hear from the bank until Wednesday afternoon. They countered our offer and we accepted it. (It turns out that there were several other offers on the home over the weekend, but our offer paperwork was done the most correctly, so they considered our offer first, even though we weren't the highest bid.) After a pretty clean inspection, we were in the clear and closed just 2 days before our temporary housing ran out. Whew.
(And another interesting twist to the story: Sandy called one day and said, "So, you might be interested to know about the homes you were in bidding wars for? Both of the deals fell through." Crazy, huh? One more testament to say that "Everything happens for a reason." We were meant to be in this house and in the ward and neighborhood we are in.

Besides the crazy house hunt, the month of May was also eventful because Luke's brother got married at the end of the month in the Salt Lake Temple. We made the drive (so happy to be close enough to drive!) to Luke's aunt's house and took part in a whole weekend of celebration. It was so fun to be all together with Luke's family for a few days, especially since we hadn't all been together in about 3 years because of Gordon's mission, most of us living far away, etc.
The wedding day was perfect. There's just something magical about two people starting their lives off together that makes me feel all mushy. It's so fun to watch that new love. And it makes me reminisce my own special day -- the best day ever.

Seth was extra cute in his little suit Grandma Brenda got him.

Seth was my dancing partner:

June:
After the wedding, Luke flew back to Colorado and I drove to Idaho and spent two weeks with my family. Again, so fun to be with family. I've really, really missed being close and spending time with everyone. It was also really fun to see Seth getting to know his cousins and grandparents. He hammed it up pretty good for everyone.



My sister and I ran our first 5K while I was visiting. I'd never done any kind of race before and it was fun! The course was super hard -- it was straight uphill for 1.3 miles -- and it was tough. I'm happy to say that I placed second in my age group, but with a significant incline for half of it, my time was crappy, so I'm looking forward to reducing my time for the next race.



I made the 8 hour drive back to Colorado June 13th, we closed on the house June 14th, and moved the 15th and 16th. How's that for a crazy week?

Since then, we've been unpacking, and trying to make the house our home. After 2+ months without most of our stuff, it was like Christmas morning opening the boxes and getting all our stuff back! ;) 

And, it wouldn't be one of our homes if it didn't have some projects, so we'll keep you posted as we accomplish a few of them. Right now we are being patient so we can figure out what we want to do for sure. Sometimes we rush into things too quickly and regret it, so this time we are going to take our time. We're in no hurry, since we are hoping this is our forever house. Here's to hoping! :)

Master Suite Project

Let me preface this by saying we had no idea we would be moving so fast when we started this project. Otherwise, I don't think we would have gone to so much work! :) So, while we only got to enjoy it for a few weeks, I'm glad that we got to do a whole renovation project from start to finish. It really opened our eyes as to what really goes into a massive project like this.

So without further ado, here's the before's of what we had to work with:

The bathroom was pretty much completely open to the bedroom area, which was just weird.  We debated about how much to close up and due to effort and expense concerns, we decided to just put up walls around the shower and toilet area -- that's where you need the most privacy anyway -- and leave the tub and vanity open, but around the corner. We pretty much demolished everything with this reno, except for the vanity box because we decided to just reface the doors.

Demo! Ugh...what a mess!

After 2 1/2 months of work, we finally ended up with the after's:

We learned so much doing this project and believe it or not, I think we'd do it again...Or maybe I would. Luke may have a whole 'nother story to tell. :)

Apology

I know I promised to be "right back" to post the full low-down on the master suite project, but life (read: moving) has gotten in the way. We arrived in Colorado safe and sound and we're trying to adjust to our temporary apartment living as best we can. Our camera cord, however, has not arrived in Colorado, so no pictures yet! I know, no pictures = lame post, but we're hoping to have some soon.
We're loving it here so far!

What we've been up to...and some news

It's been months since I've posted, but that's mostly because things have been a little crazy around here. A few months ago, we decided to tackle our biggest house project to date: our master suite. It was like a blast from the past walking in there -- total 80's land -- so we decided it was time to give it some love. This was a MAJOR project that included gutting the bathroom and re-doing everything. I'll do a post soon that documents the whole process, but here's the preview:

The Before:


After Sneak-Peek:


And...our biggest news is that WE'RE MOVING! Yep, we're getting out of Illinois and moving to Colorado!

We are super excited. Luke got a really great job offer a few weeks ago and we're scrambling to be ready to leave in only a couple of weeks. There's tons to do, but I'll be back soon to chronicle our remodeling job and show more pictures. We LOVE it and we're super sad to leave after just getting it done, but it seems like that's just the way it happens. Hopefully the new occupants will love it as much as we do.

'Til next time...

Pre-Christmas Visit

The week before Christmas, my little sister and brother came to visit us. They flew in the day after they finished their finals at BYU, with minds relieved and bodies tired. After the airport pickup, we decided to spend the day in Chicago. We went to the German market at Daley Plaza, saw "the bean", walked along the lake, did a little shopping, saw the Macy's tree, and of course stopped by for some deep dish pizza Chicago-style.



One evening, we decided to have an IRON CHEF CHALLENGE. We watched an episode of Iron Chef America and then headed to the store. Bethany and I were on a team and Neal and Luke were our competitors. We were in charge of the Entree and the boys were in charge of Appetizers and Dessert. Both teams picked out a "secret ingredient" for the other team to use in their dish(es). We chose cream cheese for the boys and they got us a bag of Cheetos. Lovely.





We took turns in the kitchen creating our concoctions and the boys went first with their appetizers.
Neal got stuck cutting the onions. It made him cry. ;)




They made us a Cream Cheese and Asparagus Fritter that was surprisingly insanely tasty.




Seth was pretty entertained during the cooking madness:



Bethany and I went next, and we decided to incorporate the Cheetos into each element of our dish -- the protein, the starch and the sauce.
So, we made: Cheeto Crusted Chicken with Cheeto Cheesy Potatoes, and a Spicy Chili Cheeto sauce.

Don't adjust the color on your screen, that is really the color of our dish. -- But c'mon, our secret ingredient was CHEETOS! What do you expect?
Let's just say, it tasted a lot better than it looked. Especially the sauce. That was a kick'n sauce -- if I may say so myself.



The boys rounded out the meal with a Creamy Strawberry and Ice Cream parfait.



Me, with our not-so-impartial judge. He just couldn't decide who won, but secretly I'm declaring the girls as triumphant for embracing the secret ingredient whole-heartedly. :)

Overall, it was such a fun thing to do and I highly recommend it. (It would also be a fun double-date idea...)

The rest of the week went way too fast, but that's only because we were having so much fun.

Highlights of the week: Our attempt at a gingerbread house masterpiece (I say attempt because it was about a mile off of being a "masterpiece"); staying up late talking and laughing harder than I've laughed in a long time; seeing Neal laugh harder than I've ever seen him; bowling and considering breaking 100 as a HUGE accomplishment -- we are all a little rusty --; Tripoly with the candy we were supposed to use for the gingerbread masterpiece; and more...

It was a great week -- thanks for coming you guys!

House Tour Day #4

Our family room is where we spend 90% of our time. It was absolutely one of the reasons we bought this home. We actually did the least amount of reno in this room, we only had to paint and touch up some of the stain. When we bought the home it was painted a bright -- and I mean BRIGHT -- peach/pink. It was almost florescent.



We toned down the peach and decided to go with a neutral creme. I felt this allowed the fireplace and ceiling to be the star instead of trying to compete. The only other challenge in this room was the space planning. It is a large, wide open room, so we had to figure out how to make the best use of the space. Since we decided to make the former dining room into our living room, we put our dining table here as well as our sectional from our old home. In the back corner we created an office area for Luke, and adjacent to that we created a little reading niche with two chairs.











This concludes our house tour for now. We are almost finished with our kitchen -- just a couple of projects to finish up -- so we'll share that as soon as we get it done.