Wet Windows

I was so excited to work outside today on the backyard. I am on Spring Break, I am ready to go...and there is a steady downpour outside. And that is the forecast for the whole week. So, instead, I will try to get some stuff done inside the house and garage.

The house is coming along. IKEA and Craigslist have been good to us, both cleaning house of things we don't need/want anymore and decorating our house and making it functional. It is exciting to think about summer and everything we will be able to do around here. First is the retaining wall and fence out back. That is what I was going to start working on today. We want a dog really bad, so that is what is driving us. That and the fact that our back door stares into the front another home. Privacy is nice to have. Also, painting the interior of the house is on the docet as well. We're painting the whole house the color that you have seen in the earlier post. It will warm the house up and give it a little personality.

Busy, busy! Or at least hope to be. Talk to ya'll soon.

Sam
 

You can't see it, but that is RAIN!

Time flies when we're having fun!

Greetings Readers!

Sam hasn't posted in over a month and I haven't posted in even longer than that, so I figured I might as well jump on the train and get goin' with it!

So much has happened since Sam's last past in February...here's the run down:

We successfully unpacked our entire house and had an Open House/House Warming Party on March 3rd. It went wonderfully! We had 25 people in our dining room and living room enjoying good wine, cheese, and great conversation. It was so nice to see everyone and share our new home with family and friends. Thanks to all who came! If you couldn't...no worries! We love to entertain and will have anyone and everyone over soon and often! We have a guest bedroom, too!

Speaking of guest bedroom, Matt and Bri stayed the night after the party so they didn't have to drive back to Usk so late. We had a great time with them...Sam and Matt enjoyed playing video games (a past time I do not share great joy in, so it was nice for Sam to have someone to play with!) and Bri and I had some good girl time looking through cupboards, etc. talking about organization, something we all seem to need more of!

We have had some decent weather lately so we ventured into our abyss of a backyard. It is small, but it will pack quite the punch financially and physically to get it in shape to enjoy it and house a family pet! The small hill that leads to the neighbors front yard apparently was a retaining wall made of boulders. We are sure it looked quite nice before the construction works moved dirt over the top of it and knocked some of it down...Needless to say that will be our big spring project: clear dirt and rocks, rebuild retaining wall, and build a fence. THEN maybe plant grass. We will  be having an old CV buddy of Sam's coming over to look at the mess and help us figure what to do, how to do it safely, and how to do it while staying within our budget. Ha! We'll see. He owns a contracting business and does that kind of stuff for a living, and those CV buddies are kind of like a brotherhood...they stick together and help each other out. Let's hope that is the case! We could sure use some help with that yard!

This weekend we went over to Seattle to meet our new nephew, Greg and Steph's newest addition, Jacob. He is adorable and such a good baby! Only cries when he is hungry! Not even for a poopy diaper. I got to hold him quite a bit, which I appreciated so much! He was so cuddly! I wasn't in the "Schlaich Picture" when Aiden was born, so it is nice to be able to start from the beginning with this one! Sam better watch out! So many babies or soon-to-be babies in close proximity! :)

We also got to see Marisa and Danny while we were over in Seattle and we had a nice night after the kiddos were asleep celebrating St. Patty's Day and enjoying each others company.

This last week seemed really long to both of us. We are both enjoying work, but there comes a time when everyone needs a rest. That time has certainly come! Lucky for Sam, he has a partial week this week and then its Spring Break! For me...two more full weeks. Yes, that's right. We don't get our Spring Break at the same time. Really a bummer, but Sam will get a bunch of work down on the house (*hint hint*) and then when I am on break I can do lots of Spring cleaning without being distracted!

In between our Spring Breaks we will be hosting two 19 year old Japanese students who are studying at the Mukigawa Ft. Wright Institute in Spokane. They stay in the United States for three months, taking classes in English. Once a session, the students get to do a Homestay weekend with a family from America. While we don't have kids and are not old enough to be their parents, we think this will be a great experience for us and them! Communication is a little difficult, but we will make it work and I'm sure will learn just as much or more from they as they are looking to learn from us!

We hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the nicer weather that has been sporadically showing its face!

Cheers!
Heather

New Home, New Life, Happy Wife:)

Yes. We are still here blog fans! I am aching all over, I can't stop coughing, I am "weezing," a headache is coming on....yup...I worked out. For the first time in a long while. To bring this blog full circle, I ran a little over 1 1/2 miles at a "decent" clip...meaning, a decent clip for someone who hasn't gone for a jog, let alone work out, for several months. I survived! Heather rode her bike along with me to help the cause. I'm going to make a shirt!

It's been a while so here is an update. We are in our new home! It is amazing. We couldn't help but put a little touch of our own in our new home, so we painted a wall:) We'll post more pictures of the finished product and exterior soon!

As of now, we are just unpacking the last boxes (of books....so many books), and organzing everything. We're brainstorming on how to make our living space the most efficiant and livable. We could certainly use some new stuff to make this work a little better, but that will have to wait a few months. That IKEA decorating philosophy certainly does come in handy.

Talk to you ALL soon:)

Sam

Just Kidding!

I was just editing a post from yesterday that discussed how we were supposed to get keys today when my computer decided to be stupid and delete it as I was typing. SO here was the update.

We are not moving in today. We are not getting the keys today. It is a ridiculously long story, but TOMORROW we are supposed to get the keys.

Yea. Right.

Drum Roll Please...

Sam and I will be moving into our new house THIS WEEK! We do not know which day...but we DO know it will be before the coming weekend! Relief? Oh yea! Elation? Mmhmm! *Sigh*

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

What a fantastic holiday season! Friends, family and food:)

This new year, we have decided on our resolution. (drum roll...) Money! It sounds fun, right? Well, we are jumping on Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover to shore up our finances and become DEBT FREE! This will be VERY tough for us because we are not in a very difficult spot. We are not necessarily living paycheck to paycheck, and we have fun when we feel like it. Therefore, pushing ourselves to stay with this isn't a necessity for us, just something that will better our financial lives.

From the onset, we have been pretty concious of our money and have saved when we needed to (i.e. paying for our wedding with cash and not putting it on the credit card). However, when we could save money or put it toward paying off student loans, we would much rather grab a bite to eat at a nice restarurant. We love our food! The hard part of this is going to be not spending frivolously, even though we arn't in such a position where we can't.

I bought the Total Money Makeover (TMM) book and started reading through it. The goal is to "live like no one else, so you can live like no one else." In several "baby steps," the idea is to pay of all debt, create a large emergency fund, invest smartly, and live without any financial hardships for the rest of our lives. Sound good? It does to us, so we decided to take part.

Although Mr. Ramsey says we need to completely invest ourselves in the process, we feel we can avoid the "suffering" part and take it easy, spread it out, and eventually reach our goals. We'll reacces in a couple of months and see how it is going. Already though, just creating a budget and planning, we are already on track to pay off half of our debt (number of debts, not money) by the end of October. It is a pretty fun prospect.

There are lots of great tips and pointers in the book and is geared toward people that are in a vicious debt circle. We are not, so we're going to have fun with it:) I very much recommend it. It gives a very clear picture of how to make financial pains disappear.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Sam

December...I mean almost January???

Boy does time fly! It is already the middle of December...almost Christmas, a day away from winter break, and almost the start of a new year!

Quick facts:

*Sam is still enjoying his job more so far this school year
*I LOVE my new job and have been officially hired under contract
*The house is still in progress, but the inspection went well, and we are hoping to close right after Christmas, giving us the rest of break to put OUR house together

Those are pretty much the things going on in the life of Heather and Sam!

More to come soon!
Heather