Our First Home

We spent the weekend starting to get ready to move into our first house! Our first stop was the appliance store. Our house is a new build and did not have the appliances in when we signed papers so we had a little leniency as to what appliances they were. We were given an appliance allowance and showed the standard appliances that come with the house and chose to do some upgrades to get what we wanted. We upgraded our refrigerator to have an ice maker and water dispenser, we upgraded to have a microwave installed over the oven, and we upgraded the dishwasher to one that was better quality and not so noisy. After we paid for all the upgrades we wanted we headed to Home Depot to look around. We had already picked out our garage door opener online through Home Depot, but wanted to double check that it wasn’t in the store. We also looked at washers and dryers and are still trying to decide if we want top loading or front loading. After wandering Home Depot for awhile we went out to see what else had been finished on the house. We can’t actually get inside the house because it’s locked, but we peaked in the windows. They finally have the carpet down and the deck built, we were both excited to see some progress made and are even more excited to move in! Neil even started packing up some of our stuff that we don’t foresee needing in the next few weeks.

As we get closer to closing on our house I become more and more thankful for my parents. They, along with my brother, will be coming down to help us move the weekend after we close. My dad has a pickup and my brother-in-law owns a trailer that will make moving (hopefully) very easy! My parents also have a few extra things they’re letting us have so we don’t have to buy new right away such as a queen bed set for the guest room and a chest freezer to put in the garage. I am so very grateful to my parents for everything they’ve done for me/us and I could never tell them enough how much I appreciate them. I love chatting with my mom about all the things we have planned for the house and hearing how excited she is to see it!

17 days to go!

Hobo Day and Red High Heels

Saturday was Hobo Day in Brookings and Neil and I decided to be involved alum and at least go watch the parade. I had never watched a Hobo Day prior to Saturday as I was always in the parade with my sorority. In Neil’s six years at SDSU, he had never watched the parade either due to needing some extra sleep or having to work. We met up with Neil’s cousins Steven, Ryan, and Ryan’s wife, Whitney. I loved watching the parade and being surrounded by all generations of alumni. Everyone has such school pride and people who were meeting for the first time sat and talked like they knew each other forever because they were both Jackrabbits. The parade was nice and long with a lot of student organization involvement. My favorite was The Pride, SDSU’s marching band. After the parade Neil and I ran some errands around town before the tailgating area opened. My cousin, Sean, has a tailgating spot that we went to. My cousin and I graduated together so I had a chance to see many other people I graduated with that he still hangs out with. Neil and I decided not to actually go to the Hobo Day Game because we didn’t want to have to buy tickets and sit overly crowded; instead we watched the game on TV. SDSU beat Youngstown State 30-20!  After the game we went downtown to meet up with some of Neil’s friends. Neil had a lot of fun, as he always does with those guys, and I just enjoyed seeing him out with his friends and not feeling like I was invading “guy time”, Neil made sure I knew that he wanted me there with him.

Sunday my mom and sister, Stephanie, came to visit with my niece, Kayla. Every time I see Kayla she’s grown more and is even a little bit taller than my nephew who’s a month and a half older. We went and wandered the mall together and it’s so fun to see Kayla look around at everything. We stopped at The Children’s Place so Steph could get Kayla some fleece pajamas since, sadly, winter is coming. While we were in there I found Kayla the cutest pair of shoes I’ve ever seen! They were shiny red, had a little bow on the top that was sparkly, a strap that actually hooked (not Velcro), and the best part was the tiny, little heel. 

I showed them to Kayla and her eyes got huge and she had the biggest grin, I’m sure this was from them being so bright and shiny, but I like to think she has her mother and aunts shoe-addiction! Steph, of course, bought them for her (if she hadn’t I would have) and so Kayla has her first pair of heels! Unfortunately, my mother and Stephanie told Neil about the little red heels so now he’s insistent we’re only allowed to have boys. Lucky for me baby boys have cute clothes and shoes too!

Minnesota Weekend

Neil and I hit the road shortly after I got off work on Friday. We were heading to Bloomington, MN for a weekend away. Our first stop was in Mankato where we met up with a few of Neil’s college friends for supper. This was the first time seeing them since our wedding, five months ago. It was really nice to sit and catch up and spend some time with them. After supper we drive the rest of the way to Bloomington and checked into our hotel just before 11:00pm. Thanks to a good deal through Priceline we stayed at the Hilton just down the road from the Mall of America.

Saturday morning we were up before 8:00am, as is normal for us. We took our time getting ready and having breakfast since it’s not too often that we’re not rushing out the door in the morning. Our first shopping stop was IKEA. We wander around for over an hour and got some great ideas for our future house, but ended up only buying a spice rack and a couple candles. After IKEA, we went to the Mall of America. It was ridiculously busy, which we expected because it was Saturday, a band was performing, there was a book signing, and there was a Vikings game the next day. We walked all three floors and stopped in each store we thought might be of interest to us. We ended up spending almost six hours there! In the middle of the afternoon we did meet up with a friend of mine from High School that I only see once a year typically. We sat and caught up for about an hour with her, her husband, and little girl. I really love being able to have the type of friendship where you don’t have to stay in constant contact, even if it’s just once a year we can pick up right where we left off like it was yesterday. The rest of the evening Neil and I spent relaxing at our hotel watching football and baseball games.

We were up early Sunday morning again. We were out of our hotel and headed back to Sioux Falls by 11:00am. Once we were back in Sioux Falls we made a few stops. Our first stop was to look at the appliances that will be going in our house and decide on a couple upgrades we wanted to do. We also stopped at a furniture store that was promoting a sale and bought a nice dining room table, chairs, and bakers rack for over half off the original price! I can’t believe we’re just a month away from owning our first home!

101 Things in 1001 Days

I borrowed this idea from my sister-in-law, Stacy. It's simply a list of 101 things that I want to accomplish in the next 1001 days. When I first saw the idea I thought it was amazing and knew I had to do it. After a week of trying to come up with 101 things I want to do I am finally done! My list is at the top of the blog in a separate page so it's easy to find for the next 1001 days. I'm excited to see if I can accomplish everything and am even more excited to say we're already working on one thing on the list! We had an offer accepted last night on a house we've been looking at for about a month and are very excited to become homeowners on November 18th!

He's Home!

Neil made it home around 6:30 Friday evening. I was so glad to see him again! After we grabbed his bag from baggage claim we headed home. I had already made supper for us so we sat down to eat and were able to talk about what we had missed the last two weeks. Friday was my birthday, but neither of us felt like going out and doing anything so we just cuddled up on the couch and watched TV the rest of the evening. It was the perfect end to my first, married birthday.

Saturday was spent running errands in the afternoon and we went out for a nice supper Saturday evening. After supper we were planning to go to a movie, but because it was still close to 80 degrees outside we decided we didn’t want to spend our evening inside. Instead we headed home for the evening and sat out on our patio enjoying a gorgeous fall evening because you never know when it’s going to be the last one of the year in South Dakota!

Sunday morning we headed to church. We were lucky to find a church that we both love in Sioux Falls shortly after moving here. We haven’t officially become members of the church, but hope to in the future. After church we had lunch at Olive Garden and then drove around Sioux Falls looking at a couple houses we’re interested in. In the afternoon, we went to an Open House. The house was nice, but we’re still debating between a couple other houses and hope to figure things out more after meeting with our realtor Monday evening. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching football games, baseball games, and catching up on our DVR list.

All in all, it was an amazing, relaxing weekend spent with just my husband. It’s so nice to have him home again!

Birthday!

I L-O-V-E birthdays! I don’t just love my own birthday (which is today), I love everyone’s birthday. To me birthdays are one specified day out of the year people get the chance to celebrate their life, look to the future, be thankful for the past, and know that at some point in the day their closest family and friends will think of them. I’m not saying all these things can’t happen any other day of the year, but birthdays just put a title on one day that it should all happen. My favorite part about birthdays…cards! In my family I’m known as the card person. Every year close to the day of my family members’ birthdays I spend time searching the card section of Target. I read through many, many cards before I find one that I think is just perfect for the individual I am sending it to. My family has come to expect this of me, they know when they open a card from me it’s not just going to be a generic ‘Happy Birthday’, it’s going to mean something to me. Family members birthdays are the one day out of the year I make sure to stop and tell them how much they mean to me.

For my birthday this year my mother sent me an amazing gift that she knew I wanted, but without a card. I called to thank her for the gift and she made a point to tell me she searched all over my small, rural hometown for a card, but couldn’t find anything that would fit me. To me, not sending a card at all is much better than sending one that doesn’t mean anything. I love that my mom knew that about me, and I love that my mom, a non-card person, searched every store in town for a card for me. I did receive a card from my sister-in-law Stacy that almost brought me to tears. It was the type of card that had meaning behind it and as I read the words I could completely hear her saying it. Plus, it included a check with strict instructions to buy myself a birthday Starbucks, so I’m starting my birthday with a much needed Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte, thank you Stacy!

This year my birthday is even better than any other birthday I’ve ever had. First of all, I’m happily married to my best friend and that just makes everything better than it was before! Secondly, Neil gets back from his two week training! I miss my husband so much and I can’t wait to pick him up from the airport this evening. The two weeks have actually gone by a lot quicker than I thought they would, but it’s still two weeks to long to be apart for us. I spent yesterday getting ready for him to come home. I cleaned the apartment so we wouldn’t have to deal with it this weekend. I have supper and dessert made for tonight (chicken tetrazzini and turtle cheesecake) and made Neil’s favorite caramel pull-apart rolls for breakfast tomorrow. Now we can simply spend the whole week relaxing and enjoy being in the same time zone again!

One Week Down. One to Go.

Neil has been gone for one week already. I can’t wait for him to get home, but the time has gone fairly quickly! Thanks to friends and family I have managed to stay busy throughout the past week.

 Monday evening just flew by as I looked at houses with my friend Kate and then we met up for supper with Laura. We sat and talked for a while and it was nice to go out with friends. Kate and I went back to my apartment after supper and talked for hours! We had so much to catch up on and I loved talking about all we’ve been through to get to where we are now. She’s one of those great friends that you may not see or talk to everyday, but she’s always there when I need her and I when she needs me.

The rest of the week wasn’t too exciting, but I stayed busy meticulously cleaning our apartment from top to bottom because my Grandma and Aunt stayed there Friday night. It wasn’t exactly fun, but it did make the evenings go quickly and made me tired enough to fall asleep easily.

Finally, the weekend rolled around and I was able to go back to Clark and visit my family. Friday evening I went to my little brother’s football game with my mom in Aberdeen. The game ended very poorly (we lost 54-0), but Jeff had an excellent play that was awesome to see. Saturday my mom, sister, niece, and I went to Bradley to visit my other sister and her two boys.  Melissa’s lived in her house for around six years and had never put up all her picture frames to decorate her walls. I told her for her birthday present I would come up and decorate for her, so that’s what I spent Saturday doing. Of course, I had to sneak some time with my youngest nephew while I was there too! He was very cuddly and he’s crawling around like crazy. He was giving lots of hugs and baby kisses and it’s so cute when he crawled up to someone, pulled himself up on their jeans, and just stood there until you picked him up.

Sunday was a much needed lazy day. My mom and I sat around the house and watched football. My dad had Guards all weekend so I didn’t get to see too much of him, but I waited until he got home in the afternoon to leave.

Today’s Monday again. I’m still not a fan of Mondays, but today’s better than last Monday. It means only four more days until my husband gets home!

Also, Neil’s doing great in training and making me so very proud! He had a file reviewed on Friday and his trainer said it was the best file he’s reviewed in all his training classes! Way to go, Neil!