PIMP

Heath partnered with three other Healthcare companies in the Kansas City metro to develop a non-profit networking group that puts on local events. It is called Midwest Med Trust, and he is the only guy in the team of four sponsors.

A few weeks ago I had a happy hour with my office scheduled at the Flying Saucer, although Heath likes to attend my work functions with me he couldn't because Midwest Med Trust was hosting an evening event for the top doctors in the metro. Which worked for me because that meant after his event he could pick me up on the way home :)

But they finished early and he decided to come in and have a drink. So in walks Heath in his brand new navy blue pin-striped suit and power tie.....with four blonds in tow.



I'm a lucky gal ;)

Home at last

Well we did it! We moved into our new castle a week ago today. We closed on the house at 10:00 Wednesday morning and had all of our belongings in the new house by 10:00 Wednesday night. It was an intense day! Many thanks to the boys that helped us move the big stuff, Trent, Tanner, and Josh.

This is what we had to look forward to come Thursday morning:















YIKES!

But we have been working hard, Heath's parents came up and spent the whole day with us on Saturday painting over the very BLUE kitchen. Now it is "Song of Summer" (green) and we LOVE it. Many thanks to them for their hard work, paint donation, and a perfect paint job!




















We even had our first neighbor visit on Saturday, the family from across the street came by to give us a card and a massive cookie!




















As you can see I didn't get the picture taken until after we dug in! (Lucy got most of it!)

Thanks for all of your support, it was totally worth all the stress and waiting. COME VISIT US!

Pity Party

We were supposed to close on our wonderful, exciting, big, new house on Thursday last week. Less than four hours before closing we got the phone call from our realtor - we are delayed. We tried for the next day, but no, the appraiser that seems to not need a job in this economy, didn't come through....again. Then the weekend came, then the holiday, then the underwriter had a death in the family. So we have been throwing ourselves a pity party ever since!

It is quite depressing, I think we both went through all of these stages of grief. We went from being dumbfounded, to super angry (Heath), to super sad, to needing a stiff drink, to getting the stiff drink and having a few laughs over it, to sleeping all day because there was nothing else to do.

Everything is in a box, all that we kept out of boxes and in an overnight bag are those few items we needed to get through the weekend of moving. Moving clothes, toothbrush, toilet paper (for new house), dog bones (to keep them busy), etc. So we have no food, no utensils, and no clothes (or work clothes!). The rooms echo and time has stood still.

We also had a desk that was delivered to the house on Friday, so we had to drive 30 minutes up to a house we didn't yet own, and take the massive 90 pound box off the porch and take it back into the city. Praying our new neighbors saw us.

In order to keep ourselves busy this weekend we went for drinks with friends (happy engagement Ben and Alysia!), we purchased a fridge, we let friends make us dinner and played games all night at their house, and we ordered pizza and pasta and ate it out of the containers they came in with plastic forks for dinner on Sunday AND Monday night.

It was really a blessing (in disguise) to be able to have one last weekend to do our favorite things as West Plaza citizens.

The many phone calls to reschedule the rescheduling, utilities, U-haul, friends to help move, new furniture/appliance deliveries, etc. Everyone has been really accommodating and friendly. We have been paying for the utilities on the new house since Thursday and there has been a washing machine in my car for the past ten days. What a mess.

Our landlord showed the house we are currently in multiple times throughout the weekend, I can't imagine that was a good selling point as far as lack of space, as there are boxes everywhere, packing materials all over the floor of the basement and porch, and we haven't cleaned in two weeks. ICK.


We are scheduled (for the fourth time) to close tomorrow at 9:00 a.m....anyone want to hold their breath?!

Dreaming....

So Heath and I have spent the past week dreaming of how wonderful it will be in our new castle. It will certainly feel like one compared to the past 8 years living in Kansas City at various apartments/town homes/bungalows.

A little background on the previous renting experiences. I have lived in an apartment, a town home, and two small houses in Missouri. In Kansas I have lived in two apartments. Heath has lived in an apartment and two small houses in Missouri and in Kansas he lived in an apartment and rented a room from a friend in a suburb. Our credit reports are many pages due to our many addresses.

Now we will be moving into something we actually own. It also has more than one bathroom and a garage that you can fit a car into! In fact, you can fit three! We are most excited about the master bathroom, our own sinks, means our own toothpaste. Heath likes Crest, Mikayla likes Colgate. We can have guests stay with us and they can actually shut the door to their own room AND their bathroom! Its AMAZING!

There will be no more talks about landlords, or rent is due and its already the 5th! Our dogs can have a decent backyard to play in, and we have a mailbox, in front of our house on the curb. Not attached to our house so the mailman freaks me out every Saturday when I hear him on the porch, I don't have to go down the street to the community mailbox to get the bills, and we can put our name on the mailbox! Heath and I can get drivers licenses with our current address knowing that it will not be outdated in a few months.

Here is a start to our new house resolutions:
1) Heath will have all of his vitamins in his drawer by his sink and take them every morning
2) Heath will put the coffeemaker in the bathroom (because we have room!) so he doesn't buy coffee every morning.
3) Mikayla is going to cook dinner more often now that she can see the living room from the kitchen and feel a part of what is going on in the rest of the house.
4) We both will take our dogs for walks everyday on the walking trail or on the access road.
5) We will sit on the front porch as much as possible to get to know our neighbors
6) Mikayla will bake cookies to encourage them to come see us.
7) Heath is going to exercise more regularly
8) Mikayla is going to do push-ups everyday until the wedding now that we have enough carpet to stretch out on (excuses!)
9) The dogs will NOT be in the house at all, garage and basement at the very most.
10) The window blinds will rarely be drawn, we now live in a safe neighborhood and can feel safe letting the sunshine in!
11) Heath will run MJ a bath when she needs her much appreciated baths.

This is what we have been doing since we heard the house is ares last week. We sit on the couch and dream. We also force each other to choose our favorite part of the new house. We never can choose between the front porch, the master bath (TUB!), the neighborhood/location, the layout, the many walk-in closets, and the garage.

We close February 12th and will be totally moved in that weekend :) It is going to be a long two weeks...

"home ownership is a wonderful... trap"

This is one of the responses I got to the exciting news that our offer has been accepted on the house we bid on exactly 63 days ago! Yippee!!! We are so excited, and relieved. It is so frustrating and slow buying a short sale home. But the benefits are worth it. Which is why we are able to buy a much larger/nicer home than a typical first time buyer at our age should! We don't feel worthy:( Here she is...
What do you think?? The front porch is the entire reason we even considered looking at it. Definitely one of our top five favorite things :)

Tomorrow both sets of parents are going to do a walk through of the house with us, it was already scheduled since the Iowa set of parents were planning to come in town so it worked out just right to hear back from the bank today! We can't wait to see it again....well inside that is. Heath and I have been quite creepy lately, doing drive-bys and yesterday we managed to really cross the line by taking the dogs there to try out the walking trail. You know, like we live there. I'm sure we are already labeled as the creepy people with the dirty old jeep and two big dogs that randomly show up. Watch out people - here we come! Just look for us on the front porch :)

Song of the moment - Merry Christmas

On Saturday and Sunday mornings Heath and I love to watch CMT. This past week we heard this wonderful music video. It is Rascal Flatts doing "I'll Be Home For Christmas" a capella. I listened to it three times in a row while driving the last ten miles in a bed of white snow to my parents home on Christmas eve. Merry Christmas!!

2008 in review

Heath and I have been engaged for exactly one year as of Sunday. And as of today we have five months left until the wedding. Yikes! I thought I would review our 2008 year of engagement. I still have a paper version of my calendar. I don't have a fancy blackberry or iPhone....yet ;) So let me flip back to January......ok, here we go!

January: I went to my first bridal show with Heath's mom. Our friends Flint and Theresa, and Sara and Mark came to visit us and we dragged them out in the snow to the wedding site.

February: I tried on my first wedding dress. We saw our friend Ben on the show Extreme Homemakeover (so awesome). Ross and Tawny (Heath's parents) moved to Kansas City!!

March: We went to go see the Bodies Revealed Exhibit. Heath turned 27.


April: We went house hunting for the first time. I went to Minnesota to see Theresa and we found my wedding dress at the Mall of America. KU won the Championship.


May: Went house shopping in Weston, MO and went to the wedding site exactly one year from the wedding.

June: Went to the Spooner Cabin with Trent and Megan in Council Grove, Kansas. Went to Dary's housewarming party. Booked our photographer for the wedding.

July: I went to go visit my brother in Virginia. I babysat Lucy a lot! Went to Mike's wedding in Colby.


August: We went to Mike and Kelly's shower. Heath and I celebrated five years together! Aaron and I pulled off a surprise visit to Iowa.

September: Our good friend Luke was in town so he and Dary and Heath got a little crazy. Uncle Greg came to town and entertained us for an evening.

October: I went to St. Louis to help Theresa with her frames. We went out on the town with Shi and Holly.

November: I voted in my first election. We put a bid on our first house.

December: Began the process of purchasing our first home. We completed the wedding website and sent out our Save The Dates.

I am sure I am missing some things but this is what is on my calendar. Have a Merry Christmas!!