House

Hello! I have been m.i.a. lately because the moment I stepped off the plane from Africa I started a new job and have been working way too much! I have no idea where the last few months went!

The process of buying our first house took awhile but was so worth the wait! We love our new house and are getting more settled in everyday. It's a great feeling!

Here are some pics....

One of the best parts, our beautiful view. We get to see the most amazing sunsets over the mountains.

The front of the house, it is your typical "suburban" home but we already love the neighborhood, our neighbors, the community pool and our view! The front needs better "curb appeal" in my opinion....we are working on that now. We are getting the house painted this week and then tackling the grass/landscaping--ahhh, homeownership!!

this is the "before" pic, stay tuned for the "after" pic soon!....

another view shot, this was last fall when we first found the house. See the longhorn steer in the field? it is so cool our house backs up to a bike path and farmland where 2 steer, "Walter" & "Bessie" live--(joe named them :) I think that's walter below

The living room, I love it because the back part of the house is one big living area with the kitchen, living & dining connected. I love the open feeling, plus there are tons of windows where you can see the mountains.

Windows looking to the mountains, it was a cloudy day so you can't see them

Dining area

Loft at the top of the stairs. Yes, I arranged Joe's book by color. I think it looks cool (I stole the idea from our "hip NY friends", photographers, Mat & Erin) Joe is not crazy about the idea so this might be the last time we see it like this ;)

vaulted front living area, this is looking down from the top of the stairs

I like color! and I have a large collection of thrift store chairs! The side tables and lamps I found at goodwill and painted. The lamps were only $5, table on left $6, table on right $2.50! I'll post those projects on my new blog www.thedollarnest.blogspot.com hopefully soon if I find time!

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Front Room

Front room under stairs, I have always wanted to do a photo collage!

in the dining room, this was another fun project. that is a retro metal shelf that I got at a thrift store yesterday for $7 and painted it turquoise this morning

Kitchen, we love having a dishwasher and garbage disposal!! Also, it is so nice having it open to the other areas of the house

Lilli's Bachelorette Party in the Ozarks

For Lilli's Bachelorette party we got a vacation rental in the Ozarks. We had an awesome time. We used to go to the Ozarks for family reunions when we were little but I hadn't been there for years. I think it's beautiful there, I love it! We rented a boat and a driver, it was an awesome weekend!!

I got to spend a little time with everyone at Red Barn Green Farm (Rudy & Larry's Farm) before our road trip.

Crazy hats at the condo--the owner had them there but we tricked Lilli and said we went to Spencers and bought them just for the trip-she thought we were crazy!

The famous Party Cove--crazy!

Summer! and 30th birthday!

For my 30th birthday (and my mom's birthday!) my whole family was able to come for a visit to our new house! We had a blast, I'm so happy everyone was able to come visit. We had a bbq to celebrate.

Hanging out at our community pool

Happy 4th of July!

We used to make this cake when I was a kid--still yummy!