Not Much New...

Sorry for nothing new lately. It’s been a pretty busy time! Our house (more specifically the entire upstairs) is still in the unpacking stage… Here’s what I’m talking about.



Had a great weekend – I went home to visit with my family and got to see my Grandma! : ) She’s such an amazing woman and has handled everything so well. My mom and her siblings have been consistently with her over the past two months despite the distance. It’s really something to be a part of a family that would go to such great lengths to support each other.

BJ spent the weekend hanging out with Dan and Chad. I’m not sure what all went on but I think it involved movies and steak. :)

We’re still waiting on our new cell phones, house phone, internet, etc. Our cell phone are being held hostage by UPS because they don’t believe our address exists. Ah... the fun of being the first ones in a neighborhood. :p

Happy Birthday Aidan!

Aidan's birthday was this weekend! He's already 1 year old and we can hardly believe it! He's growing so fast!!! :) Kris sent me this picture... he's just SO adorable!!

Love you Kristen!

Cell Phone Saga Update...

Okay, so this is probably a really boring thing to blog about (if so, skip this paragraph), but we've had a wireless breakthrough! This weekend we came very near to signing on with Nextel (the only carrier that we knew who could support us and our country livin') - but decided to wait because the store we went to wouldn't come down in price on any of their phones or match the prices we found online. But then yesterday Trevor stopped by to see BJ and he happened to have Cingular, which we hadn't tried yet (so far checked off our list was Verizon, T-Mobile, Cincinnati Bell, and Sprint), and it worked great! So, were going with Cingular - we can get cooler phones and a better price than Nextel and thus, we now heart Cingular. :)

We had a very busy weekend, and made a point to actually be home on Sunday. We were able to get a lot more done at home. Among other things, we hung our first picture and introduced the cats to the upstairs world. They were pretty siked (I just wanted to say "siked"). :) We also met our soon-to-be new neighbors. We gave them a tour of the house and learned more about them. They will most likely be the next ones to build and move in.

Sorry, no pictures.

Cut off from the world...

So it looks like another 3-4 weeks until we'll have internet and cable at home and 1 week to get a house phone. This has been a really long and complicated process (including much frustration and giving up on Comcast) - so we're happy to at least sort of have it figured out. That's what we get for living in country. :) I guess we're going to get IP video which comes, strangely enough, through the phone line. Has anyone heard of this? It sounds like crazy talk to me. :)

- Jessie

We’ve Moved!

So after much heavy lifting, three roles of packing tape, and a few scrapes later… we’re finally in our new home! We found out that we have a ridiculous amount of stuff. We were so grateful for everyone that was able to come help up load the truck, unload the truck, and clean our old home. Thanks so much to Linda, Carl, Maria, Tom, John, Kevin, Kyle, Noah, Adam, and Blake! We felt so loved and cared for having all your help!

Here’s a little run down of the past four days… On Friday, BJ and I continued to pack up the house and in the afternoon we went to the house to finalize everything with our builder. We did a walk through of the house and got all of our paperwork for warranties, etc.

Here’s our pile of stuff waiting to be put into the U-Haul:



Here’s Annie enjoying the outdoor smells (and having no idea of what’s about to happen):



On Saturday morning I went out to the house where our new fridge was being delivered. Meanwhile BJ went to pick up the U-Haul. It took a while of waiting at the house for the fridge (they gave us a two hour window), and so by the time I got back to our old home, there was a line of cars down the street of everyone there to help us.

Once we were all loaded up we headed over to the house to start unloading. Here’s Tom and BJ moving stuff upstairs (and loving the fact that I’m taking their picture as they lift heavy things):



Our house was pretty much a mess the rest of Saturday and Sunday! Here’s part of the mess:



We did get to see the sun rise and a few deer around our property early on Sunday morning, which was very cool. Here’s out first deer:



Yesterday I stayed home to continue putting everything away. Maria stopped by with lunch and it was great to visit with her (she’s home from IU for spring break). After BJ was done with work we went to Home Depot and went grocery shopping.

Here’s our living room and kitchen, now nearly put together! Thanks mom and dad for the beautiful coffee table!!! We had kept it in the box until this weekend. It’s so fun to be able to use it!





So… that’s where we are now. Now we’re both back to work and getting used to everything that’s new. We’re really looking forward to getting our new cell phones (we get maybe 1 or 2 bars in one spot of our house – and so we have to switch), cable, and internet. We’re also looking forward to getting curtains (because we met our only neighbor and she says she likes to watch people). Hmmm…

Happy Birthday Eric!

Three Days Left!!!

Just three days until the house is officially turned over to us! We have our walk-through with the builder on Friday morning and then the big move happens on Saturday. In the mean time, there seems to be a million little things that have to be done. BJ and I are both taking Friday off, and I’m taking Monday off as well. Hopefully that will be enough days to feel at least a little settled in. :) We have carpat now, which goes a long way in making the house feel actually finished.

I found some videos stills (the one of me here and more) I captured from on old home movie tape… Posted to the right if you’d like to see! :)

Moving, Pups, etc.

Well it was a busy weekend. BJ ended up working overtime on Friday - he worked a total of 16 hours! After he recovered from that we spent time fridge shopping (still not sucessfully - I just can't decide!), picking up random things for the move, cleaning, cleaning some more (the house was open for visitors on Sunday to find new renters), organizing, and packing.

The highlight of our weekend was a van full of boxer puppies in the Walmart parking lot. I'm not sure if that's too good of an idea - buying puppies out of a van at Walmart.... but it was fun to play with the puppies a bit. They had three for sale, two boys and one girl - BJ fell in love with one of the boy pups. Good thing we have decided to wait until we have grass to get a dog - otherwise we might have been tempted... :) Plus, we want to have the time to train the dog really well. Right now we don't have time to watch a movie, let alone raise a puppy!

Grandma Murphy's 89th

Here's a photo from BJ's Grandma Murphy's 89th birthday!



We had a great time visiting with everyone and were so happy to be able to take BJ's dad, Grandma, and Shelia out to see the house. Yesterday I stopped by to see the progress. We have shutters, a white frame around the front door, and a lot more of the painting done (the doors and the fireplace mantel in particular).




Two weeks and one day to our move in date! This week I'm going through our list of utilities (phone, gas, electric, water, etc.) and setting up our service. This weekend we'll be buying a new fridge and packing up the house!

Like a Crushed Ice?

We recieved another letter from Juevyllee (our sponsored child) and her mother yesterday. Juevyllee asks, "How does it feel when there's a snow? Is it like a crushed ice?".

She's so adorable. :)

New Move In Date

We have a new move-in date... March 9th! With the weather being so bad things have been delayed a bit, but that's fine with us because we have so much to do! We've been trying our best to actually go through all of our stuff before packing it up, to be sure we don't bring along stuff to the new house that we don't want or ever use. Plus my new goal is to get and stay organized so I've been trying to sort and find realistic places to store stuff (such as the mail - which is never going to actually make it upstairs to the office). :)

BJ and I went out to the house last night (which actually works now that we have electricity - no more need for flashlights!) - and we have a few new additions - namely toilets and shutters. Sweet, I know. :) - Jessie

Icy Days

BJ and I had the past couple of days off (Xavier was closed, and BJ flexed time so that he wouldn't have to drive in the bad weather). We spent most the time going through stuff in our house and starting to pack. We think the cats think somethings up. :)

I've got a cold and it stinks.

Here's some of our snowy day photos....

New Home Picts

There's been a lot more done over the past week or so. Here's some photos BJ took yesterday...

Here's our upstairs hall bath and our laundry room / back hall closet.



Here's our staircase.



Here's our kitchen... :) I'm going to need a step ladder because I can only reach the first two out of four shelves. I guess BJ could hide my Christmas presents us there!



We should in in about 3 weeks!

Trip to Columbus :)

BJ and I had a great time this weekend visiting my friend Jessica and her husband Ryan. I've missed seeing her! I'm so happy that they live closer now. :) Here's some photos....

Me and Jess...



BJ with the pups....



The four of us...



Hanging out...



After our visit we stopped by the house for a visual update... We have all the flooring in now except for the carpet, the fireplace mantle is in (this will be painted white), and the doors are on upstairs. Very fun! :)

House Tour

Here's a little video tour of our house we took today. :) We have more paint and will be getting our cabinets installed this week.

Good Stuff, Bad Stuff....

First, the bad stuff. A few days ago my (Jessie) Grandma "Lake" was in a very bad car accident with a semi. She was air-cared to Toledo, and she's been recovering for the past couple of days from surgery to start reparing her neck / spine, which is broken in three places. Please pray for her and my family.

Good stuff... BJ and I had a great time on our trips this past weekend - BJ snowboarding in WV with the guys, and me in Illinios with my Grandma Marie and Grandpa Rod. I learned more about watercolor painting, ate a lot of really good food, and spent time just hanging out. :)

What our cats do all day....

"Save The Cheerleader Save The World..."

A few months ago Mark Nelson made a comment on his blog about "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World", and how someone should make t-shirts with this on it. I love the show Heros, and thought it would be fun to do just that. There were a bunch of similar shirts on CafePress.com, but thought I'd add my own just for fun... and forgot all about it. So today I come home from work and find a letter from CafePress - and a commission check for $29! Turns out, thirteen people have bought stuff from my "store", from places all over including Hawaii! And I've made another $20 that they'll be sending soon as well! Whoo-hoo!

Want to see my merch? Check out http://www.cafepress.com/modernmerch2007. :)

Move-in Date Approaching!

BJ and I got our approximate move-in date this weekend - March 2nd! It's so crazy to think that we could be in our house in just 45 days! Today they're pouring out front walkway, among other things I'm sure. I had yesterday off for MLK Day, so I spent the day in we’re-moving-soon mode, cleaning and organizing the basement and our closets. My car is currently full of stuff for Goodwill, and I gathered 6 garbage bags of stuff to throw out! We had a lot of junk!

Congratulations Andrew & Whitney!

Congratulations to Andrew & Whitney Jones on their new little girl! She's beautiful!

It looks like a house!

The inside of our house is finally looking like a house! The drywall inside is nearly finished! Here's some new photos including a cutie on the deck, the arch, and some of the insulation we put up this week in the garage.

Insulation Fun....

A week or so ago, BJ and I were showing our house to BJ's dad, and he suggested that we insulate our garage (everything else was already insulated) while we still can - before the drywall goes up. We looking into it and found out that we only had a couple of days to get it done - so on Wednesday evening (in the dark of night with a huge work light) BJ, Jon Lawrence, and I went to town insulating our garage, and it was a HUGE job. We have nine-foot ceilings in the house, so our garage ceilings are 10-feet high. Thank goodness for Jon - we probably wouldn't have gotten it done! It was hard work but fun to know that we had some small part in the building of our house - the rest we have left up to the experts!

Here's BJ and Jon (you can barely see him - he blends in with night) hanging up the insulation....



It's crazy to see the drywall go up in the house (this is our bedroom), because the rooms are really starting to look like rooms!

Annie Chases Her Tail and Then....

Sorry about the horse-scream!

Insulation, etc. (very exciting, I know)...

This is the progress on the house as of Saturday morning. Today is pretty cold, so I'm not sure if they will be working on the outside. We had our insullation blown in sometime last week - hopefully it will save on our heating bills as promised!

In other news, I have the slowest moving cold in the history of colds! Hopefully tonight I'll get some better rest.

You Know You've Been Playing to Much "Ninja Gaiden" when...

The ninja is making me pancakes!

Shutters

I'm so excited to see what our house will look like with shutters that I Photoshopped them in! Here's my creation!

Also, I changed the settings on the blog to take off that moderation thing... that was dumb. :)

More Brick, an Archway, and the Moon!

BJ and I were able to visit our house again today! Progress looks slower now that the outside is basically done, but there still were some cool things for us to see. We have a new archway between our kitchen and family room and some more brick.





I also got to try out my new camera lense tonight with photos of the moon...

Happy New Year!

BJ and I have had a great holiday! We were able to see Tim and Erin last weekend - we miss them a lot and wish we could hang out more often! Here's Tim and Erin with the friendly zoo elephants!



Here's some cold zoo monkeys...



Currently BJ and I are visiting my (Jessie's) parents in Granger Indiana. We went bowling the other night with everyone and it was a lot of fun. We have photos of that crazy event and other Christmas happenings to come soon! In the meantime, here's a couple house photos to hold you over! :)

Windows... and a Purdue Loss...

BJ and I took off for Indy this weekend to see Purdue in a stressful game against Butler. It was sooo close! Here's a shot of the court when we were winning...


Also, we have some windows! Here's the latest...



We were so glad to be able to visit with Chris and Chrissy this weekend! This afternoon we went out for some O'Charleys, gave a tour of the land/house, and spent some time just hanging out at and driving the cats crazy with the lazer pointer. :) It was so good to see them!

We Knew it Would be Fast!

We have floor number two! We got all this in just 5 days! It's been so crazy to see our house all of a sudden there! Thank goodness for wonderful weather!

So sleeeepppppyyyy....

Saw this on CuteOverload and thought I'd spread the joy...