We're buying a house...

Hi Friends,

I've been holding out on you. I was afraid to jinx it, so I kept this news to myself until it was very clear it was happening. With limited negotiations and an easy inspection, I feel comfortable saying that we are officially under contract on this baby.

(please excuse the ladder in this photo, we were in the middle of the inspection.) 

I feel so lucky to have had the easiest (knock on wood) first home buying experience I've ever heard of. There has been (almost) no hassle. We only looked at 5 houses. We were in total agreement about this house (unlike a couple others we looked at). And most of all, it is larger than we were looking for and at a lower price than our budget allowed.

Pretty much, I think God put it in front of us for a reason.

I have 10,000,000 (that's 10 MILLION) projects written down, circled in magazines, already e-mailed to Brian, etc. And the garage sale-ing will begin this Saturday. I already have a pretty specific list of items I'm looking for so it may take a little time.

Brian and I already cleaned out 2 rooms in our apartment and donated a lot of stuff to Goodwill. I'm excited to do that with every room as we start packing! Gotta make room for the new! I'm sure you'll find me garage sale-ing every weekend for a while... 

I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the inside while someone is still living there... but check out our back deck! 

This house is pretty perfect the way it is, but we want to make it ours... and as so many of the blogs I follow do, I hope to share the journey with you as I go!


I can't wait!

House Hunting - Pinterest Bedrooms

As we head out tonight to look at 4 more houses (I already have an idea of which one will be my favorite...), let's look at some more rooms I've pinned! My house pinning is out. of. control. 

And as I flipped through My Future Home Pinterest board, I noticed some common bedroom themes... calm, clean color schemes, exposed brick, and more chandeliers. (Check out my favorite kitchens here.)

Here are a few of my favorites!

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I would LOVE to have my washer/dryer right in my closet. This would solve so many of my poor laundry habits (ex: never putting my clean clothes away)...

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And finally, this one may be my very favorite:

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What do you think? If you could start over and change your bedroom, is there something you would insist on? I think regardless of anything else, I want our next bedroom to be a warm, put-together room. Currently it feels like it's all just thrown together, and I hate it! 

I'm excited about this adventure. We've been antsy all week to check out some more houses! I'll let you know more as we do!

House Hunting Begins... (And some Pinterest Kitchens!)

Sooooo....

We started looking at houses over the weekend! We saw 2 houses and completely disagreed on them. He really liked one (which was okay), but I really don't like the location. And I LOVED the second, but there are a few too many really big problems with the foundation and water issues, etc...

Needless to say, we need to keep looking! We have a few more that we'd really like to see, so hopefully we can set that up for later this week.

Meanwhile, I've been looking through my My Future Home pinboard. YIKES. 179 pins. And probably 50 of them are completely different looking kitchens. I did notice a few common threads throughout the board. Lots of kitchen chandeliers and open cabinets... this might be a sign.

 But we should probably find a house before I start decorating...

Let's take a quick peek at some of the kitchens I've pinned over the last few months, shall we?

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Aren't they beautiful?!

I know I probably won't get a kitchen like this in our first house, but it's fun to dream! And who knows, maybe a chandelier, open cabinets and a new coat of paint will go beautifully in our new home!


Later this week, I'll show you some more of my favorite Pinterest rooms!

Happy Monday!

Inexpensive Vacationing - Orange Beach, AL

Oh boy... Brian and I just got back from 5 day vacation to Orange Beach, Alabama. We had a lovely time. I was sad we had to come home, but it just made us more excited to plan our next vacation! 

I wanted to write a quick post about how we did this trip for about $400. I'm so sorry that I don't have very many pictures... I had some technical issues when transferring photos and ended up losing quite a few. :(

We stayed in a 3 bed/3 bath condo that we borrowed from the family I nanny for. We had to pay the $150 cleaning fee, but this place was HUGE, fully furnished, and fully stocked with all kitchen utensils.... seriously this place was much bigger (and nicer) than our apartment. It was awesome.

Check out our view of the Gulf of Mexico...

We ate very well while we were there... gluten free crab cakes, shrimp, salmon, taquitos, corn on the cob, delicious broccoli, yummy eggs for breakfast this morning, pistachio bread, raspberry lemon coffee cake and tons of snacks. We were not lacking in the food and we totally spoiled ourselves, yet only spent about $130 on food/drink.

We did this by packing a TON of things... I made our menu before we left which made it possible to pack all the spices and ingredients that we already had as well as a grocery list for when we got to the beach.

For fun, we RELAXED. It was glorious. I read a lot, while Brian enjoyed chilling out in front of the T.V. (this is legit because we don't have cable, so it's a nice vacation treat). We laid on the beach. We drove to Fairhope, AL (about an hour drive) to have lunch with my old next door neighbors...


But one of the coolest things we did was go to the Navy Aviation Museum. I threw a total fit about going because I wanted to lay on the beach, but Brian REALLY wanted to go. It was free and he seemed pretty desperate, so I tagged along. It was awesome.

Can you see me in the picture below?? The plane behind me was HUGE!

Including gas, we spent about $400. And we ended up bringing a bunch of food home. So some of that money we would have spent on this weeks groceries anyhow. 

And this is our last mini vacation on our nanny/grad student budget. We started planning this trip in January, so we had plenty of time to prepare financially, but I'm excited to start having a more grown up budget in our near future. 

I'm sorry about the lack of pictures! I had pictures of HOW MUCH we packed (which was obscene), but that was how we were able to spend such little money on our trip! 

I would love to hear about some ways you make vacationing a little easier on your pocketbook. 

Hope you're having a lovely week! 

The Kiddos Spring Break

As we head to the beach today, I thought I'd let you know why I get this week off.

The family I nanny for is on Spring Break 2012 and headed to Disney World... unbeknownst to the kids!

Last week, we wrote a list of all the things they wanted to do while their mom "took off work so I could go to the beach."

Having NO IDEA they are headed to Disney World, here is the list they came up with:

When the 8 year old saw that the 4 year old had added "go see Disney World", "go see the magic castle" and "have lunch with Mickey Mouse", he said, "There is no way we'll have time to go do those things."

We did, however, get to check off going to the zoo... We went on Monday, and this is what they looked like on the way home: 

Don't worry, I was stopped when I took that picture. :) 

And they're off. I am dying to hear what happened when they finally found out they were going! I hid some Disney socks, autograph books, and temporary tattoos for their trip. I'm sure they're freaking out! 

Okay, I need to go finish packing for the beach! 

Changes (or lack there of) around here....

Well, I think it's finally safe to share on here what our plans are after Brian graduates this May...

Since October (I'm not exaggerating), we've been waiting. Waiting for interviews. Waiting to hear back from interviews. Waiting some more. Waiting for the cycle to happen all over again. And it has been... well, trying to say the least.

Honestly, Brian has been such a trooper. There was excitement which seemed to always be followed by heartache.

Meanwhile, I've just been waiting to know what we're going to do and where we're going to be before I could move on with my career plans... (not that I have any quite yet!)

Alas, our answer is finally here. On Friday, Brian officially accepted a position here in Atlanta. It's a great job, with a considerable income change from the nanny and grad student we currently are.

And mostly, I'm just excited. The beautiful thing was that I have been in a position of excitement regardless of where we were going and what we're doing. I would have been genuinely happy regardless of our location, but I am pretty excited to stay here for awhile longer. We have a good life here, and I don't really feel like our time here is finished yet.


While I still miss home (Boulder, Colorado)....

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Atlanta isn't so bad...

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Plus, we've made a lot of fun memories here so far. This picture was taken at a crazy little Italian restaurant (Il Localino) in an area of town called Inman Park. 

This was taken at a friends birthday party at King Plow Arts Center, in West Midtown (one of our favorite areas of town). 

And of course, we've hit up a few Braves games while we've been here. I'm no baseball fan, but Braves games are pretty fun! 

So now, we have some decisions to make about our new life here... we want to live in a house. And I think we might buy one! This is big news for us and will be VERY exciting for us if it all works out.

We'll see! I'll keep you updated... but in the mean time, I'm heading out of town for the rest of the week. One of the perks of being a nanny is I get a spring break! When I return, I'll write a post about how we're taking this vacation on a tight budget.

Until then!