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It’s my birthday!

15 Jul

I am officially 25 today so that means I can finally rent a car without any additional fees…I’m really pumped about that. Travis and I are on our vacation in Minnesota right now, which makes this birthday extra special because I get to spend it with my family. I haven’t spent my actual birthday with my family in about 4 years. When I turned 21, I was with friends. When I turned 22 and 23, I was at Summer Beach Project in Myrtle Beach, SC. When I turned 24 last year, I was with Travis’ family. So finally I get to spend it with MY parents (and my husband)!

To celebrate, Travis and I went on a run this morning (exercise is good!) For breakfast, we had smoothies and banana/blueberry pancakes. We are going to go boating and tubing around Pine City (where my parents’ lake cabin is) and then jetskiing later. For dinner, we’re going to have burgers, strawberry salad, corn on the cob, and pineapple cake (all by my request). I thought about going out to dinner but then, we can go out to dinner in Colorado anytime–how often do we get to grill out at the cabin by a lake? Never!

So I think it will be a great birthday. I’m okay with it being chill and relaxed. I’m 25 now–an adult. I have to act my age, right?. Not!!!

Just a side note: yesterday we took the boat out and Travis and I went waterskiing (at different times of course). He’s pretty good at slaloming. I, on the other hand, am not. I can get up on two skis pretty quickly and can even cross the wake without falling down (except right when I got up yesterday for the first time, my dad went around a turn and I went outside the wake against my will and ended up falling on my butt and getting a water enema. OUCH!!! It hurt so badly that I could barely move. But it didn’t stop me from trying to slalom!) I tried to slalom by dropping a ski and then by just starting with one. Neither worked. I did a couple faceplants and my arms got a workout but I didn’t get up. Oh well, tubing is more my thing anyway. 🙂

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We’re homeowners!

8 Jul

We just got back to our apartment from our house closing so we are officially homeowners. Everything went without a hitch and my hand didn’t even get sore from signing so many papers.

I was saying to Travis on the way home that it’s weird that all you have to do (pretty much) is sign a bunch of papers and then you own a home. It’s like highschool graduation–somehow the importance of the event is not in proportion to what you do to achieve or celebrate it. But this is a lot more important that highschool graduation. This IS the real world baby!

The best part about the process of buying a house for us was seeing God’s hand in it all. I had prayed for God to let us find the perfect house at the right price in the right timing and we did. Then we had all but postponed buying a house for financial reasons but God provided down payment money for us in the form of my parents.
The sellers accepted our offer, the house appraised, we were approved for our loan, we got all the correct documents, and today was a breeze. If it had not been in the Lord’s will for us to buy a house, it either wouldn’t have happened at all or it wouldn’t have been this easy. When everything falls into place so easily and effortlessly, I know that God is there behind the scenes, flawlessly orchestrating it all according to His sovereign will.

So there you have it. We get the keys to the house at 8:00 AM on July 30th. Until then, it’s Minnesota for 10 days and then lots of packing!!

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Our 4th of July Hike

5 Jul

Travis and I went hiking up South Boulder Peak (8,549 ft) on the 4th of July. Man, was it a hard one! The whole hike is about 6.7 miles round trip, which isn’t bad. BUT you gain 3,000 feet in those 3.35 miles. That’s steep.

I felt a little tired/sore when we first started out. About 2 miles in, my legs started to get shaky and really tired. I was pretty hungry but thought I would just wait until we reached the summit. Nope. I had to eat on the way up because I started getting dizzy and feeling sick to my stomach. When we reached the spur up to South Boulder Peak, it was the worst. I knew we were so close to the summit so I pushed myself (within reason) but that last 45 minutes was rough. It took us 2 hour and 45 minutes to get up to the top–about a 40 minute mile! I had to stop every 20-30 feet though because I couldn’t breathe, which was frustrating.

Then when we got up to the peak, the bugs were so thick that I stood up there taking in the view for about 5 minutes before I got too grossed out and went to wait for Travis back at the base of the spur. When he got down, he said, “Yeah, the bugs were bad. You pretty much just had to let them crawl all over you or else you’d be constantly moving.” Um, ew? No thank you.

The way down wasn’t bad. We made it down in about an hour and a half with about 2 stops. The whole hike, rests included, took us 5 hours. It was a very challenging hike, the hardest I’ve ever done in my life. Travis talked about climbing Mt. Bierstadt and Mt. Evans the next day but 1) I didn’t think I’d have enough energy after climbing South Boulder Peak and 2) that climb had me really doubting my hiking abilities. Turns out that climbing Bierstadt is not only shorter but you gain less elevation as well. Travis did the hike on Saturday (by himself) and got to the top in an hour and a half. Granted, he was cruising (which he would NOT do with me!) but I figure that if I can do South Boulder Peak, I can do Bierstadt. The sawtooth between Bierstadt and Evans, on the other hand, could be another story.

I do want to do a 14er later this summer though. I’m going to try to get in some harder hikes in the meantime in preparation!

Funny side note: Travis and I climbed Bear Peak last fall, which is very close to South Boulder Peak. Until hiking South Boulder, that had been our hardest hike to date. The way down was SO steep and never-ending! I guess that part of the Flatirons is just brutal terrain!

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Catching up

2 Jul

Today was another long day at work. There’s not a whole lot to do, it’s a 4-day week, we leave for vacation next week, and I’m tired as all get-out. Needless to say, I wasn’t the most productive worker bee today. I even jet out 20 minutes early because I couldn’t take anymore. I’ll just work a little longer tomorrow. It is a blessing to have such a flexible job!

So now to update my blog with everything I’ve been up to. Mark and Sarah Norman were out here to visit us this past week. They got in the night of Tuesday 6/24 and left the morning of Tuesday 7/1. It was SO much fun having them out here! We did a lot of talking and had a lot of late nights and early mornings…but it was so worth it.

Wednesday night, Travis and I had care group and the Normans went up to Rocky Mountain National Park but they came back that night and stayed at our apartment. (It’s very cozy with 4 people in it!!) Thursday night, we grilled out in the park near our apartment and got to see the Happy Thursday parade of drunken people decked out in pink tutus and knee-high, black, patent leather boots. We also went and watched Trav’s hockey game (that started at 10:15!).

Friday, Trav and I got off work around 1:00 and we all headed up to Guenella Pass near Georgetown, where we were going to camp for the weekend. I took a nap on Friday while the boys gathered and chopped up firewood. We ate brats and baked beans and sat by the fire for a while and then went to bed. Saturday, I slept in to about 8 (everyone else got up around 9, which gave me a chance to get in the Word), we ate some pancakes for breakfast, and set off for the trail. We climbed Square Top Mountain, which is almost a 14er at 13,900 ft. We got going a little later than we had planned (not good with the changing weather up there) and the hike was a lot harder than we had planned (see pictures of it here) so we only made it to about 13,500 but the view was still gorgeous (and it was still a crazy good workout!)

After our hike, we drove around and ended up at a country store on another highway, where we bought ice cream. I had a good ole classic ice cream sandwich. Yum! It tasted really good after our hike. We drove back to camp, played some Catch Phrase, ate ravioli and corn on the cob, and sat around the campfire some more. Then we went to bed around 10:00.

Sunday night/morning, I could barely sleep because I was so cold. And I had to pee really bad. So around 5:30 AM, I forced myself out of my sleeping bag to the bathroom (an outhouse at our campground). As I was walking back to our campsite, I noticed that the sun was coming up. Not being that tired and really not wanting to go back to bed to freeze my ars off some more, I decided to stay up and watch the sunrise. I poked Travis and asked if he wanted to come. All he groaned was “I’m so tired…” So I went all by myself. I took the Pathfinder up to the trailhead where I knew I’d have a good view and watched the sun rise as I spent time in the Word. After reading a little longer, I started getting sleepy again and it was only 7:00 AM so I drove back to the campground and got back in my sleeping bag for some not-so-restful barely-asleep sleep.

Finally, around 8:30, it was time to get up. Yay! We drank some coffee, ate some oatmeal, packed up camp, loaded our car, and drove up to the Silver Dollar Lake trailhead. It was a very enjoyable hike, albeit a little more challenging that I had remembered. I guess I was so concerned with all the snow last time that I didn’t realize it was mostly uphill to the lake. This time, we actually climbed past Silver Dollar Lake to one farther up the mountain. On the way back down, we slid down the snow again on our shoes–very fun. Makes the hike totally worth it in and of itself.

Our hike made us all completely famished so we stopped at Beau Jo’s in Idaho Springs on the way back for some Colorado cooking. We gorged ourselves on some heavy-duty nachos and a 3-lb Mountain Pie with Italian sausage, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil pesto sauce. Delish. The rest of Sunday was spent doing laundry and taking it easy.

Monday night, we ate out at Jackson’s Sports Grill in downtown Denver and then went to a Rockies baseball game, which is always fun. Then Tuesday morning, it was time for Mark and Sarah to leave. I got up at 4:00 AM so that I would have time to get ready and wouldn’t be in the bathroom when everyone else wanted to use it. Needless to say, I took a 2-hour nap after work yesterday. And I’m just about to go to bed right now… Yes, it’s 6:40 PM. But I forced myself to work out the minute I got home (even though I was yawning like crazy while lifting weights!) so that I could relax and fall asleep reading later on…like right now. Adios muchacho.

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So tired…

1 Jul

I haven’t written in a while and that’s because life has been a whirlwind! Our good friends Mark and Sarah were out here from North Carolina for a whole week and just left this morning at 7:00 AM. I got out of bed at 4:00 AM. Needless to say, I’m beat today. It was really fun to see Mark and Sarah but unfortunately, Travis and I couldn’t take any work off. So late nights and early mornings for a week straight (plus camping and strenous hiking last weekend) all combine for a very tired me. I can’t tell you what all we did right now–I need to take a nap first. Stay tuned…

They accepted our offer!

16 Jun

As of 5:41 PM today, our house is officially under contract. The sellers signed our offer “as is”–which really surprised our realtor. She said that it rarely happens that the sellers sign the offer without changing a thing. Does this have God written all over it or WHAT?!?!?

So Travis and I are WAY pumped about “our” new house–Travis would remind me that it’s not officially ours yet. But I don’t care about those petty little details. This means that I can officially start planning out how I want to decorate the house. It is going to be SO HARD to wait a month and a half to move in! I’ve been looking at magazines, The Nest, and other people’s blogs for ideas. I went on Craig’s List to look for cheap furniture but I didn’t find anything. I know we shouldn’t buy anything right now anyway because whatever I buy now, we have to move later.

The theme of my decorating is going to be “on a budget.” We won’t have much money to decorate with at first so I’m going to go to antique, consignment, dollar, and thrift stores as well as garage sales and Craig’s List to find furniture and wall pieces.

This is what I’m thinking so far: the main bathroom has a mirror and vanity of light-colored wood. The accents in the tiles and sink are a light tan color. The color scheme is going to be sage green, white, and light-colored wood/tan. I want a shower curtain that is white with sage green leaves on it, kind of like this one from Bed Bath and Beyond:

shower curtain

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll buy sage green towels and press wildflowers into frames to hang on the wall.

For the master bedroom, we will keep our current bedspread (light tan with a white vine design) and I want to add details like these awesome pictures, also picturefrom BB&B:

 

 

 

 

breeze2

 

 

 

 

 

They’re a little on the spendy side so what I’m going to do is see if I can find 12×12 scrapbook paper kind of like this (at least the same color scheme) and glue them to a 12×12 canvas from a craft store. The master bath will be this same color scheme: taupe and light blue. LOVE IT!

I have more ideas but it’s time for bed. I’ll keep them flowing some other time. 🙂

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Sitting on pins and needles!

16 Jun

The sellers of the house we made an offer on are meeting about our offer right now as I type. I am so nervous and excited!! It’s good that I get to leave work in 8 minutes because I cannot concentrate right now!!

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We’re putting an offer down!

15 Jun

After going out with our realtor 3 times to look at houses; having endless conversations about options, prices, and dates with Travis; and almost completely pulling the plug on buying a house due to budget constraints (which were alleviated by my parents, who generously offered to help us with our down payment), Travis and I have found the house we want to buy. It is 3 miles from my work, 8 miles from Travis’. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths (one of which is a master bath!), and a HUGE backyard. And it’s move-in ready, meaning we wouldn’t have to do anything to it before we moved in if we didn’t want to.

Our realtor wrote up an offer and sent it to us today. In about 1 1/2 hours, she is going to call us to go over the offer, make any necessary changes, and then sent it to the sellers’ agent. We should know by tomorrow at the latest if they are going to counter or accept. We’re so excited!!

The wheels in my head are already turning with thoughts of how I could decorate the kitchen and the bathroom and what we could put where. Bad, I know, because I’ll be heartbroken if we don’t get this house. But I keep reminding myself that God is sovereign and all of His plans for our lives–including our house–have been pre-ordained by Him. Like our realtor says (in a secular mindset), if it’s “meant to be” (i.e. ordained by God), it will happen and it will be easy. If it feels like putting a square peg in a round hole to get the deal to go through, it wasn’t meant to be (i.e. it wasn’t in God’s plan).

Here’s a picture of the house from the outside:

house on garland
There are 2 huge pine trees in the front but the yard is very green and well-kept. It is a one-story brick ranch (the kind of house I said that I would never buy!) and on the smaller side (about 1100 square feet) but it’s a very efficient use of space and just the cutest little house ever! And with 3 bedrooms, Travis and I can still have an office, a guest bedroom, and our master bedroom. The kitchen and the main bath were both updated within the past couple years so they are very nice. There are 2 big windows, one in the living room and one in kitchen, facing east and west respectively–so lots of light in the main rooms of the house. 2 of the bedrooms have 2 windows and the other one has 1 window.

It’s a one-car garage, which Travis was a little disappointed about. But in our price point and in the neighborhoods we’re looking at, 2-car garages are very few and far between. The garage on this house is oversized, though, so Travis can still have a workbench at the far end. There is also another parking spot on the side of house (note the SUV in picture) and lots of street parking. The neighborhood is very tidy and quiet but there are little kids running around so it’s not just senior citizens (which is good).

Overall, we just love the house and are very excited/nervous to see what the sellers say tomorrow. We are putting an offer in $2K lower than their asking price + $5K in concessions. We’ll see what happens!!

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The Crazy Adventures of Save and Spend

7 Jun

So we made it through our first day of house hunting. Travis and I went out with our realtor Victoria (she’s great!) to see 14 different houses today. We really liked 2-3 of them. They were a nice size, with great layouts, in our price point. But some of them were so weird and gross…hard to believe anyone can live like that!

For the past 4 hours, Travis and I have been having a very heated debate/discussion/argument about our finances, spending habits, and mortgage amounts. He tends to get very pessimistic and Debbie Downer during times like this when he feels very pressed financially–“I just don’t want to spend so much money buying a house that we can’t enjoy it or put anything in it.” He also wants to put exorbitant (IMO) amounts of money in savings.

Needless to say, I tend to be very optimistic and borderline idealistic during times like this. I see a problem and start brainstorming solutions–“Well, we’ll just stop going out to eat and only limit movies in the theaters to once a month and save half of our ‘blow money’ to fly to Mexico in March with my family” (or else we wouldn’t be able to make it happen). In a lot of ways, it might end up being like my New Year’s Resolutions: very ambitious but hardly ever carried through.

But I am willing to change our lifestyle somewhat to make buying a house possible. And we’re not talking about a $300K 2,500 square foot tri-level mansion. We’re talking about a $170K 1,000 square foot ranch house (but there are some really nice ones out there!) And we wouldn’t have to reduce ourselves to rags and Ramen. We just couldn’t splurge on new camping gear and plane tickets and going to the Frozen Four for $150 a person. Things would be a little tighter, they’d be a little hard.

But we would grow. We would be forced to depend on God for provision. I don’t think that going into buying a house right now is a poor financial decision. We have about $600 wiggle room for “things that make life enjoyable” each month so it’s not like we’re putting all of our pennies into the same piggy bank, hoping we never need that money for anything else.

So I have proposed a trial run: for the month of July, we pretend that we have a mortgage. And are saving for Mexico in March. And are saving for grad school in September (which is SO CLOSE!) We limit our “date money” and we only get half of our “blow money.” Travis thinks it will be absolutely horrible. I think that it will be doable. (which is very weird considering I’m the spender and he’s the saver…) I think that we just need to be more discriminatory about when we go out to eat and to movies, etc. We have to make it count.

We will see how it goes. But a praise: today, I really felt like I was trusting the Lord to provide a house for us instead of freaking out that the house we like will be snatched up. I even prayed throughout the day when I felt myself getting overly excited for the Lord to remind me of His sovereignty and goodness. This morning, I felt reassured by this verse in Ephesians: “And now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

To God be the glory because I am nothing without Him.

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I survived the hike!

1 Jun

But barely. Our first backpacking trip was fun but man, was it hard on the legs! I’m glad that the hike was only 3.5 miles because it was all uphill and I don’t think I could’ve gone much farther. My legs were jello by the time we got to our site.

But I did make it the whole way and we had fun. Friday night, we just camped at a site near the trailhead. We made s’mores over the campfire and laughed at Becky and Scott’s dog, Mader, who was an endless source of entertainment. Then Saturday, we headed up the trail around 9:00, got there around 11:45, set up camp, and then did nothing. We fished a little, I took 2 naps (yes, 2), we read, ate, played Yahtzee. If there was something I would do differently for next time, it would be to bring something more to do. I’ll admit it–I was a little bored. I think I’ll bring a good novel next time and find a spot in the sun to suntan and read.

Anyway, this morning we got up, ate breakfast, lazed around the campsite, and got going back down to our car around 10:30. By 12:30, we were at our car. By 1:45, were back to Lakewood (where the Allens live) and by 2:30, I was sound asleep on our bed in Boulder. Glorious.

I am excited for our next trip! 

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