Welcome 2010

Well, I guess I can't say that I made a new year resolution to keep my blog updated.  No, I don't see me keeping that one.  I can't believe that it has been almost a full month since I was last on my own blog.  Oh my!

A lot has happened in the past month.  Here are a few things going on here:

• We had an AWESOME and very blessed Christmas
  
• We had a wonderful time in TX visiting family.
  
• We are finally moved into our temporary rental home and somewhat settled for now.
• We are back in full swing with our schooling
• Soccer has started again.
  
• We submitted and had an offer accepted on a new home.

Yep, the last one there is quit exciting for us. However, it is an offer on a "short sale".  For those out there who are not "up" on what a short sale is, well let me sum it up with one word...."waiting"!  We put the offer on the house before Christmas (about 4 weeks ago) and have not heard a single thing from the other realtor except that the seller accepted our offer.  We assume that the other agent has things under control and is working on getting some answers from the sellers bank but that is just all assumption right now. Who knows what to expect in a housing market like we are in right now.  It is am awesome house that has about 99.9% of what we are looking for AND perfectly in our price range.  SO...we are willing to wait right now.

Our visit to TX was one that was well worth the trip.  My boys were able to meet some family that they had never met before. It was so cool, but at the same time makes me feel really old because the last time I saw some of the same family members I was just a child and we were all playing together.  Now we are all (most anyways) grown and have our own families.Kind of weird to think about.

After returning home I gave the boys a few more days to relax and unwind before hitting the books again. With school also comes soccer.  Kyle's team has played 2 games already this year and has won both of the them.  One was today and boy was it a nail-bitter! They ended up winning but only in the last couple minuets of the game with a score of 4-3. Kyle had 2 of the goals and one assist. Way to go Kyle!

Quick Update

Here is a quick update on what I have been up to this past month...

-Worked some more on our house. It is coming into the home stretch...maybe...I think it will always be something that is ongoing. It has turned out really nice and we are really enjoying it.

-Both boys started a new hockey season and they are playing on the same team. That makes it SO nice as we will not always have to be going in different directions during the week and on the weekends, too. Their team is called the Admirals and their jerseys are green. They have only played one game so far. I will post pictures of them both in action soon.

-Tyler had travel skill assessments (kind of like tryouts) for hockey and Kyle had the same except it was for soccer. We are not sure if we want them committing to club teams right now as they are huge time commitments however, it has been a good experience for them.

-I am in the middle of my soccer season. We are currently playing in our seasonal tournament. Last I looked, I think we are in 1st place. Yea! We still have the payoffs to get through though.

- The kids have been working hard on sticking with their school work as we are upon the last few weeks of school here. I can't believe another year has already gone by.

-Planning another trip to see my sister and family soon. She is just about finished with her masters work and getting ready to graduate. Big Kudos to her and congratulations!

-Followed the entire season of Big Brother 9. Adam won! Yea Adam. I am glad to see him win it. I actually liked him from the beginning. Also, he claims he is going to give 100K of his winnings to Autism research. I have to say that after watching him through out the season, he seems to have some autistic tendencies himself. hummm?

-Still following The Bachelor. Only one word for this season so far...."whatever"! I guess it has a few more weeks to go before we find out who "the girl" is. One is very high maintenance and the other very reserved and laid back. Totally opposite! It will be interesting to see what type he will go for. With them having such different personalities he HAS to be leading one of them on. again...whatever

-And last but definitely not least....The reason for the season....The Stanley Cup Playoffs....oh yea...it is either on the TV or the radio (or Internet, sometimes). They are already through playing the first round and now there are 8 teams still battling it out in the second round. I wonder what team will claim Lord Stanley this year? We shall see...

our house make over...still moving along but almost complete

We have been working on remodeling, redoing and redecorating our house for about the past 10 months. Our most recent of the projects has been adding a new fresh coast of paint (and updated color) to all the walls. Now we are ready to move on to the FUN part, shopping for the new items and accessories needed to complete the rooms.

Last summer and fall we worked on remodeling our office and kitchen. Before that we completely re-did the kids rooms, their bathroom and the laundry room. Now we are finally getting to the main living areas of the house (you know, the ones that everyone sees when you have visitors). After we are done with this part, I guess we are on to the master bedroom and bathroom. I am feeling pretty drained right now so at this rate I think that will be a while. That is all good though. I keep teasing my hubby and telling him that it will not matter anyways because in the past, at out previous home, we did exactly what we are doing now (with updating our house) and by the time we got to the master bedroom we ended up selling and moving. So I guess we will see how far we get. (ha)

I will post pictures when the new furnishings and decorations are in place and everything is complete (for this phase anyways).

Painting pics...

Here you go Jen. You have been wanting to see some pictures...these are for you... :)
This is what it looks like right now. I am officially calling it the chocolate and peanut butter walls....ha! oh my!! It really does look a lot better than what was there before (from the previous owners).

We are working on getting the tv's and electronis hooked back up now as well as the furniture back in place.

Little by little...

This long process is slowly but surely coming along...little by little. The painting that is. We started back in mid January and are just now down to the last few walls to be done. Hopefully by next week we will have it all complete. Our weeks are so full and packed with church and sports (oh yea...work, too) that we are doing most of the work late at night after the kids are in bed. I have had to take a few nights off and actually go to bed early as the late nights were starting to get to me. The last thing I need right now is to get sick...no circle of germs for me. No thank you!

More Home Improvement

I have not been around much in the Blog world due to ALL my extra time being taken up with painting. We decided that we were going to totally redue all the color in our house. So, all the walls are getting a new fresh coat of paint, and yes we are doing it all ourselves. Whew! It is a big job. I will try and post pictures after we get it all done.