our ♥ weekend

SO many wonderful things happened this weekend - we ate a fabulous dinner Friday night at Bob's Steakhouse, primed & painted the kitchen & bathrooms, and spent a relaxing & comfortable night at home on Valentine's Day.

I love eating a delicious steak, but I love spending time with my wonderful husband even more. Our Valentine's Day was spent painting our house, watching a movie and eating heart-shaped pizza - and I couldn't be happier.

Here are a couple pictures of our weekend.

you know what I think...?

I think women with significant others that don't celebrate Valentine's Day, just hate Valentine's Day for that reason. I hate reading comments about how stupid and overrated Valentine's Day is...when 99% of the time its from a women who has a non-participant significant other.

It makes me so mad when people make fun of my gorgeous bouquet just because they didn't get one. Seriously.

I feel so lucky to have a husband that enjoys sending me flowers and loves to see me happy. With that being said, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Love,

Kate

the casa!

I wanted to post some "status" pictures of the house. Please don't judge. I'll post final pictures once we've moved in and hung pictures, etc. ENJOY!

FAMILY ROOM:

before

now

DINING ROOM:

before

now

MASTER BEDROOM:

before

now

Love,

Kate

Experts in paint

We really apologize for not posting in a month. It's been a busy time for us, with the house closing on Jan. 19 & painting since then. Closing went very smoothly. You hear all these horor stories about other people's bad experiences in closing, but I must say ours went fast & effortlessly. I'll admit we had our stuff together, stayed on top of everything, & were very attractive borrowers to lenders,so it all worked out great & now we own a house.

So now we're working on painting some of the walls we wanted to change in color, & Kate's dad wil be up in the middle of the month to do tile in our kitchen & bathrooms. I've made more trips to Home Depot in the past week than I have the restof my life. But it's cool. I walk down the isles & see all these things we could get to customize our house, & I just have to remember we're going to be there for a long time & there's no need to rush too everything at once. I also have toremind Kate about this too because her mind is full of ideas, but she's great about keeping a budget in mind too.

With all this painting we're gaining some knowledge & becoming some kind of experts. However, I will quickly admit I was very frustrated & had a momentarybreakdown when priming the kitchen wainscotting (sp?) & where wallpaper once was, & that area might need professional help. Yikes. But we overcame that & onward we march!

Once we get settled in we'll surely have a baller party with a high end guest list, champagne poppin', & photo rights sold to Us weekly. Puff Daddy & Tony Romo have already RSVP'd, so be sure to make it whenever it's announced. The guest list will be enforced by security, & please leave your heat at home.

See ya!

--Josh

New Year, New Attitude

Well, my fellow bloggers...its a new year. You know what that means...gotta make a resolution. I find myself constantly making the same New Years resolution - get fit. This takes on a whole new meaning, after being in the best shape of my life for our wedding. My goal is to get back into wedding shape, hopefully by the time we celebrate our 1-year anniversary!

My tactics to get fit:
1) run - 4 days/week
2) lift weights - 3 days/week
3) abs - 5 days/week

Well, enough of ME...let's talk about US...Josh & I had a wonderful Holiday season. We visited Josh's mom in Cleburne on x-mas eve and x-mas morning; then traveled to his dad's house in Ft. Worth on x-mas day and that night; then we drove all the way to my parents' house in Austin. All in all, I'd say it was the longest, most exhausting x-mas I've ever had! Forget waking up at 3am to see what Santa brought...try smiling and carrying on for 6 straight days! EEK!

After spending 3 days in Austin with my family, Josh & I headed back to Plano for 7 days of blissful relaxation. My office was closed Dec 24 - Jan 4, and Josh took off those days so we could spend them together. I must say...going to be early, waking up late, eating and drinking to our hearts content...nice way to spend the break!

Another important event on the horizon - we are closing on our first house on Jan 29! Here is a picture of our precious house. I've already bought the house in my mind...picked out paint, furniture & window treatments. What do you think?



Always remember to keep it real, have fun and smile.
-Kate

'Tis the Season

Thought I'd drop in to say hi, Merry Christmas, & update everyone on what's going on with us. We suddenly find ourselves 4 days from Christmas! Aahhhh! Kate & I went out to finish our shopping, & received a beat down of epic proportion. The traffic & crowds out yesterday in the Stonebriar area SUCKED! I kept thinking...."what recession?!?". There were so many people out & the lines at the check-out counters were so long, there's no way this area can be hurting. It was a huge relief to finally get home.

So we're under contract for the Hearthstone house, mentioned in a previous post. It's exactly what we're looking for & it was a relief to have the inspection & find out that there's nothing wrong with it, other than a few minor cosmetic things. We're looking at closing on Jan. 29, so stay tuned. As long as everything works out & we end up in this house as planned, we're thinking we'll stay at home next Thanksgiving & maybe Christmas, & invite any of our fam who want to come. This would save on the mental anguish holiday travel & traffic causes. But for this year we'll be making stops in Cleburne, Ft. Worth, & Austin, before returning home for a week off from work.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

--Josh

House Hunters: Plano

Helo valued reader. It's the Christmas season, & man have we been busy! We went to Austin for Thanksgiving, enduring the beating that is driving down I35 to spend time with Kate's fam & my Austin fam. We did the Turkey trot to work up a good appetite, & had a good time with everyone. We also got some good shopping in.

Right before Thanksgiving we initiated our home search with a visit to two houses for sale. Neither of us fell in love with either house, but we kept looking & today we wen out & looked at 7 more. I'd say 3 were livable, the other 4 were horrendous (much better looking from the pictures online). And of the 3 good ones, there's one we really like. We'll call it the Hearthstone House. Get this.....while we're there some other, older couple show up with their realtor to look at the house. WTF?!?! Nothing like a little competition to give us some anxiety. It's our luck that we find one house we could get serious about, & a retired couple could potentially be a problem for us. But we're trying to not get ahead of ourselves & just control what we can control. If it works out, we'll visit the house again next weekend & then....maybe.....possibly.......make an offer. It has everything we're looking for & is in our budget. But a lot could happen & I have to keep in mind that we might not get it, so all I can say is, we'll see how it goes.

Keep your fingers crossed for us, please. We have Christmas coming up in a few weeks & some much deserved time off from work! Who knows what the weeks ahead have in store for us with house hunting. We have a target in sight, but will we get an opportunity for a shot???

--Josh