Well after a whirlwind year of moving across the country and back, we've finally gotten everything together to be able to move out on our own again. We've decided to rent an apartment, and put our dream of home ownership on hold for now. (We've been actually throwing around the idea of building our own house) After looking at various apartments, we've decided and been accepted to Stonybrook Apartments in Epping, NH. They are brand new, (just finished in Nov. 2009)
Some things they feature are: geothermal heating which basically pumps water from deep in the earth up to a pump which then uses the forced water to heat or cool your home, and then in the summer, takes your warm air from your house, and pumps it back into the ground, also cooling your house. (it's a pretty nifty concept if I do say so myself) So you're not necessarily paying for heat, you pay for the electricity that the pump uses, (which is pretty minimal)
ceramic tile in the kitchen and bathroom
updated appliances
A DISHWASHER!!
pet friendly (dogs only up to 25lbs though-so much for my hopes of getting a Great Dane!)
Each apartment has their own little balcony/patio
a fitness room
a lounge area to use if you have lots of guests over (my instant thought was for church parties/activities)
laundry on site
etc etc
We're excited! Our move in date is March 1st. We're hoping to be able to move our stuff in the weekend before since the 1st is a Monday. For me, I feel a little nostalgic to move to Epping, because my dad used to live there, and that's the town where I graduated High School. It will make the commute for Nick and I more even. This will be our 4th ward in less than a year though. We will now be a part of the Exeter ward. Both Nick and I have never actually been to the Exeter ward, but we've always heard good things, and after being in 3 different wards, we've come to the conclusion, that it doesn't matter what ward you live in, they're all good in different ways.
We'll post pictures once we get settled in. Woohoo! for living on our own again!!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
New Years 2010
Well, last year my New Year's resolution was to keep up with this blog and write at least once a month. Well, I may not have written every month, but I have written at least 12 posts this past year, (15 to be exact) so I think that I've done pretty well. I hope to continue to keep up with it this year too.
This year, Nick and I were able to spend New Year's together ALONE! :) Which, when you're living with your In-laws is a HUGE blessing. Nick's family went to Florida over Christmas vacation, and we had the great Christmas gift of having a house to ourselves! I felt so nice to be able to just cook my husband dinner for once. It's interesting the things that you really miss when you don't have them.
We watched the ball drop and had a marathon day of playing World of Warcraft. Which has become our go to game to sort of "get away" and to keep our sanity. We may play it too much, but whatever is necessary to keep things together.
We also don't really do resolutions that we feel we have to stick to, but try to make goals to try and improve our lives each year. Resolutions always seem like, if you screw up once, it's over, where as goals you can always try to do better and if you fall off one month, you can alwyas hop back on.
Some of our resolutions/goals for this year are:
1. Get our own place ASAP :) (We're thinking March 1st)
2. Read our scriptures on a more regular basis (currently we go through spurts, where we are really good about reading them all the time, and then we slack off for a week or two)
3. Attend the temple once a month (this is a carry over goal from last year, we're really good about doing this but we like to keep it on our list)
Other than those three, we decided that we didn't want to do too many resolutions/goals this year. Our main goal is to just get our lives back. Nick loves his new job at Onesky and I really enjoy mine at Lifeshare. So far things are on the right track to get us to where we want to be, it's more of just waiting for time to help us catch up.
This year, Nick and I were able to spend New Year's together ALONE! :) Which, when you're living with your In-laws is a HUGE blessing. Nick's family went to Florida over Christmas vacation, and we had the great Christmas gift of having a house to ourselves! I felt so nice to be able to just cook my husband dinner for once. It's interesting the things that you really miss when you don't have them.
We watched the ball drop and had a marathon day of playing World of Warcraft. Which has become our go to game to sort of "get away" and to keep our sanity. We may play it too much, but whatever is necessary to keep things together.
We also don't really do resolutions that we feel we have to stick to, but try to make goals to try and improve our lives each year. Resolutions always seem like, if you screw up once, it's over, where as goals you can always try to do better and if you fall off one month, you can alwyas hop back on.
Some of our resolutions/goals for this year are:
1. Get our own place ASAP :) (We're thinking March 1st)
2. Read our scriptures on a more regular basis (currently we go through spurts, where we are really good about reading them all the time, and then we slack off for a week or two)
3. Attend the temple once a month (this is a carry over goal from last year, we're really good about doing this but we like to keep it on our list)
Other than those three, we decided that we didn't want to do too many resolutions/goals this year. Our main goal is to just get our lives back. Nick loves his new job at Onesky and I really enjoy mine at Lifeshare. So far things are on the right track to get us to where we want to be, it's more of just waiting for time to help us catch up.
Christmas 2009
Even if this Christmas wasn't what we normally would envision for ourselves, it was still a great Christmas. Nick and I both felt that we needed some way to be able to make this Christmas "ours". We felt awkward being a part of his family's traditions, so one thing that we did was to buy a little tree and we put it in our bedroom so that we could put our own presents under it, and our own ornaments on it. It was a huge help to be able to make the holidays seem a lot less awkward.We didn't have a star that would fit our little tree, so we Macgyver'd a star out of two dollar store star ornaments, and tied them together around the top of the tree. We thought it worked out pretty well.
Here are a few memorable ones...
This one is to me from Nick, he made it look like something from the Jewlery store Zales...
But inside were a few marshmallows and a note that read
"You've been naughty, so here's the scoop...You're getting nothing, but snowman's poop!"
Another creative idea, this time from me...A BOX OF POPCORN!
But what's this? A coupon for a movie night! "To be performed without whining or complaining."
Some other things we got each other were:
From me to Nick:
some Axe shower supplies
A new white dress shirt
the video game Demigod
and a new wallet!!
From Nick to me:
Ferrero Rocher's
a new watch
The Sims3 video game
a coupon to get a perm!!
After we opened our gifts to each other, we had breakfast with Nick's family, and then we exchanged gifts with them. They were very kind to get us a bunch of gift certificates to be able to go out on different dates. Nick's mom wrote me a very nice letter, telling me how much she appreciates having me for a daughter in-law and also gave me a statue of Joseph and Mary on a camel holding baby Jesus, so that I can paint it. There is a tradition in Nick's family to paint ornaments every year, and they all make fun of me because it takes me HOURS to paint ONE ornament (I'm just very particular :)) but I love to do it, so this will definitely be something to keep me busy.
Later in the day, Nick and I went to visit my family. This year my mom decided to have Christmas dinner with Keith's sister, Missy and her family. It was a nice change, because Keith's side of the family is one that we don't get to see very often. Missy has a son named Cameron, who is around Ryan's age, and it made me feel really old, because I haven't seen him since he was probably about 5, and now he's around 13, so I was totally that weird distant family member who says,
"The last time i saw you, you were THIS big!"
We all had a good time though. Here's a photo of my Uncle Todd and my brother Ryan goofing around.
My mom's side of the family, since there are so many people usually does a get together every year where we draw names for the kids earlier in the month and do a Yankee swap for the adults. The weekend after Christmas we went to my grandfather's house.
My mom is one of 6 kids. I am the oldest of the nieces and nephews. All of my other Aunts and Uncles are just starting their families, so I get counted as one of the adults now. One of the cutest moments of the party was when my cousin Ben, opened his gift, which was from my mom. He is at the age where he loves to dress up in different costumes, and really wanted a batman costume for Christmas. My mom found the only one in the entire store! he was SO excited when he opened it up, and of course he had to put it on right then! He looked so adorable!
and then to finish it off I have a picture of my two favorite boys.
Ah brotherly love! :)
Overall it was a great Christmas. Nick and I are very grateful to be able to have so many family members to be able to spend the holidays with.
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