The Church Search Begins

I stayed a little late at work on Friday and then met Shane at Home Depot (our new home away from home). It is amazing all of the stuff you have to get when you move.

We picked out a rug for the living room, but I still cant find one for the kitchen that has the colors I want to pull from (I want light blue and sage green). After getting garage door openers and about a million other random things, we went to eat at Mazzy's, a fun sports bar near our house.

On Saturday, we slept in and ran a few errands before meeting our friends at Turner Field. We tailgated for a few hours and celebrated Yon's birthday. After the game, we went to his apartment and hung out with some more friends. For the record... I LOVE his girlfriend, Sona! (<-- Yon, I hope you are cool enough to read my blog and see this stamp of approval!)

On Sunday, we went to Watermarke Church with my cousin Renee and her sweet family. Shane and I really enjoyed the message and the music was phenomenal. We plan to visit a few more churches before we make our final choice. It was great to spend some time with family! Reese, Sam and Hayes are SO adorable and well behaved. I can't get over how smart they are! I am always so impressed with them.

We went to Mexican for lunch with them, and then Shane and I continued our never-ending list of errands. We got a dog house, and looked at some pieces of furniture for accent pieces around the house. We got a Starbuck's which gave us that extra boost of energy to do some yard work. I cleaned the inside of both cars while Shane cut the grass, and then our sweet neighbors invited us over to hang out with them outside. We have prayed for a long time for the Lord to lead us to a home in a good community with neighbors that we would be able to call friends... and as always, He never fails. We are going to visit church with these neighbors in the next few weeks. :)

Tonight we have our weekly date to Moe's, and then we are going to get blinds for the last 4 windows in the house. Slowly but surely, the house is really starting to feel like a home!

XoXo,

The Church Searchers

Our First Week

The commute is amazing... I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but the time it takes me to get to and from work has been cut in more than half! This has given us a lot of time to be productive with the unpacking process and still take the dogs for a walk, watch TV together, run errands, ect.

We found out new Moe's location for our Monday date nights and made a trip to Walmart.

My Mom and grandma, Munca, came over on Wednesday. I made taco salad and we had ice cream for dessert. It was great to spend time with them. Munca gave me beautiful crystal that was my great-grandmother's china. I am so honored to have the set, and it will be perfect for all of the baby showers and wedding showers that I host!

We bought new kitchen table a few weeks ago, and we put it together this week. The house is really coming along!

Handy Man Husband

 

 

Boxes everywhere

Assembly Line

Finished product

Now on to rugs and curtains...

 

 

XoXo,

 

The Nesters

 

Purchased: Our "Forever Home"

Shane and I are beyond blessed and excited to be in our new house. Saturday was our first night sleeping there. It has been a crazy couple of weeks between my new job, packing and going through the home buying process. Shane gets most of the credit! He packed a majority of the house since I worked so much last week, and he organized all of the loan process, coordinated the movers… the list could go on for days! 

We always leave notes for one another on the mirror... this is the last note I left Shane at the Covington house.

 

On Friday, Shane had the day off of work so he was able to get some more packing finished and run a few errands before we met at the closing. I got off work around 2, and we went to Starbucks first because we were both just SO exhausted. I must give a MAJOR shout out to Jay Zalauf with Citi Bank and Mo Sanford with Sunrise Reality. They were AMAZING to work with, and I recommend them both! Mo was the realtor we used for the Covington house as well, and he is incredible (besides the fact that he is an Alabama fan)! Jay was such a pleasure to work with. He even brought us each a gift at the closing to congratulate us and offered to take us to dinner next week! What great customer service!

Jay (left) and Mo (right) are THE best!

 

The closing went flawlessly, and afterwards, Shane and I headed straight to Acworth. I was STARVING, so we stopped for pizza and beer at Johnny’s. When we got to the house, we each unloaded a car full of stuff, and then headed to buy the fridge.

Unlocking our door for the first time. Shane carried me over the threshold!

By the time we got back to Covington, we were both so tired that we decided to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to finish packing before the movers came. I had to head to the new house by 7 so someone would be there for the fridge to be delivered.

I was surprisingly emotional when it was time for me to leave. It was hard to leave our starter home. Shane and I walked back through the house and reminisced about our favorite memories there. We decided to leave a note in the attic.

 

 

 

My sweet parents came to the new house to help do a deep cleaning before the movers arrived. I was so excited to show them the house that Shane and I have worked so hard to purchase.

Here are pictures before the movers came!

Dining Room

Living Room

Living Room

Kitchen

Laundry Room

1 of 4 bedrooms

1/2 of master

Kitchen

Guest Bath (upstairs)

Guest Room (downstairs)

Guest Bath (downstairs)

Curb view

Bedroom

Master Bath

Formal Living Room (we will use as an office)

 

Foyer

 

There is a large bonus room as well that will be Shane's "Man Room"

 

 

Shane and I have been saving and praying for a long time to be in a house that we could raise a family in with good schools and still be close to work. We also prayed that our neighbors would be welcoming and we could become friends and have dinner parties and pool days. I am so glad we decided to Let Go & Let God… He is so good! Our neighbors are INCREDIBLE! I met Angela and Stacy first, and they each brought us a meal. They were so welcoming and kind. We invited Angela and her husband Steve over for drinks after they brought us KFC. I am so excited to meet more neighbors and become friends with everyone.

BIG thanks to all who helped us this weekend, especially my Mom, Dad, Shawna and Mr. Bill.

Let the decorating begin…

XoXo,

The Homeowners

 

P.S. Some of the pictures compressed weird and uploaded sideways... I will try and fix later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another busy weekend...

What a wonderful weekend Shane and I had with family and friends. Friday night I got home late from work… gotta love Friday evening traffic in Atlanta. The prolonged commute wasn’t too bad because it gave me a chance to chat on the phone with my sweet Daddy. He is suffering with shingles right now, (bless his heart!) so I was glad he felt well enough to talk for a bit!

When I finally got home, Shane and I had pizza and then headed to Walmart. We had a few things to pick up for Kelly’s engagement party. When we got home we were too tired to pack (go figure). We watched a little TV and headed to bed early instead.

On Saturday we spent the day at Shawna’s helping set up for Kelly and Sean’s engagement party! We had so much fun celebrating with them! Here are some pictures.

Sean's parents were so great! We loved meeting his family!

 

Sean's festive attire!

 

Shawna with her sweet puppy Rio!

 

I am SO blessed to have these two in my life!

 

Hawaiian-themed shower

 

 

 

Sunday morning we were able to sleep in a little bit before meeting Kelly, Sean and Shawna for lunch at Chili’s. They joined us at our final walkthrough at the house so they could see the new crib. It was great to be able to spend a little more time with them!

We can't wait for this sign to say "SOLD" on Friday!

 

After the walkthrough, Shane and I headed to BrandsMart with the dimensions for the fridge in hand. We picked out one quickly and then headed home. I had every intention of being productive when we got home, but I decided to take a quick nap instead. When I woke up, Shane had taken down all of the decorations throughout the house. It was so bitter sweet because now our walls and windows are so bare. We packed a few more boxes together, and then I made some dinner before we headed to the Luke Bryan, FL/GA Line and Thompson Square concert.

We stopped at Ingles on the way to get “cash back” for parking. I bought us each a water bottle and forgot the $20 in the U-Scan console. Typical!! Luckily Shane asked me about the money in enough time for us to stop at an ATM, and when I called Ingles they had found the money and said they would keep it at customer service! Crisis averted.

We had a great time singing and dancing at the concert. Live music and people-watching are two of my favorite things… so I always have a blast at concerts! It poured for 15 minutes (Appropriate forecast since Luke sings, “Rain is a good thing…”).I loved every minute of dancing in the rain until I was freezing afterwards and all my makeup was gone! Shane took cover under our blanket--- clearly he is the practical one, but he was nice enough to let me wear his shirt afterwards!  We got home around midnight after a trip to Taco Bell. Monday certainly came too soon, but I am so glad we had a wonderful weekend together!

 

A kiss before the downpour

 

Our poor doggies missed us when we were gone all weekend!

XoXo,

S & C

Weekend Update

Shane and I had a relaxing weekend filled with Redbox movies and sweatpants.We slept late everyday because that's what you do when you don't have kids! It's been so rainy lately we haven't been able to do much outside, but after so many days cooped up in the house, we were ready to get out and run some errands.

On Saturday we went to about 20 different locations looking for furniture for the new house. We went to really unique antique stores and pawn shops and took our first trip to Ikea. What a cool place!

We made our way to Brooks to visit Cindilu and Mr. Bill. We ate dinner with them, and then our good friends Russell and Amy came over to show off their ADORABLE son, Barrett. We had fun playing with him and visiting with everyone.

Today we went to some more furniture stores and ended up finding a great deal on bar stools and a kitchen table.The table is unique and casual, but still high quality! The wood tone on the table will tie in our chocolate hardwood floors and the lighter wood of the kitchen cabinets. I am going to have so much fun decorating and personalizing our new house!

This is our new kitchen table. It is a high top, so we got extra chairs for the bar in the kitchen. 

Here are two pictures of our soon-to-be kitchen and the nook where we will put the new table. 

Tonight we are going to spend some quality time together and have pizza for dinner. Nothing is better than a relaxing weekend to lead you back into the work week.

XoXo,
The Young Lovebirds

"Facebook Official" Anniversary

Today is our 3 year dating anniversary. Really, it marks the day that Shane finally got enough courage to ask me to be his girlfriend. We dated for a few months, but made it “facebook official” on June 3, 2010.

On June 3, 2011, Shane told me to go to the first place we met. I drove from my apartment to Ramsey (the gym @ UGA) where he had 3 roses symbolizing past, present and future. He sang a song that he wrote and played guitar. At the end of the song, he got down on one knee and proposed to me! Later that day we went tubing in Helen.

On June 3, 2012, I came home from work and Shane had two roses in a vase symbolizing the two years we had been together. At this point, we were about 2 months away from our wedding date. On the stem of one of the roses, he placed a second wedding band. While we were looking for rings, I loved the way my wedding set looked with a diamond band on both sides of the engagement ring. I was completely shocked that he got the second band for me. He played a recording of him singing the song he wrote for me when he proposed, and we danced barefoot in the kitchen. How romantic is he?!

These are the dried roses. 3 from when he proposed and 2 from our second anniversary.

Today, Shane went to look at furniture for the new house while I stayed at home and worked. He came home with the beautiful roses for me. I am so incredibly lucky!

XoXo,

The Lovebirds