January 2013 Events

I can't decide whether to write that lots of things have been going on this month or nothing very eventful has been happening at all this month! We have been busy but I don't feel it has been busy with things worth writing about... This goes hand in hand with my thoughts about the month of January.
January is my least favorite month ever. It is always cold, the snow is pointless because Christmas is over, and it's just plain depressing. This particular January has been colder than I ever remember it being. We have had a major snowstorm that gave us about 2 feet of snow and just today had an ice storm! Pretty sure I have never been in an ice storm, but this morning on my way to work I had to pull over to scrape my windshield off because everything that was falling onto it was just sticking.
Is this post already super depressing? Yes! And I am going to add to it. My poor mother has been to the ER twice this month. One, for falling on the ice and breaking her elbow and two, for being in a car accident and breaking her collar bone on the other arm! She currently is sporting a beautiful purple cast :) we feel so bad for her but have also realized how blessed we are with all the people who have made her dinner and bought groceries for her and just cheered her up when she couldn't do much with both arms out of use. We are truly grateful for everyone who has helped!
Though I talk about how I hate this month, we have still been able to have fun with other things! We are loving living in our house and putting it together to make it a home. We have loved going to the gym in our development as part of our New Years resolutions to stay in shape. And I have LOVED cooking in my kitchen. I don't know what it is but a bigger, nicer kitchen just inspires me. I even made homemade bread! Weird.
Side note: back to the New Years resolutions. I say my resolution was to stay in shape, but really I am going to the gym more to help with my goal of a stress relieved year! My plan is to work off all the stress that I hold inside so that I can be a much more calm person. Every time I tell people this is my plan for the year they all seem to nod in agreement and are probably thinking, "ya that would be a good idea for her...!" :) yes, I think so too. Well, if your wondering what the results are, I feel I have been doing pretty good but there is still room for improvement :)
Another way I have relieved some stress is by shooting my brother, sister in law, and husband.... With nerf guns! Yes, we had a nerf gun war at our house and it was awesome! We set up barricades and had sneak attacks and everything :) Mom joined in but I think she was a little afraid of getting shot in the collarbone.
Wooh! Big breath, that was a lot of rambling, glad we made it through! Hopefully next time won't be so depressing because January is almost over!!

Mom's Surprise Graduation Party

This past weekend we threw my mom a surprise graduation party! With it being my first surprise party I've ever given anyone, I thought it was a success! She had absolutely no idea it was coming.
David and mckenzie got her to our house by telling her that we were going over wedding plans. She totally fell for it! No matter that we were all hiding in the dark for 20 minutes (due to some miscommunication), the surprise was priceless.
We were so lucky to have everyone there and are grateful for everyone who helped make it happen! We are also so proud of my mom who decided to go back to college a few years ago and has pursued her degree to the end with flying colors. She is an inspiration to all of us!

Welcome to Our Home

This will probably be the longest post ever but at least it's mostly pictures!
We are finally in our home! It has been a long time coming since we have been looking at houses since the summer. We are so excited to finally be home owners!
We decided to build our home and we did it through Woodside Builders. We have loved every minute of the building process, it shows with how many pictures we have taken! Our decision came in June, after looking at already built houses in bountiful and salt lake and taking in all of our options, we knew that we definitely wanted to build our first home. Then it came to deciding which company we wanted to build with. Obviously woodside took the cake!
After we made our decision, picked our plot of land, and designed our home, we had to wait for our street to be put in so the building of our house did not start til Sept. 17. We were so excited when we found out and decided to celebrate at Wingers!
The next step came on oct. 11 which was our first walk through of the home with our superintendent. We invited Mark and Joan Johnson to come with us since we are a little naive when it comes to building homes. At this point all of the framing was up, roof on, and garage and windows installed. Also the plumbing and electrics were all done. By Oct. 18 they had completed all the dry wall in the home.
Ty and I had three options to choose from for what the outside of our house would look like. We started by picking a brown tone for our house but after seeing it on another house we decided that we wanted to design the outside ourselves. Even though it cost us more money it was one of the best decisions we ever made! We got to go down to the design studio and pick out the color of our siding, stucco, trim, garage door, and front door. We knew that we wanted a grey house with white trim and a black door and black shutters. We could not be happier with how it turned out! We have gotten so many compliments and love that our house looks different than the others. Although, when we were at the design studio there was another couple there and after seeing all the things we had picked, they decided to bag their design and copy exactly ours. Luckily they are building in a different location!
A couple months went by of finishing up the house and on Dec. 13 (right on schedule) we had our final walk through. This is the one where we check everything in the house and make sure there are no dings in the walls and all the doors and sinks work. The superintendent gave me a roll of blue tape to tape anything I wanted fixed. That was a mistake since I taped any little ding in the wall that I found and anything that I wanted them to clean again, I was a little picky :)
On Dec. 19 we closed on our house and immediately started the move from my mom's house to ours! We were so excited to finally be able to move in that we made sure we would be able to at least sleep in our new home. Then the next day we completed the move by taking all of our stuff out of storage and bringing it to our house. We had so many people come to help us even though it was on a work night and we are so grateful for all of them! If it hadn't of been for them, we would have had to wait until Saturday and I was just way too anxious for that!
After all the moving, we worked super hard to get all unpacked so that we could have Christmas Day dinner at our house and the mission was accomplished! We would stay up till all hours of the night completing all of our little projects that we needed to do. That list is never ending!
Anyways, the first few nights of sleeping at our house we felt like we were staying at a hotel! All of it was so nice and new! But now we are getting into the swing of things and are still in love with our home! We are so grateful for all of the people who helped us to get where we are now and are so grateful that we could start out with such a beautiful home. We are spoiled!
Here are pictures for the grand tour of our home. I put them in order of progress for each part of our house. Thanks for stopping by at our lovely abode!