Shawna and William

Monterey

2009-06-20T12:53:00.000-07:00

Will and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary by going to Monterey last weekend. It was nice to go see new sites and relax for the weekend.
On Saturday, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium...it was so cool to see the jelly fish there. I don't think I'd ever seen any in person before, and they were so bright and neon looking in the dark rooms. It was fun walking through Cannery Row, seeing all of the shops and places to eat downtown. Neither of us like seafood though, so we chose a place called Willy's Smokehouse for lunch (partly because of the name!) and an Italian place called "The Loose Noodle" for dinner. They were both really good! We also went to Carmel and walked down past a lot of shops and really nice houses to get down to the beach.

On Sunday, we went on a whale watching trip. Luckly, with the combination of taking dramamine and the water being really calm that day, we didn't get really sick on the boat! After a couple hours on the boat, we had only seen a couple small groups of dolphins and two whales, which were moving along really slowly. Even though it was neat to see, it wasn't quite as exciting as what we'd expected....but then things got more exciting as we came across hundreds of dolphins (3 different types) all swimming together, close to the boat! It was so cool...it's too bad that I couldn't have gotten some good pictures (the motion of the boat along with the dolphins movement was making it hard for my camera to focus very well). Then I was so excited to get all of these dolphins on the video camera, that I filmed them a little fast and crazy! It was so cool though, because these dolphins were more exciting, some of them spinning and jumping out of the water!

After the long whale watching trip, we headed back to the beach to grab a bag of sand to take home. We are making it a tradition to collect sand from each anniversary trip, and save it to remind us of where we went. When we booked our honeymoon through a travel agent, she gave us a little glass container with a "honeymoon" label on it and explained that it was to hold sand from each of the places we stopped on our trip. We thought that was a really neat idea, and I'm glad that she helped us start a tradition.

It's hard to believe that 3 whole years have gone by since our wedding!...

2009-04-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

After doing a lot of projects inside the house, we decided it was time to change the look of our front yard by putting in new planters. We got tired of trying to deal with our old ones that were overgrown with weeds...so we tore them out, and made new ones. Then we put all new plants and bark in. It was a lot of work, but really changed the look of the front yard!

Another House Project

2009-02-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

We finally found some tile we liked for our bathroom, and installed it this weekend. It was our first time tiling, but we are happy with how it turned out :) Next, we are going to be working on putting in new planters in the front yard (once the weather is nice enough to work outside). Here are some pictures of the bathroom.

This last picture is what the bathroom looked like when we bought our house

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T20:07:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years with their family and friends! This was our first Christmas in our new house. It was nice to be able to celebrate the holidays in our own home this year. It was fun decorating the house and thinking about how many more holiday memories we will have in our home.
January 2nd was the anniversary of the day we got the keys to our house, and this time last year we were busy painting and getting our house ready to move into. It is crazy how fast the first year went by!

Thanksgiving

2008-12-11T21:30:00.000-08:00

Will and I spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house. Here are some pics

Me and Eric with our little cousins Aftyn and Arden

Arden loves playing video games

My mom with Moose...he's even cuter in person :)

Me, Will and Tootsie...with her big ear covering my face!

Family picture

Bishop's Pumpkin Farm

2008-10-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our trip to Bishop's with Will's family last weekend.

The pitter patter of little feet...

2008-09-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

...

No, it's not what you're thinking! It's actually the pitter patter of little paws! We have a new addition to our family, and it's a cute little white cat. A couple weeks ago, a cat showed up at my parents restaurant at night and was so skiny that my mom decided to feed it. She was just going to feed it and send it on it's way, but it was so friendly that she called us to come and look at it. It was so starving that it ate 3 whole hot dogs (there was no cat food around). After taking her home, feeding her, and keeping her in the house during the nights, she has decided that this is her home. We decided to name her Keali. Here are a couple pictures of her in her favorite spot of the house.

Another great weekend!

2008-09-29T19:46:00.000-07:00

The Friday before last we went to see comedian Gabriel Iglesias at the Colusa Casino. My parents bought us tickets for our anniversary and we couldn't wait to finally go to our first comedy show! He is a really good comedian and the show was so much fun! Afterwards we were able to meet him and get his autograph!

Then two days later we got to go to a 49ers game with some of Will's family. The 49ers won, so Will's brother-in-law was really excited. It was a fun day, even though I forgot sunscreen and my face got a little burned!

Busy Summer

2008-09-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

We started off the summer with our 2nd anniversary in June. It's hard to believe that it was already over two years ago that we were planning and waiting for our big day. We took a little day trip to Fort Bragg and took our spoiled dog, Tootsie, with us! Unfortunately, our digital camera broke, and we had to buy a disposable one, so we didn't get very good quality pictures!

The next week we had two weddings to go to. First was Will's cousin Jessica's (and Micah's) wedding, in Red Bluff. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding by the river. Then, a few days later, we went to Matt and Ashlie Ithurburn's wedding in Yuba City...another beautiful outdoor wedding. They had so many creative ideas for decorating their reception too! Being at both of these weddings ALMOST made me want to go back and experience the whole wedding adventure all over again, but then I thought about all the planning and stressful days leading up to our big day!

On the 4th of July, my cousin Camille came down from Redding. We celebrated the 4th, doing fireworks with Will's family and then watching the show over the river in Colusa. The next day, the three of us went to spend the day in Fort Bragg. We had lots of fun hanging out at the beaches and then watched Fort Bragg's firework display that night. It was nice but the fogg kinda made it hard to see some of the show!

A couple weekends later, we went camping with some of Will's family. We had fun jumping off the rope swing, canoeing, taking hikes, and of course eating smores - what's camping without making smores around the campfire?!

One of Will's cousins, Mike, was married a couple months after us. He and his wife, Robyn, are expecting a baby girl this month. In August, I went to a baby shower/family get together for them. They got so many cute little girl outfits...and of course there was lots of pink, pink, and more pink with just about every gift opened!

We decided we needed some roller coaster thrills, so we went to Six Flags Marine World. My cousin Savannah, and her boyfriend, came down from Redding and met us there. Besides almost getting stuck on Medusa, waiting in line for an hour for a ride we didn't end up going on, and (afterwards) driving to the ghetto only to decide we probably didn't want to eat at that Domino's, we had a great time!

The next weekend we took a trip to see my friend Rachel (also Will's cousin) and her family, in Hollister. Her and her husband have a daughter, Makynli, who's almost two, and another daughter, Sydney, born on Mother's Day this year. It was nice to get to see them, and finally get to meet Sydney!

Yesterday, Will and I went back to Marine World, and it was a lot less crowded than the time before, but a lot hotter too! We watched a few of the shows this time and went on some rides that had much shorter lines than before. We will proably be going back soon (since the tickets we got are good for 6 visits).

It's so nice to be settled into a house of our own and be able to go and enjoy our weekends...last year this time was full of many stressful house hunting/offering days!

Two years happily married :)

2008-06-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today is our two year anniversary! These last two years of my life have been two of the happiest. Some people are so negative about marriage/their spouses, but I love married life :) It's nice to know that you have someone as a life-long friend, to support you and share so many memories with. "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up!...Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves." It's also great to know that through any hard times that we face, God is with us, and "A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." ~Ecclesiastes 9, 10 & 12

We went to Fort Bragg on Saturday and had a fun time even though we were crazy enough to drive there and back all in one day! And we went to dinner to celebrate tonight. We are both so thankful that God has blessed us with a great marriage, Tootsie (our dog, who is pretty much like our first child!) and recently our own house in a nice neighborhood. I can't wait to look back a few years from now and see what else God has blessed us with in our life together.

2008-05-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today we finished our flooring and now we're finally done with all of our major house projects! It's so nice that we aren't going to have to spend ALL of our free time working around the house anymore. We still have a few things to finish, but at least now we can take a little time to relax and enjoy our new house! Here are some before and after pics (Our camera's not that great, but you can get the idea):
The Kitchen

Dining Room

Hallway

Our Bedroom

Spare Bedroom/Computer Room

Bathroom (We are still going to be putting new tile in here)

Living Room(After pic below on last blog)

Our New Living Room!

2008-05-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

We finished the floor in our living room tonight...then rushed to put everything into place to see how it looks :) Here's a pic. Now all we have left to do is our hallway and laundry room. We ended up renting a nail gun after figuring out the hard way that our floor isn't the type that can be "floated" So this week we've been working like crazy on nothing but flooring. We have til Sat evening to finish, so wish us luck!

2008-04-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Well our flooring, like almost eveything else we've done so far in our house, is harder and taking more time to get done than we expected. But we are working at it, and so far we have our dining room and almost all of our kitchen done. It will be so nice once the whole house has new flooring down, finally giving it a more finished look! It's amazing how much a house can change with some fresh paint and a little updating...it doesn't even feel like this is the same house we walked into, the day we got our keys!
I'm so happy with how things worked out, after all our long days and months of house searching. There are just some situations that seem so frustrating at the time, but work out for the better in the end, and you have to know that God was there the whole way through. I am so thankful to God for what he has helped us through and blessed us with in our lives....not just our house, but for family and friends, and so many things :)

Jeff's Freezette

2008-04-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

I figured since I've been using this blog to post pictures of our house, I would post a pic of my Dad's house, also known as "Jeff's Freezette" My mom also spends a lot of hours at this vacation home in Colusa, but my Dad loves it so much that he does everything but sleep there. If anyone wants to see my Dad in the near future, take a drive to Colusa and have some great food at "Jeff's"....then if it's not too busy, you might get a chance to talk to him. Otherwise, his next scheduled day off is Thanksgiving, only 225 days away.

2008-04-14T22:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a more recent picture of the front of our house. I just realized I haven't posted one since right after the new windows were installed, and it looks different now.

Flooring

2008-04-08T22:03:00.001-07:00

Here's an idea of what our flooring is going to look like. This is what we've started in the dining room. We decided to install the floor at an angle to give it a different look.

Update

2008-04-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

Well for the last couple weeks, besides working in the yard, we've been trying to get our floor ready to install the bamboo. Will tore up the linoleum in the kitchen, only to find another layer underneath. Since that layer was higher than our other floor in the living room and we need it to be level, it had to be taken up also. It hasn't been the easiest stuff to pull up! We got to make another trip to spend money at Home Depot....yay!! We had to buy plywood to bring the kitchen and dining room floor up to the same level as the living room floor. Anyway, this has been a long, DUSTY project. We still have a few more pieces of plywood to lay down in the kitchen, but we have started by putting the underlayment and setting pieces of the bamboo out in the dining room.
Hopefully it won't be too much longer before I can post some pictures of some actual progress!
At least I feel like I got something halfway acomplished today though...We had decided that a spot above our cabinets needed a little something, so we bought some stencils and I painted this on tonight.

We are going to add something more between the words, but I thought I'd put up this pic for now, since I'm happy I got something done!

2008-03-06T23:05:00.000-08:00

This is a painting we did for our living room. We saw the idea on one of the HGTV shows and decided we'd make one ourselves. It wasn't quite as easy as it looks or as what they made it out to be! But, it fits our style and this way we were able to choose the design and all the colors we wanted.

2008-02-28T23:54:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post an updated picture of the living room (in the last one I put up, it was empty and had our old bathroom vanity in the middle of the room). Even though we still don't have the floors done, as you can see in the pic, we've already bought some boxes of the bamboo and have them stacked in the room. It was nice once all of the window and floor repairs and painting was done, to finally be able to bring in some furniture and use it as a living room :) I also thought I'd post a close up pic of the bamboo flooring to give you an idea of what it looks like. We are still working on unpacking some of our boxes of things, and the extra bedroom is still kind of a storage room for now, so I haven't taken any pics of it yet!...

We have a kitchen now!

2008-02-16T00:14:00.000-08:00

When we moved into our house, we decided we wanted to update our kitchen by putting in a new countertop and sink. We just finished it this week, except for a few finishing touches. We also painted, got a new stove, put up a new light fixture, and sometime (really soon hopefully) we will be putting bamboo flooring in. Here are some pics of the kitchen...and a pic of the back yard after the new section of fencing got put up.

Trip to the snow

2008-01-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

We decided to take Tootsie on her first trip to the snow today...we know, we treat her like a kid! We drove to Stoneyford and found an open snow covered area to play in. She loved it! She ran around like crazy, and every time we threw a snowball at her she caught it in her mouth, or tried to at least.

Tootsie with her "snowdog"!
Tootsie eating her snowdog

3 weeks later

2008-01-25T08:59:00.000-08:00

We got the keys to our house three weeks ago and we have gotten a lot done since then, but still have a lot to do. So far we have painted all the rooms except for the kitchen and laundry room. The week after we got the keys, carpet was installed in the two bedrooms. That night we moved in. During the "Big Storm", our back fence fell down, so we put up new fencing to keep Tootsie in. We finally have windows in the living room instead of plywood. Next we will be installing the sink and countertop in the kitchen. Then we are planning on intalling bamboo flooring thoughout the rest of the house. Here are some pictures of what we have been doing.

The bathroom doesn't look so bright green in person!

2008-01-02T23:20:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pics

First day at our house :)

2008-01-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

This morning we got the keys to our house! As you can see from the first two pictures, there is work being done at the front of the house. Some wood and windows are being replaced, but it's all being taken care of by the seller, which is nice for us :) We started painting today in what will be our bedroom. It made such a difference already, just seing some of the walls with color on them, instead of just being a dirty white! Then we made a trip to Home Depot and Lowe's to buy some stuff for the house. We already got a new bathroom vanity that we had seen a long time before even knowing what house we were buying. It's just so exciting to think that this is actually our house, and we're not having to rent again and worry about wasting our money on someone else's house! These are some of our "before" pics, and I'll add more as we fix things :)

We are officially homeowners!!

2007-12-28T17:46:00.000-08:00

After many stressful days, we are finally homeowners! Escrow closed today and the house is officially ours. Now we just have to wait til the 2nd to get the keys, since the tenants still have to move. Then we will start painting, get the bedrooms measured for carpet, and after that is installed start moving things in :) I will be posting more pictures after we get the keys.

One step closer to getting the keys!

2007-12-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

Today we signed paperwork at the title company. It's nice to know that we are almost through this long, stressful house-buying process, and won't have to go through it again for a long time...well, for at least a few years! Maybe we might just eventually add on to this house, so we don't ever have to buy again! Anyway, this is a great Christmas present, to be getting a house of our own, that we can fix up as we like!

Only 11 days left to get everything closed!

2007-12-17T23:38:00.000-08:00

Today was really stressful! We got a call from our loan officer saying that we have to close by the 28th to be able to stay with the loan program we locked into. The program is no longer available after that, which means we would have to find another loan...not good news because the interest rates have gone up again, and with the other programs we would have to pay mortgage insurance. We are having a little hold up with some repairs that are being done, but hopefully we will get things worked out tomorrow. Then we should be able to sign paperwork at the title company and get things moving so we can close on time! I'm just praying that everything works out, especially with 2 holidays coming up next week!

We're buying a house!!!

2007-12-03T18:37:00.000-08:00

I've been enjoying looking at other people's blogs and decided this was a good time to start one of our own.

For the last four months we've been house hunting. We put offers on a lot of houses and weren't having any luck. A few weeks ago we decided to look at a house that was priced a little high, but had been on the market for about six months. We figured we'd take a look and it couldn't hurt to make an offer and see what response we got back. We quickly received a counter offer and made one back, and it was accepted last Thursday!! Hopefully if things go smoothly, we should be getting the keys in the beginning of January!

I thought it would be fun to post some pictures of the house before and after we fix it up. The only picture I have of the outside of the house right now is the one from the listing. The house looks a lot better in person, one reason being the roof has been redone since this picture. Hopefully I'll get some new ones up soon, but this can give you an idea for now. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house, in a really nice area :)

I'm thankful that God worked things out so that we got a great deal! A lot of the other houses that we looked at were in a lot worse condition and worse neighborhoods for about the same price. Even though it feels like it's taken forever to get an accepted offer, getting this house was worth the wait!