We Bought A House!!!

 We have never owned a house.  We have been impatient and then patient, felt like it would never happen and then sure it would happen.  There are many reasons we have never owned a house, but maybe the simplest reason is that the time has never been right...  Until now.  We have slowly approached readiness to be homebuyers and have been watching the real estate trends in our neighborhood for quite awhile now.  A little over a month ago, I saw a house newly on the market.  For some reason, I wasn't impressed at first with the pictures.  But a few days later, I decided to look again and showed the listing to Tony.  We both were hooked.  I called my friend and real estate agent, Carrie, and asked her if we could see the house.  The next day, after one of the boys' baseball games, we went to check it out.  It's about a minute from the kids' school.  We fell in love immediately.  No negatives, nothing we didn't like.  At all. 

We went home and met with a mortgage broker who crunched our numbers and told us what we were approved for.  Then we saw the house again.  That night, we put an offer on the house!!  The owners countered with a minor price change and we accepted!  It took a few weeks of very nerve-wracking timing with some of our finances, but wouldn't you know, it all came through and we go the keys on July 17th!!  We absolutely thrilled to own our own home and feel so very blessed that God worked out all the details to make it happen for us.

Here is our new house!  Sadie was at camp the week we closed, so that's why she isn't in the pictures!

 I don't have a pic of the backyard, not sure why.  But this is the side yard to the left of the house.  Perfect for a veggie garden!!

 And this is the side yard to the right.  Kahz' kennel will go here.

We had decided to paint as much of the inside as possible in the 3 days before we moved in.  It was A LOT of painting, and required A LOT of help, but it was fun and we got a ton done!  Here are some pics of the inside.  (I will do another blog post at some point with all the rooms once they are completely finished.  It might take forever...)

The living room, pre-paint.

Angela came and helped me get things started!

 Then our friend, Adam, who is a painter, came and helped us a ton as well.  Maybe not as safely as I would have liked...  :P

The front door and stairwell.  All the walls got the same taupe-y color.  (Nomadic Desert by Sherwin-Williams, if you must know)

The family room.  Our friends Steve and Shannon came to help as well!

 These are kind of dark, but the kitchen and nook were totally white.  I wanted red, so I did just that!

 My friend, Dana, and her son, Wesley helped too!

Tony hates painting, but he sucked it up and helped out.  ;)

 The boys' room.  Two walls are blue and the others are the Nomadic Desert of the rest of the house.

Mr. Drew the Helper!

As soon as Sadie got home from camp, we painted her room.  Her colors are awesome!!

Silly girl

Ahhh, home!!

The office is a mirror image of the boys' room.  This one will be painted later.

Yay!  It is so fun to finally truly have a place to call ours!  I look forward to much more paint and lots of plans and decorating in the near future!!

Cascades

This summer Sadie was suuuuuuper excited to go back to Cascades Camp, the same one I grew up going to and that she went to last summer!  I managed to snap a few pics when dropping her off and then picking her up.  She had an absolute blast!

This year, she went with her friend, Emile, some of Emile's friends, and Hannah, whose mom, Icel, my is my good friend!

Sadie in her top bunk.  It's funny, I always got to camp early so that I could get a top bunk.  :)

Cabin 4

The siblings - Lauren, Logan Zack and Drew

Six days later, we came back to pick up our girl. We missed her a ton!

Sadie and Hannah

Sadie and her cabin mates

They might not admit it, but they missed her.  :)

A little worship and fun before everyone goes home!

Sadie with, um, not sure who that is!

See you next summer, Cascades!!

Independence Day

 We love the 4th of July.  Hillsboro is a pretty big city, but it seriously feels like a small town, especially on the 4th.  Our day was super busy, and it started with the awesome parade!  This year we had primo spots right in front of Jeni's shop!

Drew's Flag

Sweet Girl!

Zack's Flag

The motorcycle cops starting off the parade!

Our peeps  :)

F-15s (I think...)

A Goat?

Sadie and Maddie

It's so cute!

 

After the parade and a nap at home, we headed to the Lawson's house for a fun BBQ. Somehow, the only picture I took was of the dessert table. Huh... 

Then we went over to our friends, the Wolfe's house to do fireworks.

 What a fun day, and how blessed we were to be able to spend it with so many of our friends!