11 Years with Sam!

I'm proud to say that I've been with my best friend for 11 years! This year came with a lot of big milestones for us and our relationship- we got married and bought a house! However, we couldn't have gotten to this point without all the history behind us.

So this year I thought I would share a picture from every year we have been together.

( Turnabout Dance- 2002)

From the first high school dance we went to together.

(Turnabout Dance- 2003)

The follow year- same dance.
(Taking pictures of pictures isn't easy. It didn't turn out so well.)

(High School Graduation- 2004)

Done with high school. Moving on to the next chapter of our lives.

( Grandma A's Birthday Party- 2005)

I'm so glad this didn't happen at the wedding.

(College Apartment- 2006)

We moved into together (with two other roommates) and enjoyed the college life!

(More College Pictures- 2007)

My final year of my undergraduate degree.

(Halloween Party- 2008)

Sam was still in college, so I went back for my graduate degree.

 (Uncle Joe's Birthday- 2009)

 We had move into a one bedroom apartment just the two of us,
and we really learned how to live together.

(Engagement- 2010)

After we got engaged, we came home to drinks and a decorated car.

(Wedding- 2011)

Even though this really happen in the last year, I just love this picture too much not to include it.

(Honeymoon- 2012)

We are now trying to enjoy life and all the things that come with this next chapter in our lives. 

~Sam,

I'm so glad I stole our seat 11 years ago at that football game. Your my best friend. Even though life isn't perfect, we always make it work. That's what I love about you. 

Love,

Your Wife- Stacy

My Extended Weekend

Happy Hump Day! (And it's almost over!)

I know that the weekend seems like it was so long ago, but I was lucky enough to have a bit of an extended weekend. The reason for the extended weekend wasn't for fun, but we did make the most of it.

This is was the first weekend we decided to invite our friends over for a grill out and bonfire. The food consisted of  your grilling staples- hotdogs and hamburgers. Also we had a veggie tray, different types of salads, and chips & dip. For the bonfire we had plenty of brush to burn.

We have been working on cleaning up our yard, so a fire seemed like the best way to get rid of the unwanted wood. The night consisted of friends, drinks, and stories- I call that a good night in my books.

In true friend fashion, if you do something stupid there will be pictures taken and shared. I guess the bathroom floor looked like a good place to take a nap. He did make it to a bed, it just took a little while.
 
The next day, Sam and I got up and headed to Michigan for the night. My grandma was in the hospital and we wanted to visit her. (She is now home and doing better.) I hate doing day trips to Michigan, so we decide to make the most of trip and spend the night.

After our visit with my grandma, we decided to get dinner with my cousin and her husband-to-be. We went to some small local bar, but it was kind of a cool place.

It's hard to tell from the picture- but there were hundreds of beer mugs hanging on the walls and ceiling. It's a cool idea (if your a local and will go to this bar a lot)- you buy a mug (cost $46), and you are the only person who gets to use the mug but the mugs are 4oz big then a normal pint. You pay the normal price for a beer, but you earn punches on your "Mug Club card" and every 6th drink, you only pay $.50. It's pretty cool idea, and you know who the regulars are because they drinking from a mug.

After we visited with my grandma one more time the next morning, Sam and I headed home. The end of our weekend came with another big purchase for the house.

A giant TV! (Giant meaning 55 inches.) This was really a Sam "want" for the house. After talking about getting another TV for a few weeks now, I caved and brought this TV. All I got to say is that this TV better last a while, because we aren't buying another anytime soon. Also, I have a feeling we'll be watching a lot of football games with friends around this TV.

All in all- it was a good weekend spent with great people!

I Don't Live Out of a Suitcase!

I'm sorry I've been MIA all week. Things were pretty crazy and I didn't have the motivation to write any post- until now. I am proud to say "I don't live out of a suitcase!"

This may not seem like a big deal. However, I have lived out of a suitcase since May 2010. For over two years I've had clothes in two different houses, in two different suitcases, and a duffel bag to move my clothes from place to place. So to see my clothes hanging in a closet was really nice.

I'm excited to see all my shoes lined up, my shirt hung, and my suitcases empty!  I won't lie, when we first moved into the house this closet had Sam things in it but being that it's the bigger closet, I took it over. Hey- I'm the girl, I should get the bigger closet. (Right?) I'm just sayin'.

Getting to Use My New Kitchen

I have to say being able to cook in my house is really helping it make it feel like home. Now that most of my kitchen items are put away, it was time to start getting to use some of my wedding gifts.

Last night was my first real dinner to be cook in this house.

It wasn't anything too special, but pretty healthy. High fiber pasta with seasoning, chicken, and broccoli. However, we really need a microwave soon because it was weird having to steam my broccoli on the stove.

Being that both Sam and I had this morning off, I decided to make my favorite breakfast sandwich.

This is a 2 egg whites, cheese and bagel (this was a "thin" bagel). I'm proud to say I'm can branch out from my Cocoa Krispies from time to time.

I had talked about wanting to start to meal plan again, so today I prepared what we are going to have for dinner tomorrow this afternoon. I may not have a whole weeks worth of meals planned, but it's a start. On the menu for tomorrow-

Chili! You got to love crock-pots- they are a great time saver.

Finally, tonight Sam and I were kind of hungry so we pulled out one of our old college tricks- we "pizzazzed" a frozen pizza.

 I love that I can cook a pizza without having to turn on the oven. Even though I have a real kitchen with an oven- I still love my Pizzazz!  

What I Love & Hate about My New Home

Being that I have truly lived in this house for a whole 5 days now, I'm starting to figure out all my different loves and hates about my house. That start with the hates-

I hate this stairs. They are so loud when you walk up or down them. It will be a good thing if someone is ever trying to sneak in or out of the house (example- our very way in the future kids) because they make so much noise. However, when your husband doesn't go to bed till 3:00am- it's a problem when I'm trying to sleep.

Moving in was a bit of a challenge because of how narrow our hallway is by the stairs both going to our upper and lower parts of the house. I can also see this spot being where people bump into each other as they round the corner to go up or down stairs. With only the two of us it hasn't been a issue, but bring in our big Italian family for a party- someone could get hurt.

My final hate is also a love. It's kind of a love/ hate thing-

I love that we have a two car attached garage that is big enough to have two cars in it with space to spare. However, I hate that there is too much stuff in the garage to put a car even in it. I did get my car in here the other night when it was raining, but I almost couldn't get out the car. I know that once we have finished "moving in" we'll be fine, but right now it's on my hate list.

To my loves-

If you know me well, you know I'm a bath person. Always have been and always will be. Since we started living at Sam's parents house, the only time I got to take a bath is when I spent the night at my mom's house. Also, I love that this tub is big enough that I can have my legs out straight and still have extra room to move (and I don't have short legs).

I love that we have a dish washer. Even though it's old and noises, it still works and that's all that matters.

Finally, I love our neighborhood! For privacy reasons, I'm not going to show picture of our street or the front of our house. But I love that we are in walking distance of a lot of cute shops and one of my favorite farmers markets.

You may remember this picture from my mother's day weekend recap and I can't believe after waiting so long to get this house, that we finally can really enjoy all the things my new neighborhood offers.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Finally Living in Our New House

We made it! We are finally moved into our new home. Our move on Monday went really smooth because we had a lot of great people to help us.  Even though we had a lot of help during on move, I'm slowly (very slowly) starting to put stuff away. Lucky for me we currently we have nothing that needs to go into our main floor living room and we don't have a real use for the room right now, so it's not a big deal it's filled with boxes.

If you never moved into our own place- figuring out where you want everything to go is a lot harder than you would expect. I just want to make the right choice so I don't have to move things twice. So, currently we'll just live out of boxes until everything finds its place.

Also, I can't really explain how much I missed food shopping! Tonight was my first real grocery shopping trip for our house. As you may remember when we first moved in we lived off a liquid diet, but now we have real food!

For this trip I had to buy some staple items you don't buy often- like sugar, flour, baking soda, and cooking oil. Also I had to stocked up on can goods, so I hit up Aldi for this trip. I've always been a Aldi fan for things that I don't need (want) name brand items for (flour, sugar, canned corn, rice, etc.). For this big haul it only cost me $112- I call that a win because even when Sam & I lived at his parents house it felt like we could never leave the store without spending $80+ and the food we brought would be gone in just a few days.

I hope for the next week or so is that we to start making a dent in the pile of boxes in my front room and also I start meal planning again. I really want to start making this house my home, and start really enjoying this new chapter in our lives!

The Things You Find When you Move

Tomorrow is our big "move in" day. I'm excited but I know there is still a lot to pack. Last night I helped Sam go through some of his stuff and it's crazy the things you find when you're moving. If you have been following this blog for a while (and if you haven't- "Welcome! Glad to have you!") you know that Sam & I have been together since high school, so some of the things we found were pretty interesting.

This was the picture of our first high school dance we went together. We look so young and skinny. Also, in going through his stuff we found another great high school dance memory- my prom garter.

I love the charm with our names of it. On the back of the charm it says "Prom 2004". Oh how quick life has seemed to moves when your having fun!

The final gem of our finds (well at least for me) was a 10 page note I wrote Sam for him to read on his way to Russia back in 2003, when he went there with a high school exchange program.

I don't know if I will ever again write him a 10 page "note" (Do you remember writing notes in high school? I feel like with all the technology now- that note writing is a lost art) but it was interesting to read how much I cared/ loved Sam even only after dating him for less then 2 years. I really believe your first love should always be a fun and passionate love- our was and still is!

Wish us luck on our move tomorrow. Here's hoping we get everything in the truck and moved!

Our First Big Home Purchase

One of the main reason why Sam and I (and Jen) have worked like crazy to get the living room painted is because we had our first big home purchase was being delivered-

I'm very excited about our new couch and loveseat because they are so big and comfy! The couch is big enough that Sam and lay flat out on it. And if you know my husband- he's not a small guy. The house is starting to feel like our home.

I hope you have  a great weekend!

The Great Sink Debacle

I love that I have such great friends in my life who are willing to help us make our new house a home. Last night Jen came over to help me with more painting. And I'm pound to say we got the downstairs finished (expected for painting the trim- but not sure how quick we'll get on that).

However, finishing the downstairs painting didn't come without it's fair share of excitement & water.

(Jen after the "The Great Sink Debacle")

Jen and I had just got done finishing some of the touch up painting, so she went into our laundry room to wash out the brushes in our utility sink- well the next thing I know I hear Jen yelling for me, so I ran downstairs to see what going on. When I got into the room, all I saw was Jen bent over the sink, holding one of the handles, while getting sprayed in the face by water. The handle came loose (I think) so water was shooting out in all directions. Here is the solution I came up with until we could figure out how to turn off the water.

Even though at the time it didn't stop the water from spraying out, it did stop it from getting all over us. I think the worst part about the whole sink debacle was it was the hot water that was spraying out. For some reason we were trying to use our hands to stop the water at first (not sure why we thought it help) until we it started to burn and hurt- the things you do and don't think about in heat of moment. So the cup help save our hands steamy hot water, but we were still left with a huge mess after we finally got the water turned off.

Well, I guess the floor needed to get cleaned at some point but I just didn't picture this being the way or reason why it would have gotten done. So not only did we get the painting done, we both also got a extra shower for the day, I have a clean laundry room floor, and great story to share.

Oh the joys of being a home owner!

Painting, Painting, and More Painting

I want to start off by saying- I love my husband... but when it comes to how long things really take, he has no sense of time. He got it in his head that we were going to get our whole house painted last weekend. That was a nice thought, but completely off. It's now Thursday, (we owned the house for a week today!) and there still a lot of painting still to do.

Here some progress pictures- here is what the living room looked like of Saturday morning.

Here is the back of the room on-

Here is what the living room looked like Sunday evening-

Like I said before, picking colors isn't my thing but lucky for me I have friends who are better at this then me. And here is what the living room looking like currently-

I know the back wall looks like it's the same color as before in the picture, but it's not- it's a little lighter (it's the middle upper color in the picture from Sunday). We still need to put a second coat of paint on the tan/yellow walls, and we still need to paint the trimming white. But we're getting there. 

Also, we have been working on getting the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom painted. The hope is (we see if it happens) that we get all the main rooms that are going to be used (living, front room, kitchen/ dinning room, upstairs bathroom, and our bedroom) get painted before our big move on Monday. I hope it works out, but we'll see what happens. Wish us luck!

Playing House Over My 3-Day Weekend

Happy Memorial  Labor Day! (Maybe it's just me but I keep saying the wrong holiday. For some reason I can't keep them straight)

This weekend has been filled with many trips to the hardware store and spending A LOT of money. Being that both Sam and I had all weekend off together, we are trying to get as much done on the house as we can.

So the goal for the weekend- paint, paint and more paint. Here is the living room as we found it-

And this is what it currently looks like-

So I'm really not good about knowing what paint colors I like or even want, so I ended up buying 6 different paint samples. However with a little help from friends, all the colors are picked and now they just need to be put up on the walls.

On top of picking out paint colors, we started stocking on our refrigerator. Currently I guess we are living off a liquid diet (oh- and there was salsa but that's long gone).

Our hope is to have our big move in next Monday, so we are trying to get everything cleaned, painted, and ready, so after next week we can finally start living full time in our new home.

The buying part was very stressful (there is a full story about that); the moving in part is exciting but having a short timeline to get a lot of things done is also stressful. I'll just be excited when I can finally come home, make dinner, sit down, watch tv, and just live in the house. But until then- I got some painting to do!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!