Nicole and Donald - est. Feb. 5, 2005; official April 4, 2008

Starting the seeds...

2012-02-12T20:51:00.005-06:00

So not much gets done during the week. I didn't do all I wanted this weekend, but it was a bit colder than I had expected. We hit the Home Depot so I could get supplies for my herb garden and tomato & bell pepper plants.

I made beef stew which turned out mediocre so that's not even worth sharing what I put in it. It was good, but not as delicious as I made before. Oh well.

While it was a bit chilly today, it was still sunny so I wanted to get those seeds planted. It should start warming up mid week here. I zipped my little Carrotcake up in his winter jacket, put down a blanket and let him enjoy a sunny day on the patio with me.

Here he is with my finished products:

Weeding the backyard is also on our list. Maybe next weekend will be a little nicer. That's Daisy in the background. I tried to get her to sit pretty behind the pots, but she was too busy apparently.

I also want to show off our cactus (er, cacti?):

The one on the right started off just one little cactus, not much bigger than the one on the left. It was purchased on our 1st anniversary trip to San Antonio, specifically from the Alamo. Supposedly, it was a part of the Alamo Gardens. Now, almost 3 years later, it's quite a bit bigger. The little one on the left was a replant of an "arm" that just broke off the main cactus.

Currently in progress:
Reading: still Plains of Passage, by Jean Auel. About 31% done (thank you, Kindle, for that info), didn't get much reading as I hoped this week. But I'd like to be about halfway done this time next week. The book is about 1100 pages.
Prepping: a dinner and lunch menu to make a grocery list from by the weekend, as we do our grocery trips every 2 weeks.
Planning: installing a gate/fence in the wide opening between the living room and kitchen. The plastic bins just aren't doing it to keep a certain Mr. Curious Hands out of the kitchen. If we arrange them in a way so he can't push or pull them, he's starting to try and climb on them.
Training: 5k on Feb 25. Fastest time hit this past week was 35:19. I'm confident I can shave that extra 1:19 before then. But, for the actual 5k, I may be slower, as my running buddy is my co-worker, so I'm not sure where her level is at yet. But if I can just hit 34:00 or faster in my trip to the gym, or around my neighborhood, I'll consider it goal achieved.

Til next time!

Make it happen

2012-02-04T21:21:00.002-06:00

It's been well over a year since the last post. I just haven't gotten around to posting, mostly because there's not a whole lot that was going on in our lives.

DO NOT get me wrong. Being pregnant with our first child, giving birth in March 2011 was amazing. Watching our son grow is our world, there isn't a dull moment with our little boy. However, as much as we enjoy seeing the same goofy face he makes for the 100th time, or still get a kick out of him babbling, I know most people outside of our little household would get sick reading the same thing, just a different day of the week. A combination of that, and just couldn't find much time to collect thoughts for a blog.

But, things are different now. If you don't do anything, well, then nothing is new to share in your life. Don and I had a chat last week, and we put together a list. A "House Wish List", things to buy or do for our house to "complete" it for our home. We've been here 3 years, and we've painted 3 rooms. That's about it. We won't be in the market to leave this house for a few more years, maybe even 5 or so. There's a lot we'd like to happen for this house.

We also are going to make more of an effort to get out on weekends, stop being hermits. We renewed our Texas State Parks pass, so we're going to attempt more day trips, and try to go camping at least 1 weekend a month, possibly starting in April. Hopefully we'll get a membership to a museum or 2, and the zoo. Just in general, we want to start going out and about as a family.

I have some personal goals I'd like to accomplish this year, along with the house and getting out goals. I want to aim for at least 1 5k run a month. My first one is February 25th. I'm excited. I also have a certain goal to hit weight-wise. Aside from the health and fitness area, I want to sew at least one thing, and finish my cross-stitch I started while pregnant. One other goal I can think of right now, is read at least 2 books a month. I received a Kindle for Christmas, and it's more attached to me than my phone now! So far, I finished 4 books since Christmas. But to be fair, 3 were Harry Potter, so it was a fairly easy read, and I was already so into the books, I forfeited some sleep to get those read.

So, I'm going to try and make the point of this blog to document checking off things on our lists and anything exciting that comes about from doing so.

Now that's established, here's what's going on now:

Currently in progress-
Reading: Plains of Passage by Jean Auel (#4 in the Earth's Children series)
Prepping: our garden area that hasn't been used for anything more than a food scrap compost garden the last 2 and a half years. I tilled up the area last weekend, and will probably do it 1-2 more times before planting at the end of this month.
Planning: my indoor herb garden. I'll be looking for pots in the next week. I have a good idea of what I want to grow
Training: for the first 5k of 2012. My time today was 35:55. My goal by the actual run (not a race, more a fun run) is to be under 34 minutes. When I did my first one ever July 4th, 2010, my time was 34:52. I'd like to beat that. I've been seriously training since 1/2/12. I didn't focus much on running at the gym before the New Year. And prior to 2 years ago, I HATED running. With a passion. It's now pretty enjoyable for me. Daisy pup enjoys it too when I run her around the neighborhood.

That's it for now. Hopefully we actually get on the ball with our lists, and then I'll have a reason to update.

Til next time!

Update! A lot has happened!

2010-09-01T15:08:00.002-05:00

First, since the last post, I started a job. I started March 22, and still there. Not the most challenging job, but it's something.

April 4, Don and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. We did a nice trip celebration a couple weeks later by going to SoCal and Vegas. We had such a great time and saw beautiful scenery. It was a blast. I'm so glad we were able to go.

Then a little bit of life went by, and on July 8, found out I was pregnant! I was pretty sick since about a week and a half after finding out, til now. The morning (all day) sickness subsided a bit in the last week, but at the moment am battling a cough and cold. It's no fun. But I'm 12 weeks 2 days at the moment. We went to the doctor yesterday, and heart the strong and loud heartbeat.

We are so thrilled. It's so exciting. I think I'm still in a bit of a shock. This was planned and wanted, but it's still so shocking to me that it's actually happening.

So, the countdown until March 2011 begins!

Finally! Something happens in our life!

2010-03-17T20:07:00.006-05:00

I haven't updated in a while, well, because there was nothing to update. I was starting to hide away, since I had nothing going on.

Well finally, some new things are going on!

First, (now this is a little overdue) but we have a new family member. February 8, I was home and so was my brother-in-law. He went out to his car, then came back in saying there was a dog running around and tried going up to him. I looked out my window and saw this skinny, skinny dog running confused from house to house. I went outside to get a better look at her, check to see if she had tags since I saw a collar on her. I whistled and she came over to me, laid on her side and was very jittery. She had no tags, so I tried to coax her in my backyard and she ran off. I figured, ok, well I'll try if she comes back.

Let me take a moment to say here, that I often see dogs running loose in my neighborhood. Most of them have collars/tags, but they all seem to "know" what they're doing. Kind of like they belong somewhere in the neighborhood, but are just making their rounds for the day, and seem to be well fed anyways, which is why I don't bother them. But this one was different, she was obviously lost, confused and scared, so I felt compelled to get involved.

I saw her circle back around so I went outside with some dog treats. I was able to take her back into my yard and immediately took a picture of her to post on Lost and Found on Craigslist. I gave her some water and food while I waited for just a bit to see if anyone responded. After she got a chance to drink some fresh water and munch a little bit on food, I took her to my vet to get scanned for a microchip. She did have one, and they looked up her info to try and give her owner a call. The number went straight to voicemail, so they passed on her info to me to try at a different time.

We went back to my house, and I gave her a bath, since she was caked in mud on her belly and legs. I kept trying the owner phone number with no luck. I posted on many sites about this found dog. She settled in and stayed with us for the rest of the week. She took to me immediately, and as much as I tried to resist, I did to her as well.

She seemed to have been scared of the cats at first. Her first look at Rocky was him all puffed up and glaring at her through the back door glass while she was outside. Rocky really was all bent out of shape that this random dog was in the backyard, and he made that known through the window to her. When I brought her in for the bath, she did not want to be near either cat. It made me think she never was around cats before.

Don didn't want to keep her. He just didn't want a dog at this point. We had no luck trying to find her owners, or a new home. But neither of us wanted to drop her at a shelter. Don had given me a deadline to have her somewhere else by that Friday. Well, Friday morning came around and I was bawling my eyes out in the shower thinking about having to drop her at a shelter. I just couldn't do it. Finally, on Valentine's Day, Don agreed to let her stay. I went and bought her a new collar and bowls immediately. A week later, took her back to the vet to get her updated on her shots. She's about 1.5-2 years old. She is spayed, and a lab mix. Through the microchip, we found out her name, which she responds very well to.

As these past few weeks have passed, she's revealed a little more about herself every week. She got used to the cats fast, and now play chases Rocky, and corners Buster to give him lots of kisses. Rocky gets kisses too, but he's too fidgety to get more than one. She's a sweet girl, with great energy and a desire to please me and Don, which results in her listening to us (most of the time, haha). She fetches, catches a frisbee, rolls in the grass and does well as my jogging partner. With almost everyday that passes, I truly believe that I didn't find her, she found me, and Don. She knew what she was doing running around my house ;) She's now a spoiled, well-loved dog who filled a hole I didn't know was in my life.

Here's our newest family member on the day she found us: Daisy

And here she is "officially" ours, sporting her bandanna and enjoying her tennis ball:

Crafty

2009-11-09T22:51:00.004-06:00

In the last week, I completed a couple of craft projects to give as gifts. They were started with the anticipation of welcoming my new nephew November 6th! Cooper Charles was born, and rounded out my niece/nephew list to 6. A long, long time ago, I had bought a few cross-stitch projects, one with the intention of giving to my first nephew... unfortunately I was young, busy with other stuff and just a procrastinator, so it never got done. Finally, I got a chance to complete the cross-stitch bib for little Cooper!

The project I finished before this bib was a latch hook project for Cooper's new big sister, Olivia. She loves butterflies, and I thought this would be a good "yay you're a big sister!" gift. It took a while, because while I started it quick, it was set aside and picked at, until a week and a half ago when I finally just got determined and finished it. I bought the frame which was unfinished at Michael's, then painted it, and added the foam sticky letters. I was really pleased when it was all put together.

I definitely enjoyed doing these, and hope to do a lot more of the kind in the future. I have a few unopened cross-stitch projects in my bag, and I haven't decided which one to do yet. I hope to better my skills and be able to do some cross-stitching freehand.

Computer room painted and Halloween pics

2009-11-07T19:57:00.005-06:00

Happy late Halloween! Buster was a dragon, Rocky was the Karate Cat.

Rocky, you must defeat the dragon within you...

And painted computer room. No flash, blinds open...
With flash. It's called "shale gray"
Curtains for our living room will be coming soon! And hopefully I'll hear back from a job interview this week! :::fingers crossed:::

Updates, updates

2009-08-13T20:31:00.002-05:00

Well, lost my job. It was expected for about a month or so before, so it wasn't a huge punch in the gut. It relieved me of so much stress and irritation. That was on July 9th. Still nothing yet. I'm getting unemployment, so it's not too bad for now.

July 28th I had surgery on my right foot. A bunionectomy, same surgery I had when I was 13 on my left foot. It was pretty painful the first 36 hours. But 2 days after surgery, I was starting to walk/hobble around on a crutch, and 5 days after surgery, I was walking without any crutches. I got my stitches out this past Tuesday, but for about 4 days before that, my foot was itching and burning pretty bad. I thought this was part of the normal healing process. WRONG! I had a bad allergic reaction to the adhesive on the tape, and my incision blistered over. And even after the tape was taken off, it looked like it was still there, but nope, just the blisters that formed under the pieces of tape. I've been putting hydrocortisone on 3 times a day, like the doctor said to. So far, it doesn't look like an infection will start. Let's hope it stays that way. I'd post a pic of my incision, but it's too gross.

And other news, Don's brother moved in with us, hoping to find work down here. It's been about 3 weeks, and he's had some callbacks. Hopefully, one of those will turn into a job. Once he gets a job, he can start saving for his own place. But for now, it's not the worst thing in the world having him here. Him and his dog are kind of neat to have around right now.

That's a brief update for now.

Long overdue living room paint pictures

2009-07-03T10:37:00.003-05:00

The last weekend in May, we painted the living room. The main color is Desert Caravan, the color in the media niche (with the tv), is Spanish Leather.

Excuse the clutter, this was taken not too long after finishing, so we didn't put things away yet.

The next room on our list to paint is the computer room. That may happen this month. I'll try to be better about posting in a timely fashion. Hopefully our lives will get more exciting from now on.

Better late than never-

2009-05-12T12:41:00.002-05:00

First Year in Review:

Last month, Don and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. It was the most life changing year yet. I'll give some brief highlights:

April 2008: Got married on the 4th, drove off on our honeymoon the 5th. Went backpacking for a night, camping, horseback riding and drove in 7 (I think) different states. A week later, we were welcomed back to Chicago in a true Windy City fashion- snow. On April 12th. Yep. The rest of the month flew by with me working and Don in school.

May: Went out one last time with my friends at a hometown bar. Then went camping one last time with some other friends just before my birthday. (one last time = as Illinois residents, not visitors) Had my 24th birthday, for which Don made me a cake and we did something else, just not sure what. And packed. Did A LOT of packing.

June: Finished up the camping trip, and came home to pack some more. The 2nd, we picked up our U-haul and started loading up as much as possible. Just before 8 am on June 3rd, we left our Illinois life hoping for something better. We had no jobs lined up, and we were going to live with my parents. But at that point, anything was better than the life we had in Dekalb. Don was unemployed, and I was a manager at McDonald's. There had to be something better out there for us. We arrived at our new life 11 pm, June 4th. A few days later began our frantic job search.

July: Don began his job right after the 4th of July weekend. I began my job July 14. We had lots of fun hitting the beach with family, and hanging out on weekends. July 30th, we signed papers and put down our earnest money check for a house. We also began the preapproval process.

August: Don's 28th birthday! We went out for breakfast, took a nice bike ride, and I got him a Lowe's GC. And Buster turned 11! Got approved for the house, and everything was supposed to start near the end of August.

September: House still not started yet, and we went through some bumps with the home loan process that wasn't communicated with us. We also survived our first hurricane! Of course, it had to be the worst one to hit Houston in 25 (?ish) years. Luckily, we lived on the "good" side, and didn't experience that much. Power was out for 12 hours, no flooding, no damage. Couldn't say that for the other side of the road. It's weird how some things were left untouched, and some were just destroyed.

October: Our house started construction! We took many many pictures along the way. We also went on our first Texas camping trip Halloween weekend. Nice place, but too many thorny burrs. It was a slower month for us.

November: Our first Thanksgiving away from "home". It was still good. That's about it, another slow month.

December: Didn't start off well, we had to take an unexpected drive back to Illinois, under very unfortunate circumstances. We also experienced my company's Christmas party (waaaaaaay too much money spent there). Had our first married Christmas together, away from "home" as well. It was low key, and low pressure. Pretty nice. The very end of the month, however, just before New Year's, my truck transmission went out. Great.

January: Had to deal with my truck transmission being out, luckily, it was totally covered under the extended warranty I had purchased for it. Score! We found an EXCELLENT deal Jan. 1 on furniture, so we purchased our kitchen table and chairs (with bench!) and sofa sleeper with recliner. On the night of the 12th, we loaded up the U-haul once again. On the 13th, we closed. Not without some drama before though. But after 2 hours of closing, we finally got the keys. After we closed, we celebrated with a lunch at Steak N Shake :) and I got my truck back from the shop too! We picked up my truck, and proceeded to unload our U-haul to move into our first home! I'm proud of this, because we worked hard and were able to purchase our first home 7 months after moving to Houston. At the end of this month, I won that 42" plasma tv, too :)

February: On the 5th, we celebrated our 4 year dating anniversary. The rest of the month, was spent just getting settled in.

March: Quarter life crisis? Don and I signed up for a motorcycle class. We completed it, got our motorcycle licenses, then Don and I bought a brand new motorcycle.

April 2009: We spent our anniversary weekend in San Antonio. AWESOME! We went to Sea World, Riverwalk and the Alamo. We had such a great time, we can't wait to go back for a visit again. A week later, I bought my own motorcycle :)

And that was our first year in review. Quite a bit changed for us, and it was all for the good. My birthday is coming up Memorial Day Weekend, where we have plans to go camping. I can't wait! (for the camping, not my birthday, haha)

Finally!

2009-03-29T08:33:00.003-05:00

Finally, some news! Don's always wanted to get his motorcycle license. My brother needed to get his motorcycle license. So they took a class together. I signed up too! All 3 of us completed the class, and it was so much fun! And I learned sooooo much that made me feel comfortable to ride. Not bad for a beginner with zero experience. I only missed one point on each the written and riding test (alot of people missed multiple points on the riding test). Don scored perfect on both tests.

The class was Saturday and Sunday. We both went to get our official license on Monday. And since Don needs a more reliable vehicle, and they can be ridden pretty much year round down here, we went and bought a motorcycle! Brand new 2009 Suzuki Boulevard S40. It's "red" and white (I think it looks more on the pinkish side)

Little by little...

2009-02-26T20:44:00.002-06:00

that's how our house is starting to become our home. We bought some bushes (or shrubs, whatever) to put in our backyard. The sunflowers we planted 2 weeks ago in our little flowerbed have sprouted up, along with the other flowers we planted.

This weekend, we will probably finally plant our garden. We are planning to grow tomatoes, green peppers, potatoes, asparagus, and some herbs. We're still working on the grass for the backyard, however.

And, we may be painting soon. So far, we've only picked out a color for our living room. And it was such a hard decision! But I know it'll be fun for the rest of the house too.

We're just about 1 month away from our 1 year anniversary! Time has flown by.

Lucky streak...

2009-02-11T18:04:00.002-06:00

Don and I will be seeing Kenny Chesney here in Houston on May 3rd! I won tickets on a local radio channel!!! Wooo!

We get set up for internet and cable on Monday. Finally!

Next weekend, we'll be planting our garden! This past weekend we bought an avocado tree and planted that. Hopefully I can get some exciting video up of that.

Now it's time to start dinner. Don's a trooper for putting up with my cooking. It's not bad, but definitely experimental. Let's try this with that... So tonight I'll be cooking chicken breasts on top of long grain wild rice and bacon, diced tomatoes and black olives. We'll see how it goes. It usually ends up good :)

A brief update...

2009-02-07T14:15:00.005-06:00

It's 9 days until we get internet. Right now, we're using my parent's internet. So, I'll give a brief summary of what's happened:

We closed! We got our keys at noon on our closing day, and moved in that afternoon!! We've been busy busy busy getting all the necessities we couldn't forsee until actually moving into our home. So far, so good. I can't wait to start updating everything to how I want it. The house is still a work in progress, but that's just fine with me :)

A great new addition to our living room is our 42" Plasma TV! I won it in a drawing at my gym!! I still can't believe it, and we've had it for over a week!

And here is a video tour of the house. It's just the basics now, but soon it'll become more like our home :)

Why stop at just a dash of frustration?

2009-01-08T21:36:00.002-06:00

(an older pic, before the sod was laid)

So, our loan officer thinks everything will be fine. But, we are 5 (well, 4 and a half) days from closing, and our loan is up in the air. I can tell you I will be on the phone tomorrow, getting some straight answers.

I'd like to think it will be ok. But I'm just so frustrated, I can't see beyond what I'm feeling now.

:::sigh::: Hopefully I can post some good news tomorrow. I'm getting so anxious to be in a house of my own!

Add just a dash of frustration....

2009-01-02T01:12:00.000-06:00

There are less than two weeks left until we are supposed to be in our house. It’s getting exciting. We have bought our refrigerator, couch, recliner, and dinette set. Things seem to be shaping up nicely.

It was a little bit aggravating today however, when after buying our living room and dinette set and getting a U-Haul from my brother in law, we found out that we have to go to a completely different location to pick them up. We were told to pick them up preferably within 7 days and they would give us a couple extra, but not much more. That information was not disclosed to us at the time of sale. But, since the store was having a sale on all the items, and if we paid in full today we were also given an additional 40% off, we didn’t immediately ask for a refund. So tomorrow (well really today) or tomorrow (Saturday) I’m going to try to get the U-Haul again and get that stuff picked up.

It's Christmas

2008-12-25T20:21:00.002-06:00

And there's no snow here. A little weird, but it's ok. We had a nice Christmas together. As odd as it is not being around all our family, it was relaxing to not have to have a few different places to squeeze in 2 days.

Our first Christmas together wasn't quite what I pictured, but I wouldn't have had it any other way this year. We didn't spend it in our new house, but we spent it in anticipation of our house. We can't wait.

We both had a good Christmas. So did the cats. Buster actually played with store bought toys! And they got a couple items which will make the move to our new house a little easier, and keep the environment familiar.

Tomorrow, we will go hunting through the sales for a refrigerator. We'll also hit up the gym with my new membership (Thanks Don!) . Hopefully, I can utilize my membership and get myself back in a better shape so that I'm happier with myself.

So, the countdown is on! 19 days til our house!!

Life happens...

2008-12-18T17:11:00.003-06:00

We had gotten some bad news. Don's grandmother passed away Dec. 1. We got the news that Monday evening. Within minutes, Don was looking for airfare to fly back to Illinois. Unfortunately, last minute airfare for the weekend is expensive. So, I talked to my boss, Don talked to his, and we both we able to get a couple days off.

Thursday night, we got on the road to drive to 20 hours back to Illinois. We arrived at our friend's apartment at 4 pm, Friday. Spent the night, and headed back to his hometown Saturday morning for the funeral. We stayed there until Sunday late afternoon, and then started the 20-something hour drive back home. We made it back 2 pm Monday. Such a long exhausting weekend, but it was good to see a couple of friends and his family.

And yes! We made it back alright, and we're not filing for divorce. I'm not saying we were happy the whole time. But we have great patience with one another. Spending all weekend with each other, and driving for a total of over 40 hours together, we still spent Monday evening together. I really am not sure how we do it, but we do :)

My brother said at one point after we moved in with my parents here in Texas "If they can make it living there, they'll be together forever". Well, we got 26 days left, I think we'll be fine. We make sure to communicate and understand each other so we can support each other. Part of our vows we said on our wedding day were, "I promise to be not behind you or in front of you, but beside you always." I think that's the base of our marriage, and is probably how we can take extremely long car rides with each other, spend entire days with each other, and not rip each other's heads off.

In other news, we close January 13 on our house!!!!! We are super excited, and can finally start seriously shopping for fridges and couches. I was telling Don last night, "We're buying a house together and shopping for furniture. We're getting serious" :)

Day before Thanksgiving...

2008-11-26T18:22:00.006-06:00

and I got my sickness back. Don was sick for like, 2 days. Mine seems to keep on going. Hopefully I won't be too sick for the dinner tomorrow.

House update: We have cabinets, countertops, trim, paint and bricks!

Our bricks outside (Don visited at night)

Half of my kitchen! Countertops and cabinets!

And my little pantry shelves! I love what they did. The "standard" is just shelves in the back wall. But we talked to the construction guy about bigger shelves, and we got this! I love it.

Looking into my kitchen from the living room!

Meet the Family

2008-11-21T22:26:00.000-06:00

And a final updating post, our little family right now.

Rocky wanted to make sure I showed off his Halloween Costume

Buster is not quite as evil as he looks here

Rocky about to take a nap

Buster is the older cat. He's 11, and has been with me through a lot of ups and downs. He's a grumpy old man, but can also be sweeet (sometimes). Rocky is the baby kitty. He's just over a year and half. We adopted him from Don's grandparent's farm when he was 9 weeks. And he's been causing trouble ever since :)

In the years to come, Don and I hope to add more to our little family, both in fur and furless.

Today, Don has a little cold. He probably caught it from me. When he gets sick, he acts like a big baby. Which is exactly the same as when I get sick. So if we ever get sick at the same time in our house, everything will go downhill for a few days, lol. He went to bed early, so hopefully he'll feel better for tomorrow and Sunday, so our weekend isn't dampened. I was sick last weekend, so we didn't much. Not fun at all.

We found out our house was painted on the inside, and my pantry shelves were installed! Pictures (or a link at least) will be posted once we get them. We originally were told we would close January 6. Now the construction guy says we will close Jan 13. I hope they don't push it back again. We want to get into our house!!

The house is coming along!

2008-11-19T00:21:00.000-06:00

Nicole has been after me for a bit to add stuff to the blog. I did some updates on my website to highlight the work KB Home has done on our house. I hope she likes it and knows that I do care.

Work on the house

This couple’s blogging thing is going to take some time for me to get down.

A brief history to bring you up to date

2008-11-13T21:54:00.000-06:00

I met Don on match.com in January 2005. 2 weeks after we started talking, and our 3rd date, we became officially a couple. It was love at first sight. We both pretty much knew marriage was in our future from the start. Countless hours were spent talking on the phone, getting to know eachother. Living an hour apart, we made an effort to spend almost every weekend together.

January 21, 2006, almost exactly a year after those first emails were exchanged, Don finally asked me that question and gave me that ring. It wasn't too much longer after our engagement when Don finally made the decision to move in with me. There were some ups and downs, but after 2 years of living with each other, we were finally married and happy.

The decision to move from Chicago to Houston was primarily Don's desire. My parents had moved down here, but I never really considered it. It was nice of Don to let me know of his mindset quite a few months after he decided it :) But, I was up for an adventure. We weren't really all that happy with our surroundings in our little college town, and it didn't look as if we would be able to get out of there to the suburbs anytime soon. We just weren't getting ahead with our jobs.

Donald and I arrived in Houston on June 4th, 2008, and have had no regrets since. When we came down, we started looking for jobs immediately (we looked before moving, but it was difficult). A month after coming down, Don got hired at his current job, and I got hired at mine a week after him. We used about all of our savings moving down here and paying our bills until we got jobs, so we basically started from zero once we started working. And as difficult as it has been, we are very lucky my parents let us stay with them.

So, we are in the process of watching our first home being built! Estimated closing date is Jan 6, 2009 (54 days away!). From zero to homeowners in 7 months, I'm proud of the way we worked together to plan out and stick to a budget so we can get finances in order to be able to afford the house.

All in all, I couldn't be happier with the decision I made to be with Don, and the decision we made to start our new life together in a new place. I can't wait for our life to really start in our brand new house, together, on our own.

This blog is to document our journey together... there will be many more posts to come.

Tag Team Couple's Blogging

2008-11-10T21:38:00.001-06:00

So Nicole was like, "Bunches, write this blog with me. I don't feel good..." So here I am. Trying my best to enjoy this and appease my sick wife. So here we go...

Weighing in at 157 Lbs. Mr Bunches! And in this corner, weighing in at XX Lbs... Mrs. Bunches.

**Edit by Nicole** Donald...