The MOVE!

Something I have always said once again rings true...... "Even if the change is good, change is HARD"!! The 1 1/2 years we had in Stapleton, living the modern city life.... I LOVED! We loved everything about Stapleton accept for the cost of living.... it was unrealistic and our time card was up!

 In the weeks before the move we ate at our favorite places around the house, went to the Farmers Market, the pool and really took advantage of all Stapleton had to offer..... a proper goodbye you could say!

 Then the SUCKY part began..... even though we lived in a small townhouse and most of our stuff was in storage packing it all up was the WORST! Below, is my "I am having so much fun face"!! It took me a full week to completely pack everything up.....

 Now, I want to say that we could NOT have done this move without the guys at Matt's office who gave up 2 days of their time to help us move! THANK YOU guys so much! I hope you all enjoy your Okc Thunder Shirts I got you all as a Thank You! Okies to the core we are!

 My Mom and Matt's Dad also flew in to help us out.... and more than anything be there for each of us.... I guess you could say that even at 34 Matt is a Daddy's boy and I am a Mommy's girl... sometimes you just need them!

 This is day 2, and I have completely entered a delirious state...... I wanted to bury myself in packing paper and never come out. I sound dramatic but moving, unpacking and everything that goes along with that is literally one of the worst thing ever!
How did all the animals do on the move? Eh... Bella the cat decided to hole up in the covers in my bed for a full day, I was worried I was going to have to pour her dinner into the bed when she decided to rejoin the world! Oscar (our tan weenie) took it hard.... he would not leave mine or my Moms side for a full week.. poor baby!

 We were literally dead tired everyday.... and I wore my Fitbit and I literally walked 7 MILES in my own home one day... I mean can you believe that???

We are still dealing with boxes, hanging things up and trying to get organized........ it is never ending! But I am back to blogging and I will be catching you all up over the next few days!!!

Exquisite St.

Good Morning friends!!! Are you ready for a LONG POST?????? I have so much to fill you in on so bear with me as I try to make this as concise and coherent as possible!!!!

First..... a week ago I complained on Facebook about our Mortgage lender.... I swear it was a LONG 6 week process to see if we could get a mortgage this year (after being in Denver 1 year as a 1099). I was literally about to email my person and say "Thanks but no thanks" when she called and said we were approved! I didn't believe it at first because last year we went thru this and it was a big disappointment. 

Second.... a while back I did a post about where to live?? And how currently we are in "The city" which is close to work but we literally cannot afford what we want here. In the city we could get maybe 1600 sq feet, NO yard, Townhouse for an insane amount of money. But if we drive about 30 minutes to a suburb outside Denver (Castle Rock) we can get SO MUCH MORE and for less. For me it is most important that we have space for our friends and family to come visit and share in our life. Matt's commute is going to be longer but after seeing the community and what our home life would be he agreed that the drive is worth it. 

Third..... For the past year we have been set on building... Why? Because when you are spending the insane amount of money that is required to live here in Denver we want to get what we want within our budget. Plus all the resale homes just didn't have what we wanted! So last Friday my Mom was in town and we went to visit the home builder in Castle Rock who told us there was a 5 month waiting list just to get a lot. And since they have so many people lined up to do this I was just a number to them and we got a real bad feeling. (long story short) So we left very discouraged and my Mom finally saw how a budget that to us is INSANE and we would never spend this much in Oklahoma.... but here it still isn't enough. It's crazy.

Finally..... At lunch Mom and I found a home on realtor.com that I liked... I couldn't believe it! It was a smidgen outside the budget but we could haggle... right? (and we did haggle) SO we called and met a realtor at the home. It was amazing!!!! After a long talk with this realtor Genny from Sotheby's became our realtor!

With the market here in Denver you can't even sleep on it..... so we went  home talked it over with Matt and went for a second showing Saturday morning. The realtor showed us others in our price range and after much discussion we decided to make an offer on the spot. We were so worried that we would get into a bidding war because in the 2 days we saw this home 10 other people did too. But God was smiling on us...... 

We are in our lease until July 31. Which could be a problem BUT we made a special deal with the owners who have not found their next home. They accepted our offer and we will close in June but let them stay until the end of July rent free for the acceptance of our lower offer than asking. 

SO...... on a weekend where none of this was planned we BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!! And the best part it's on.... Exquisite Street! haha! (sounds like a strip club name)

Here are some highlights of the home and ya, we had to concede on a few things we wanted but this fit more of what we wanted than any other home!!

 Mom was excited for us and it was nice to have one of our parents here for another opinion. I will say that we are excited but also scared since the market is so expensive in Denver.... it's scary.

Clearly this is what sold me........ My dream is white counter tops but the black counter tops are Quartz (which I wanted) and it's beautiful! I love the subway tile backsplash too! And I will be replacing the pendant lights with something more modern with an Edison bulb!!! And ya, I am already making plans in my head! The doors in the corner are a walk in pantry! Off the kitchen is a mud-room, 1/2 bath and 3 car garage. 

We love the modern fireplace and that is what we wanted in a new build too! And the entire 1st floor is hardwood which was a MUST with our 3 dogs!!!

 So the formal dining room is rather huge... so we are playing around with different ideas for this room and replacing the chandelier to something more "Fixer Upper Modern"! You know what I mean!

 This master bedroom has a huge sitting room attached and since this home doesn't have a specific office we are going to make that into an office for me! I have been "pinning" Master bedroom with office attached ideas!

 Here is the master bath, no tub but the owners upgraded to this walk in shower which is stunning! Upstairs is also the laundry room, 3 other bedrooms and a full bath. So it's exciting that we will be able to have a baby room someday plus 2 guest rooms!!!!

 So this home has a 2 story deck and this bottom floor is a walk-out basement. It is unfinished currently but that will be a project for us. It is already insulated and run for plumbing so in the future it will have a 5th bedroom, full bath and a movie room or at least thats the plan! haha! We will have to carry the weenies down the stairs each time they go out but most homes in Denver are built this way so we will just get use to it.

 This is the back..............

 And the biggest thing of all is our view which does NOT include another house and never will!!!!

 So we know we close June 15th (Yes, Becky's you both will be here and will come with! haha) But we won't know when we will move until the couple finds a new home too! More than likely it will be mid-July!!!
Now I don't even want to think about the actual move!!!!! UGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 Year Annv!

You guys..... I cannot wrap my head around it..... ONE year ago today I officially moved to Denver! This week last year Mom and I made our 6 state journey with our co-pilot Bella from Columbus to Denver!!! One year ago today I pulled up to my Townhouse to see it for the first time, haha!

 1 Year ago I survived the move...... I do miss my home in Columbus, I always will.... I just loved it!

I am not sure if times flies or if it seems like I have been living in Denver for years already.... it's weird.  Happy 1 Year Anniversary to me!

Where to Live?

We both have almost been in Denver a year, can you believe it? I sure can't! And we are currently trying to get our taxes together (ya we always run late) and once they are filed for 2014 we are going to try to get a mortgage here in Denver so we can buy a home. That alone is a scary thing since Matt is a 1099 and business owners are practically punished when trying to obtain a mortgage.... but that is a whole other post.
The problem now is where to live in Denver? We currently live in Stapleton and we love it.... it is a new suburb of Denver, very modern and central but SO expensive. A starter home about 1/2 the size of what we had in Ohio with no yard will run upwards of 500k.... crazy! But we have grown to love Stapleton and the commute to work for Matt is very easy!
On the other hand since we moved we fell in love with Castle Rock a suburb south of Denver by about 20+ miles. It is a very affluent community but we find homes there that we LOVE and they will be much larger than Stapleton, cheaper and have an actual backyard which Stapleton doesn't offer. But the commute will be at least 40 minutes to Matts office.
It's true we see ourselves in Castle Rock and the homes are perfect but is it worth the drive? We could go back and forth..... Stapleton is close to downtown, the hub of everything but Castle Rock has open space and great schools?
You know I could go on and on! But home is where the heart is isn't it? Ugg, thanks for listening friends!

House Hunting Adventures!

Matt and I will be in our town home until Feb 2015 which seems far off but it really isn't. We are leaning towards building a home which will take about 8 months which would be a great timeline! With the prices out here I just am not finding ANY resale homes I like and I would rather spend my money on things we pick out and LOVE!!!
We have spent most weekends "Suburb Shopping"and although we have found many suburbs we love finding the right combination of affordability, location and what the community has to offer is the hard part!! We love living where we live now but it also happens to be one of the most expensive places you can live....so unless we win the lotto we will be heading to the 'burbs. In fact Stapleton where we live is home to one of the HGTV Dream Homes.....I know, right???
I made you guys a quick slideshow of some of our favorite homes that builders are offering "around" our price range!!! And let me tell ya........ Denver is SOOOOOO expensive, it is unreal. I mean we aren't in Oklahoma or Ohio anymore!!!!
Enjoy.......

A little house hunting

Here's Johnny...

The Stanley Hotel Tours Video from The Stanley Hotel on Vimeo.

So when my Mom was here we wanted to do one thing just for US during the week of moving Hell......so we knocked off a HUGE item on our bucket lists and we went to The Stanley Hotel!!!! And.....we took the historical/paranormal tour...... we were so giddy, it was the perfect day! The drive thru Boulder to Estes Park was stunning, we really got the Colorado experience and that is JUST what I needed! I haven't seen the mountains or really been any place like this since High School so I LOVED taking it all in!

 I will say that 60 miles via Mountain miles is about 2 1/2 hours which we learned that day! hahaha! Hey, now we know!

 We have ARRIVED!!!!!!!! Honestly it was smaller in person than it is on TV but the energy you feel here is NO joke.....even Mom mentioned to me that the entire time of the tour she felt off, like she could feel something different around her.....and she never says things like that!

 Mom and I also learned that it is much colder in the mountains than it was in Denver.....Brrrr! #thingsihavelearnedsince

 Not only did we love learning about the Paranormal history of the Stanley but just the History of the hotel itself is amazing, I just love learning and actually being somewhere filled with so much history, emotions and stories!

 Here is the very very short version of Stephan King......
On the night before The Stanley was to be closed for Winter, Mr.King and his family stopped in to stay the night in Room 217. During his stay there he had such incredible paranormal experiences as well as horrible nightmares involving his family and the hotel that inspired him to immediately right The Shining based on his stay.

 This is THE Room 217 and you would NOT believe...... house keeping was cleaning the room when our tour went by so we GOT TO GO INSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!

 Here it is folks........this is the room that SciFi's The Ghost Hunters stayed in and caught EVP's, Doors opening as well as a glass shattering on it's own.
The movie Dumb and Dumber was also shot here at the Hotel and the hotel tour guide said that Jim Carrey lasted 1 night at the hotel before leaving and refused to come back inside except to shoot the movie.

 The Hallway that inspired The creepy twin scene............ I mean really, could this look any creepier?

 You see it??? (little hotel fun below)
We also got to go to the basement of the Hotel and the hotel itself is built on top of huge granite and quartz stone formations which has been proven to hold energy which can increase the chance of the hauntings here....it was really neat to see!

 Don't worry Becky's we are going BACK!!!!!!!!!!!
Check out this view..........

Mom and I got Matt a souvenir! 

Mom had the best time and she couldn't believe we actually got to go and take it all in!

Move in

Our stuff arrived on Saturday, 3 days after Mom and I arrived and boy oh boy was it a mess. I have to admit that we got the 3 slowest movers in the history of movers!! Yes, we have a lot of stuff but it took them 8 hours on Saturday and then 4 MORE on Sunday! I swear our neighbors must have thought the Beverly Hillbillies moved next door!

 This explains everything perfectly! Yes, there were times that Mom and I were so delirious and overwhelmed that we would laugh our heads off over nothing. And no not happy laughs.....like crazy person I am having a breakdown laugh. Matt said it scared him!

 What was so complicated is that this Town home is only 10 months and we had to use our garage here as a storage unit....literally stacked to the ceiling. So..... only 1/2 the stuff came into the home and most of the 1/2 I wanted inside didn't make it. So we are living with a hodge-podge of stuff with the majority of everything somewhere in the Tetris design that is our garage! ugh

 It took me over a week to go thru boxes and get this home to a livable space........ we aren't decorating for 2 reasons:
1. Most everything is boxed in the garage
2. We don't want to have to repaint or do anything to this home in 10 months when we move.
SO that is weird. End of story. Weird.

Moving really is the WORST...I cannot explain to you how much I hate it! This weekend I will take some pictures of the place to give you all a tour!!!

3 Days, 6 States and $300 in Gas!

BIG on pictures........ short on words!!!

Matt loaded up all the dogs 2 days before Mom and I headed out and they hit the road for a boys road trip! I wanted Oscar to come with me but I gave in and let Matt have all my boys!

Yup, there it is...... our life all in the driveway in Ohio. It was surreal and it was sad to see the home I loved empty and say goodbye!

 Monday morning April 14 Mom and I picked up Bella from the vet and hit the road for Day 1 to St. Louis!

 Goodbye Ohio........ Hello new future!

 Sometimes you become delirious and inventive when in the car for 8 hours! The perfect spot for my lemon Oreos don't ya think?

 For day 1 we got a treat..... we got to spend the night with my Brother, Sister-in-law and my niece Dagny.......isn't she adorbs? Jordan cooked us a yummy dinner and it was nice to see them and get to spend time even if it was only for a night!

 SO.... you know me....on the way out of St. Louis I stopped at the "Exorcist" home that was featured on Ghost Adventures! This was the home that held the events that lead to the movie The Exorcist! Eek 

 

 Day 2 was to Kansas, Salina to be exact and I needed coffee......lots of coffee!

 So this happened....... Front seat driver, ghesh!

 Bella didn't really love being shuttled to my brothers home, then a hotel.......cats don't like things like that but she was a trooper....a gripey one but a trooper!

 This face explains how much I just love driving, packing, moving, eating on the road.....bleh.

 Day 3 was the drive to Denver and this happened! For real in the middle of NOWHERE Kansas I got a ticket for going 90! Yikes! Mom and I just laughed!

 Then we made it to our new Town Home for the next 10 months! Welcome Home.................