the house we bought

We found out that the owners of the house two doors down were planning to put their long time rental property on the market in the fall. So, Alex walked down to ask them how much they were asking and if we could walk through it. They told him their price and we did our first walk through. 

Alex and I are both the type of people that take on too much. We tend to do our best in seasons of busyness. So, why not buy a house in the midst of all of our other chaos!? 

The house is 700 square feet with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a decent sized living room, small eat in kitchen and it has an attached one care garage and a full unfinished basement. All the major (expensive) updates had been done: new roof, windows, electrical, plumbing and HVAC. Not big and fancy, but definitely not a bad house for our first rental property...

We had an appraisal and inspection done and everything came back in our favor, so we went ahead with the purchase and closed on the house on July 28, 2017. 

We had every intention of buying the house to do a little work and then put it on the rental market before school started at the college in August. BUT then we started talking to one of our friends who is a contractor that buys and flips houses and he suggest that we should put a little more work into and try to flip it for a profit. 

So we ripped out the old (smelly) carpet, installed engineered hardwoods and new baseboards, had a painter come in to paint virtually every surface, shiplapped over some 1970's (ugly) paneling, re-drywalled one of the bedrooms, installed all new interior doors, took off the old aluminum awning, painted the exterior, installed a new front door and garage door, updated the landscaping and had new gutters installed. 

All of this work while still having our own house, wrangling Margo, running the office, taking over leading our youth group full time, being in a wedding and having a virus that kicked my butt for 2+ weeks that required several weeks/months of follow up blood work and then falling off the steps and breaking my foot. It was child's play...

But, we did it. We got the little white house flipped and finished and now it's the blue house. 

August 12, 2017

Leading up to Alaina's wedding was a lot of denial on my part, you see my best friend was going to marry her best friend and start their lives together. But by starting their lives together that meant that Alaina would be moving from Edwardsville and to Champaign. Bittersweet is probably the best adjective.

However, the wedding day was far from sad or bittersweet. It was such a fun, special day and the only thing that I would have changed was that I had a 102℉ temperature and had felt like death warmed up that weekend (starting Thursday before the Saturday wedding). I persevered and thankfully ibuprofen and Tylenol did their jobs, so I felt relatively well, all things considered.

We started the day at Alaina's sister, Jenna's house with hair and make-up. Then we went to the church to get our dresses on and start the picture process. All the while, Alex was home gearing up for his role of making the flower girl look like a rockstar. He did an awesome job and not only fed and dressed her, but he also did her hair and was ready for pictures early! We tried some pictures with Alaina but it was a little too close to nap time, so we ended up doing Margo and Alaina's pictures after the ceremony.

After all the bridesmaids and groomsmen walked down the aisle, it came time for Margo and the ring bearer to walk down the aisle. They both did great but Margo was awesome and all of her hard work after church on Sunday's had paid off (I'm totally biased, sorry). She threw her petals, smiled at everyone, gave a little squeal and then finished by running the rest of the way down the aisle to Alex. The ceremony itself was beautifully done and it was very clear that Garrett and Alaina have centered their relationship around Christ.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur (probably because of the fever), but we had a great time at the reception and danced the night away. After we saw Garrett and Alaina off on their honeymoon, we helped clean up and crashed as soon as we got home.

I feel really honored that Margo and I got to be a part of their wedding and even more that we still get to do life together, 159 miles apart.

 

nashville bachelorette party

Alaina was the first real friend that I made when we moved to Edwardsville five (!!) years ago. We formed the kind of friendship that was instantly deeper than "what are you watching on Netflix" and "did you see the Bachelor on Monday?!" (but we totally talk about those things too).  We celebrate, cry and do life together.

When she first told me about Garrett there was something different about him that was different than any guy she'd talked about before. She always described his character traits and how Godly he was (and is). The first time that I met him was the weekend before I had Margo so it's a bit of a blur, but I know that Alex and I both instantly liked him and knew he was good for our Alaina. So when she asked me (and Margo) to be in her wedding I was thrilled and of course said yes!

After planning and executing a fantastic bridal shower, we (the bridesmaids) started to plan her bachelorette party and we decided to go to Nashville!

After we got home from the Dells on Monday I turned around and left for her bachelorette party on Friday (busiest summer ever). We stayed with Garrett's uncle and had a fun, semi-restful weekend. Friday after we got to there we just hung out at the house talking and catching up. On Saturday morning we woke up and went on a party bike tour of downtown. It was July so it was HOT but we had a lot of fun and pedaled through town! Then we did a little lunching, shopping and back to the house to cool off and take a nap before going out to dinner. I don't remember where we ate dinner (mustn't have been too noteworthy) but we did go for drinks at The Patterson House which is set up like a speakeasy. It was a lot of fun and we had delicious drinks and desserts. On Sunday we ate breakfast and headed home. It was a great trip and I would do it again with the same girls in a heartbeat.

Sprocket Rocket Bike Tour

 the blushing (and sweaty) bride-to-be & bridesmaid (also sweaty) 

a much earned brunch after pedaling through Nashville

 always Ubering 💁

where have I been?!

2017 best nine from Instagram

After we got home from the Dells this summer life kind of got crazy, like really crazy...
The weekend after we got home I went to Nashville for Alaina's bachelorette party, we bought a house to flip (so much more on that later), Margo and I were in Alaina's wedding, we took over leading Trailhead Students- the high school ministry at our church, we put our house on the market and it sold in a week, I broke my foot, traveled to Rivera Maya Mexico with Jared and Becky and took a last minute trip to Harry Potter World and last but certainly not least we began the process of selling our office and book of business and Alex started pursuing a career in web development.

With everything going on it's no mystery as to why I haven't blogged. But now I'm back and will try to keep up with posting a little more often. Details on all the above to come...