Blog On Hold

Man, I sure have put this blog on hold over the last month!  I can't believe I've only blogged once in the entire month of March!  I have plenty to post about, so I will try to summarize some highlights just to make sure I capture everything.

• The project that I've been managing at work for the last 16 months went live on February 25th.  That meant some long, stressful days, but it was so nice to see all the hard work that my team and I have put in over so many months be successfully rolled out to campus.  Overall, I think the response has been pretty positive!
• After having been in our house for only a week, I spent 5 days at a conference for work in Indianapolis.  It was fun to be able to see my cousins Janelle and Paul on Saturday evening when I arrived - I haven't seen them in years!  I always enjoy my time at this conference, and this year I was even able to present on the project we just finished.  I received some really great compliments from those in attendance... a couple people even mentioned that my presentation was the best they attended during the entire conference.  That made me feel good!  I knew that we had a great project and that I was sharing information that other schools would be really interested in, so it was fun to have that feedback.
• We are continuing to get settled in our home.  Most of the boxes were unpacked within just a couple days after we moved in (I wanted to be mostly settled before my trip)... so that is nice.  We still don't have any pictures on our walls yet - I'm sure we'll start putting things up over the next couple weeks.  I'm trying to nail down a good date for a "housewarming" since so many people want to come see our new digs.
• We are loving our new neighborhood, our new neighbors, and our new ward.  It has been fun to see just how many people we already knew in our ward - one of Matt's coworkers, one of my coworkers, someone Matt has played frisbee with over the last couple years, my friend Melissa that I work out with, several people from old wards, etc.  It has especially been fun to have my friend Sally (we met in graduate school at BSU) move in kitty corner behind us just a week after we moved in.  Fences are scheduled to go up this week, but it has been fun to gather in our backyards and just chat
• Renters were scheduled to move into our old house today!  Thanks to our awesome property managers (my cousin Ashley's property management company), they are moving in in less than a week and a half after I asked Ashley to start showing the house.  We will be happy to start getting rental income even before we have to start paying mortgage payments!  It is kind of weird to think of other people living in the house I love so much, but I'm sure that "weirdness" will fade over time.

Besides that, we are getting excited for Easter (we're having both families over for our first family gathering in our new home) and Matt's birthday... he's turning the Big 3-0.  I told Kylee how old Matt was going to be and she said, "That's kind of like a grandpa!"  Funny girl.  I didn't mention to her how old I was :-)

Anyway, I hope to post more soon... probably about our house... I know you've missed my frequent updates!

We've Moved!!!

Weird that I haven't blogged in like 3 weeks!  Sorry to keep you waiting on this one :-)  I thought about waiting until everything was all unpacked and put together before I posted pictures, but you know me... I can't wait that long!  Instead I thought I'd post a few pictures of rooms that are mostly "done".

But first, a few pictures from the moving process.

Our first load of boxes.  We were too anxious to wait for the movers to come on Saturday, so moved a couple trailer loads ourselves on Friday.

The 26' moving van.  Too bad it was too small to hold all our stuff.  Matt teases me that nobody else can move from a 1400 square foot home to a 3400 square foot home and completely fill it (aka I have too much "stuff").  In any case, Matt will be heading back tomorrow to try and get the rest of our household items (mostly yard/garage stuff).

Our sweet girl - took a break from playing dress up as she watched the landscapers on Monday.  She loved watching the "workers".

And now for some house pictures... like you haven't seen enough over the past few months.  Don't you worry, there will be even more to come :-)

The family room

Guest Bath

Sitting Room

Entryway

Master bedroom

Craft room

Kylee's room

Kitchen

Part of the pantry

More of the pantry

Still to come... pictures of the guest room, master bathroom, Kylee's playroom, and the theater room!  We are loving our new house and still can't believe we get to live here!