Happy Halloween!

retrorenovations :)

So -  kinda excited about this....our little home was featured on a pretty cool website retrorenovation.com! 
Here is the link - scroll down a bit and ours is the pink wall oven...isn't it cute!
http://retrorenovation.com/2012/10/09/american-beauties-25-vintage-stoves-and-refrigerators-from-readers-kitchens/
Also we are getting so super close to closing - yipee!

Black Island Farms

We went to Black Island Farms with some friends from our ward - it was super fun!  This is on the hay ride (no rain this time - thank goodness)

 

Waiting for the 'farmer' to cut their pumpkins from the vine

Hay slide!

Getting so excited about our new home!  I found these on KSL for FREE - here is the before and after shots (I did add the legs to the nightstand on the right)

Boys and I made a 'spooky' tree for our house!  The boys had so much fun finding the sticks and cutting out the bats:)

 

Update on home:

We will be closing in just 3 weeks! We are so excited and the house is in great shape - no radon, pipes are in great shape, and no lead paint in the entire house - yipee!  Once we close we get to pick out colors for paint, carpet, tile, doors, etc...Adam and I have very different taste so this should be fun!

Pumpkins...

 We went to get pumpkins at a local nursery that was doing hay rides - super fun! (this is us waiting in line)

 Even fun when there was a HUGE rain storm and we all got soaked - needless to say we found our pumpkins VERY quickly!

 Boo at the Zoo with Grandpa and Grandma - so much fun!

We went on the riverwalk in Logan with my parents after and the boys had so much fun letting grandpa push them in the wheelchair...they were squealing and giggling like girls:)

Home Inspection = Fabulous News!

We had the home inspection done today.  The inspector told us that it would be more wise just to ground one outlet per room (kitchen/bath already grounded) instead of re-wiring the entire house...this is going to save us $9-10K - oh happy day!  I also tried to pull the garden of sticker weeds (not sure on technical name) on a park strip and oh my that is going to be A LOT of work - I got about 1/2 done and then I thought to myself....we aren't moving in until december and I am assuming that they will be covered with snow or die when they freeze (hopefully) so the little lovelies are going to be staying until next spring and then they will go - hoping I have the energy to pull them then:)
With the home inspection came a new list of things to fix:
1) faucet and toilet valve in bathroom
2) replace water heater
3) new shingles on garage area
4) re-plumb sink in laundry room (sort of a hot mess)
5) install rain gutters
Even with all the new to-do's I am SOOOO freaking happy we don't have to do a complete rewire! HAPPY DAY:)

A new and exciting journey!

I haven't blogged forever but wanted to keep a kind of journal of our home buying experience so I thought my blog would be a great place to do that....
So our new journey is buying our first home - yipee!  Since Adam is a law enforcement officer we get to participate in an awesome program called Good Neighbor Next Door (GNND).  The program allows us to enter a lottery on selected HUD homes and if we are chosen we get to purchase the home for 1/2 the list price - yes 50% off on the appraised value of a home - double yipee!
We have entered 4 lotteries (about 11 months of doing this) and never won - we were very discouraged and actually put an offer on a 'normal' home because we were so sick of losing but we were outbid on that home too - bummer! Then we found this gem of a home on the GNND program and tried our luck for the 5th time and we won - triple Yipee! 
We are in the process of getting inspections and appraisals done and then we are getting a rehab loan (called a 203 k) to help with renovations. So this journey is going to take several months but here are the before pictures:

Home sweet home (almost)

          Pink Kitchen (original pink stove/sink/Formica counter tops) -                                               love them and leaving them - in super good shape!

 Dining room (love the carpeted baseboards:)

Pink Bathroom

Living Room

Patio

Pink tub - love it and keeping it:)

Original carpet (CRAZY!) and super awesome blue finish on the walls in master bedroom

 HOT Pink bedroom with black trim - classy!

 Downstairs family room

Original carpet on stairs - Awesome!

Items that will be renovated:
1) complete rewiring of electrical (not grounded currently and only 8 breakers for the entire home!)
2) carpet in living/4 bedrooms/stairs - bye bye green shag
3) paint entire interior, shed, patio, and door frames
4) tile in bathroom/kitchen/dining room
5) repair chimney
6) new exterior doors

We are so super excited!  Much more to come:)