Oh the joys of home ownership...

We have been the house a total of 3 days now. There are still tons of boxes everywhere! We finally got the hot water up and running this morning but now the heater is broken!! Again we have only lived here 3 days!! Thankfully we paid for home warranty insurance which covered the water heater pipe being fixed and should cover the heater. But now we wait till Friday to have heat. I am hoping and praying that nothing else goes wrong :)

On a happier note I am starting to feel the baby more! This morning he was doing gymnastics I think :)

We are moved in!

Yesterday (January 23, 2010) was the big move in day! We had Russell's parents and sister come help as well as some friends so the move went pretty quickly and smoothly (thank you so much to all who helped with the move!). I am still amazed at how much stuff we have accumulated over the last 3 1/2 years! As I unpack I am trying to sort through everything so I can have a garage sale this spring and get rid of what we don't need/make room for the baby. It is quite the chore!

Here is a list of something we have already done to the house... (I am making this list so that I can look back and remember what we have done and I am going to try my hardest to keep it updated as we do things and also add pictures!)

• New front door (still needs to be painted)
• New door from the garage to the kitchen (not finished, first door was wrong kind)
• Fixed Fence
• Added peep hole to front door (so I can see out the front if someone comes to the door when I am home alone)
• Put a bigger dog door on the door from the garage to the deck for Raven
• Replaced pluming for the fridge water and ice :)
• Added a GFI outlet for TV

That is it for now, but the list of "to dos" is not complete, it seems to get longer with each passing day...

We are still waiting for hot water. We have a nice working hot water heater but the pipe coming from the wall where the hose attaches has a leak in the threads. Since it is a pretty old pipe Russ doesn't want to take any chances trying to fix it himself. We were about to call a plumber to come out an fix it but we figured out that our home warranty insurance should cover it! Now we are waiting on them because our paper work hadn't been filled with the insurance company as of Wednesday last week. Therefore they had no record that we own the house and could deny us coverage, even though we have owned the house since a week ago Friday. If it gets drawn out any further we will just pay for a plumber to come fix it. Thankfully we still have the keys to our old place and can shower there. But I cannot wait to have hot water here!

We are very excited to be all moved in! At times I still can't believe we are homeowners! I can't wait to see how we make this place our home! All the fun is just beginning :) It feels so great to be able to make changes that we like and know that we aren't just throwing our money away... because we own this house! I will post pictures soon!

Again... thanks to everyone that has helped with the move! We really do appreciate it!

AMAZING DAY!

Today was quite the day! January 15th 2010 marks the day that we found out we are having a baby BOY and we got the keys to our first house! Let the nursery planning and moving begin!

Home Sweet Home

We have purchased our first home! Last night we singed papers and the keys should be in our hands Friday evening! It is still hard for me to believe we are going to be homeowners. At times this day felt like it would never come. We are very excited to move in and make it our own.

The house is located in an older neighborhood in SW Albany. We aren't too far from Costco and Target :) It was built in 1950, it has 2 bedrooms and one bathroom and is 983 sq. feet. The yard is huge! Which will be great for Raven. It has had several updates; all new windows, newer cabinets and light fixtures, most of the electrical has been updated, there has even been work on the foundation! Some extra perks are it also has air conditioning, in ground sprinklers and a security system! We will be doing some work to it though.

This weekend Russell's father Don and his grandfather Todd are graciously coming up to help Russ put a new front door on and fix the fence. In time we are going to add some sort of sink with storage in the bathroom and paint! It is so exciting that this is our place and we can do whatever we want with it!

Here are some pictures.... Kitchen

Living room

Bathroom

Baby's room

Christmas Traditions

We headed down to Medford Christmas Eve. We were able to take our dads out to lunch for their birthdays. My dad's birthday is on Christmas Eve and Russell's dad's was on the 16th. We were nice though and didn't have them sing happy birthday to them at Red Robin, I think my dad appreciated that, ha ha.

Christmas morning we started at the Bartlett house hold. We enjoyed opening gifts from one another and eating a yummy breakfast! Then we headed over to the Spani household (my aunt and uncle) to share Christmas morning with my side of the family. This is how we have spent Christmas morning the last couple years, but I am sure things will be changing as the family grows!

This Christmas was a bit hard, and just felt different because Carlos Michelle and (now:) Tristan weren't able to be there. We were able to skype (skype is great! all you need is a web cam! and computer of course) with them Christmas day a few different times which helped. But little did we know that they would be in Oregon the next day!

Here are some pictures of our Christmas...

Grandma, Ali and Kayla skyping with Michelle

For some reason Raven isn't too interested in her large bone Santa Brought her for Christmas. And she still hasn't touched it! Usually she eats a smaller bone in about 30 minutes!

Kacie and Russ with their OSU snowmen!

Kacie bought this OSU onesie when she first started working for Nike and was finally able to give it to us!

Russ opening his iPhone! This video is priceless. I was so glad I was able to surprise him like that!

Trip to Florida to meet Tristan!

I had a great time in Florida meeting my nephew Tristan. This was the third time I have been to Florida since Michelle and Carlos have moved there and this trip was a little bit different then the other two. Instead of spending time sight seeing and laying on the beach I got to experience the joys of a new born! The biggest outing we took was going to Target! It was great to get a taste of what life will be like for us come June!

Proud Auntie!
Loves his sleep... during the day that is.
Trying out the front pack, seems pretty cozy!

The newest Beaver fan!