House Tour

Here are some pictures of the new house with some of our touches on it. We still have allot to do but it's starting to feel like ours and we absolutely love it, and so do the hounds...

Living Room. I love my orange couch (thanks Katie!) and we wanted to get it down in the basement to lounge on, except our stairwell is super narrow and the huge heavy sucker wouldn't make it. So, it's home is now in the front room with a comfy recliner. In hindsight I like it up here better, it's the focal point of the room. We weren't going to put a TV up here and use it more for reading but we changed our mind and hid one in the armoir. It's nice to have it on the main floor. There is a really cool fireplace/heater in the corner. It's attached to the thermostat so it goes on it off depending how you have it set. It puts out great heat which I love when sitting in that room. There is a great large window in here with views of the mountains to the west and lots of natural light filtering in! I'm anxious to get the blinds up though.

Kitchen/Dining. I also wasn't sure if my tall table and 6 chairs would fit in here but it did and we were able to put Kevin's bistro table downstairs and my glass table in the sunroom. My huge painting fit nicely on this wall as well. Not many places this sucker will fit!

Sunroom. AKA the dogs room. This room doesn't hold heat well but during the day when the sun is shining it's amazing. I can't wait for summer when we can open all the doors and windows and live in this space more often. We installed a dog door and the dogs are loving it. Lucy knows how to use a dog door but my guys never had. Teaching has been quite funny. Campi figured it pretty quick but Peanut still won't go on his own unless we hold it open a bit. We're working on it! Even peporoni bribes haven't worked too well for him :)

Hall Bath. Love the sink!

Guest Room/Office #1. This room is a spare upstairs which will one day (but not too soon) house a little one, I hope! For now, it's a spare guest room and a little office space for me. It was a hideous blue when we moved in and we painted it this calming green mint, I really love it!

Office #2. Don't have a pic of this room yet. This room was dark dark brown so we chose a light yellow and placed the desk in front of the window. A view of the Indian Peaks while you work? Doesn't get much better than that!

Master Bedroom/Bath. We loved the color in here. It's a deep rich yellow which matched our brown furniture and bedding perfectly. The bath is a bit small but it's really nice and it works for us. Besides, there is another one right outside in the hall so we can spread out if needed. All the rooms are a bit small but atleast we have 4 to grow into.

Basement. This is one of my favorite spots. It's huge. We splurged on a massive 46" TV and we are waiting on a swivel wall mount so we can turn it any direction. We got a new comfy couch for downstairs when the other wouldn't fit. Treadmill & bikes reside on one end and a small bistro table on the other. There is also a huge laundry area with lots of storage and brand new washer/dryer...Whew-glad we didn't have to spend more money on those stinking things! They ain't cheap! We housed all of our medals & awards on one end as well. Didn't realize we had so much crap, I mean... nice stuff!

Basement Guestroom/Bath. We love that the basement houses the guest room and bath. It's at the end of the basement and away from the main living areas upstairs. It's nice for guests to have their privacy and with the window it acutally gets really good natural light from above. This room is still a work in progress as we have yet to find the hardware for the bed...oops!

Backyard. I need to get out and get a pic of the yard. I can not wait until Spring and Summer. We plan to get the grill up here from Kevin's house in the Springs and get another chimnea. We live outside in the summer time. The dogs have plenty of room to run and there is a really cool pond/fountain feature I'm excited to turn on. We might also give a garden another go. The last time we tried we didn't do so well :)

Front. We love that we are on a corner lot and only have neighbors to one side. It makes the lot feel bigger, albeit more yard work-boo! We want to spend some decent time and money relandscaping it this spring to add some mature tress, bushes, split-rail fence, etc. It needs some depth. Right now it's a blank, kinda boring, canvas.

It feels good to be in a house before the wedding and to have a space we love so much to start our lives together in AND in a town I thought I could never afford to buy in!!! It's ending up to be a big year and it's not even the end of January yet!

That's the tour, for now! For you CO friends, we plan to have a party sometime soon so please come over for a drink. For you "foreigners" please know you're invited anytime, we have plenty of space and would love to share it with you!

Lost

I promised to post updated photos and I swear I took some the other night. Problem is I can't find my camera cord to download them. Darn boxes!

My mission this weekend is to unpack every last box!

Have a great weekend friends!

We Bought a House!!!!

Kevin & I bought a house! We didn't say anything for close to a month and it's been killing me! We wanted to make sure everything went through before we made the big announcement!

Yep, it went through and we are in!!! The house is in Gunbarrel just a bit N/E of downtown Boulder. We love love love the location. This neighborhood backs up to miles and miles of open space that connects to all the miles and miles of trails through Boulder County. And it's right across the street from the Boulder Res, were we spend lots of time. It's also a quick hop onto all of the best road biking in Northern Colorado! It's 4 bed/3 bath, 2100 sq ft, so plenty of room to grow our future family in to. The backyard is huge, so plenty of room for our "current family" to run and romp in!

Man, it feels good to be a homeowner again! And I'm not sure we could have timed the market any better than we did!

Here are a few pics!!! We've only been in a few days but we've done allot. I plan to get some pictures tonight and post those as well.

Outside! We have big plans to change the front of the house. Not sure when but we want to overhaul the landscaping, it's so bare up on that little hill. Mature trees and maybe a porch?

Compassion

Compassion is not sentiment but is making justice and doing works of mercy. Compassion is not a moral commandment but a flow and overflow of the fullest human and divine energies. --Matthew Fox

I started thinking about Compassion yesterday. I found this quote and I think it's so true.

My mom had to go visit a friend that is dying in the hospital yesterday. What a hard trip to make?! We knew him for years through our church but he had sort of lived a second life that no body really knew about and it was really shocking when that came out but my parents never turned their back on him, unlike so many others. He didn't have anyone in his life and still doesn't as takes his final breaths. It makes me so sad to think he is dying and has no body to be with and when he's gone there will be no one to notify. Can you imagine?

My mom is one of the most compassionate and kindest people I know. I may be a bit biased but I have been told that by many many people as well and I truly believe it.

This man is really out of it because of the drugs to help with the pain and he is truly on his final days of life here on this earth. She wasn't sure if he would know who she was or even if he would recognize that someone was there. Sure enough he didn't and he barely opened his eyes for a brief moment. As I imagine her sitting next to his bed, holding his hand, talking with him, praying with him, I can't help but think of the compassion he had to be feeling in that room. Cognitively he may not have understood and certainly wasn't able to express it but I truly believe it's in our nature and DNA to know and feel kindness and compassion. It's energy and I like to think that he felt the energy in that room as she was there. I hope that when he passes that he passes in peace and that deep down knows that there are people out here that love him and will miss him!

This resonates even more with me as I see how much people are giving to the people in Haiti through this horrific disaster they are in the midst of. Some of the poorest people in the world and have had so much more taken away from them. As so many people in our country have lost jobs and have very little themselves, they still find a way to give and show that it really is our human nature to show compassion to our worldly brothers and sisters! It's times like these that I am reminded that there are still people of character among us and am so thankful!