The LOT!

Here are photos of the lot that we purchased

Highlights:
- Corner lot
- Backs to a large city park
- Clean and well developed neighborhood
- Underneath final approach for local airport
- 180 views of Colorado front range

This is the lot from the corner by the other neighbor.

This is the back of the lot, backs to a green park and to a playground

to the west. Lot is gently sloping, so a walkout will work.







This is what you see right above you, BUT the planes are almost
silent since they are getting ready to land, we're not on the take-off side! It's
really neat. Everything from big jets to show/antique planes fly over.


We can't wait to sit on our patio with friends and family
and watch the summer sunsets, it is just amazing.


Looking back on purchasing the lot... we are so thankful we paid a realtor $500 to do the paperwork. It was major peace of mind, especially buying from an owner as opposed to an agency. The title company didn't charge as much either since we had a realtor, which was very nice.


We had already made sure we could get a construction loan (lending market is tough now, so BE SURE!) Also- the guy we bought it from already had a lot of information, like site surveys, soil samples, etc. done, so we used those for meeting with architects.


Next step: look into construction loans, architects, site surveys, soil samples. Start reading
How to Build a Custom Home for Dummies and be your own General Contractor ha ha.

Costs: contract purchase price, down payment of 20%, initial deposit, $400 application fee, county taxes, $500 to realtor

Who would've thought Ryangie would be renting!?

We sold our house and are renting now, to save up some money and hopefully make our stress load less! We found a cute place in old towne Arvada for a good deal. It's pretty new and CLEAN! So many rentals were just dives. Yuck. Here's our little duplex in Arvada-

All I do is keep the place clean- no repairs, no lawn mowing, not even changing lightbulbs! Ryan and I could start to love renting! And the place is small enough (1600 sq ft) that it's easy to not clutter it up, most of our things stayed packed up- and it's easy to clean! A basement keeps our stuff neatly hidden away and there is a lovely yard for Tellie to play... her first snow storm:

We have our project board up in the office, and we're ready to start our journey of building our own custom home! Here we go...

So between blogging our build and taking tons of pictures, you should be able to get a good idea of the process!

Making the decision to move...

Well Ryan and I made a big decision recently. It's still in the works, but we are putting an offer in on land in Westminster. We will eventually build a home... but that is a ways down the road. So we have to sell our home. The bathrooms and the rest of the house is updated (by us) but the kitchen was left. So we decided to remodel- worked harder than either of us ever have, but we got it done in about 2 weeks and for just under $1000. Pretty sweet deal and about a bucket of sweat (hopefully equity!) Enjoy the pics:

This is after Ryan spent an ENTIRE day ripping out the tile floor. This was probably the hardest job he's had on this house... it beats ripping out bushes from the front yard- easily!



You can see why we had to make new cabinet doors... yikes!



This is our "dining room" with a fridge/oven.
We still are without a sink... gotta love kitchen remodels.



Me installing the bamboo floor

We painted the frames... but had to cover everything for overspray- pretty messy.

Soon to come... the results!

Staying Young

Happy Birthday Rob!

We all (family and friends) went to Old Chicago and celebrated. Had pizza, salad, appetizers, cake and drinks... we left VERY stuffed!

You know, it's just so fun to let go and have fun everyonce in a while. Normally you'd ask me to suck on a lemon and I would cringe because it rotts away your teeth... don't think I didn't use to do it all the time when I was a kid! BUT it's so fun to goof around with my neices and nephews and just have fun. Gotta love staying young. I can only hope Ryan and I will always do this when we have kids, we sure do it a lot with Angie's kids!

Where did April go?!

April flew by so quick that I haven't even had time to get pics off the camera!

Easter was lovely, church in the morning with the family. It's the most important sermon of the year and me, my family and the entire row (even the one behind us) was seriously distracted and entertained by an adoreable little girl in front of us. I tried so hard to focus but she was so funny and cute... sorry God! I thought it was just me, but then a lady next to us asked the mom if she could hold her baby... so it wasn't just me!

Angie, my sister in law, bought two puppies from the neighbor. I love puppies anyhow, but these looked exactly when Tellie was a puppy... so they really tugged on my heart strings.

Heather's birthday (she will always be 21 in my mind) - we went to Chili's for dinner with the girls and then came home for a night in. We did pedi's and watched chick flicks. It was nice to have a night in and relax rather than out on the town. Good choice Heather!

Road Trip

Lindsay and I went on a road trip around Colorado this last weekend. I had so much fun and we only spent $150 each! I think that is amazing. We laughed and talked so much, it was really a nice time.

The highlight of our trip was when the biggest bug I have ever seen flew in our car window and landed on Lindsay's sweatshirt on her shoulder blade. We were driving on a one way highway and couldn't pull over- there wasn't even a shoulder on this road! This bug was huge. I wanted to take a picture of it while it was on her, which made matters worse- but oh so funny! I think we will laugh about that bug till we are old grannies. Of course, no one will EVER believe just how big that thing was.

This is a picture of what I think it was- although the one on her was more fuzzy and had a "thicker" body- but the bug was at least 2 inches diameter! AND it wouldn't fly off her- it was just holding on and crawling around!!! This story doesn't do it justice. Altogether fun times, looking back on it... What a fun week

We sat in the river at Mt. Princeton and there are natural hot springs going right into the river. So you make a little "pool" out of the rocks and have your own personal hot tub. We tried to get the river in the background so you could see. This was really neat to be sitting in the river but being very warm- sometimes the water even burned you! I would recommend this place to anyone.

Birthday Fun

Well, it was my birthday recently and I've been lucky enough to have a lot of really great birthdays. Going places, getting neat things, ect. But I just realized this year that this birthday was the best of them all. We had two simple dinners- one with my family, one with Ryans. I opened gifts quietly with Ryan the night before, my students made my day great at school and then on the weekend, we had friends over and just hung out. Nothing elaborate, but just hanging out and having fun! Really a great year. I hope they continue just like this... meaningful rather than materialistic.