Saturday, January 9, 2010

Our New Diggs

yes yes yes....I'm a bad blogger! But this time I'm pretty sure I have a GREAT excuse! I DID just move across the country! come on!

First of all, I should tell you that we arrived Thursday (New Years Eve) at 2:15. My goal was 2:30 so I was pretty psyched. Jess and I left Orlando at 6:15 am on Wednesday and drove straight there...only stopping at fast food joints and gas stations. That is, except for our 2 hour stop in Hays, Kansas to fix a broken uHaul! oh my! and YES Jess did drive across the country with me, Brayden and Davis as well as work her butt off the entire time she was in COS to get me unpacked and decorated! Good friend, huh?!

The day was full of craziness but Jess and I made it through all 34 hours with little to no sleep

We stayed at our friends home for the first few days. Vince and Sara were so sweet to host us even though they already had a full house with Sara's inlaws in town.

We got the keys to the house on Jan 1 and quickly realized we had LOTS of work ahead of us. I was terribly sleep deprived so forgive me for not taking before pictures :-) Just imagine the kitchen and family room full of floral wallpaper and a lovely border and the dining room/living room painted a light shade of pink....complete with pink baseboards!

Friday night, the Giordanos, Jess and I began the wallpaper removal process.....only made fun because of the lovely company and great music :-)

Saturday it was painting time! Sara and Vince, Ron and Carol (Sara's super awesome parents), Jess and I, and Hannah Giordano along with a quick stop-in from my new friend Laura Clapp (who's hubby is a pastor at the church we are going to) began the painting. All the while, Luke and Abby G entertained my two boys in our newfound love.....the BASEMENT!!!!

We painted the entire downstairs on Saturday as well as unpacked all of the boxes from the UHaul!!!! Can you believe that? It never could have happened without our amazing friends!

Greg and his dad arrived with the truck on Sunday after church and we had it unloaded within 2 hours! We even had neighbors drop by just to help unload. In fact, this neighborhood/culdesac is so sweet that we've already had pies and cookie cakes brought over welcoming us as well as dinner plans on Sunday night!

6 days later we are pretty much done. All the boxes are unloaded, pictures hung in place and clothes unpacked. We are feeling settled. We've already found a very likely church (I LOVE IT), joined the Y (they have an indoor pool), found a great bfast place (The Egg and I), found our way around the local Target. We miss our sweet Orlando family and crew but are feeling welcomed here in COS. We even had a dinner party a few nights ago with 10 adults and 11 kiddos!

Now for the tour....and the much awaited pictures!

When you walk in the front door, you walk into a large, sunken living room and a step up to the dining room. However, we didn't have furniture for multiple rooms like that! So, we decided to spread out our table and use the sunken living room as a huge dining room instead. I LOVE this room! Makes me want to fill up all those chairs a lot :-) It also comes with amazing views of Pike's Peak!


For the original dining room....I decided to create a little sitting room! I used our 2 green chairs and half of our entertainment center as well as our plush rug. I LOVE this space! Perfect for chatting on the phone, reading my Bible or talking to friends. Luke and I have also declared it our dancing spot :-) (Luke is Vince and Sara's 7 year old who is my new favorite dance partner. He wants to dance every time we are together :-)


On the other side of our sitting room is our kitchen. Sorry the pictures are so dark! It's not super decorated anyways! There is a sign in the window that says "Simplify" and thanks to my inlaws a precious new table and chairs set, perfect for the kiddos or a night playing cards!


On the other side of the oven...is our family room. I LOVE having a fireplace! It was a little tricky decorating this room as our furniture is apparently huge! I love what we ended up with though with a cozy sitting place around the fire and enough space behind it for my green armoir that now holds all of our office supplies. (man it's a good thing I've inherited a lot of furniture out of my parents house over the past few years :-)

From the picture above...just to this side of the red armoir you'd see a hallway leading to the guest bath and the stairs up to the bedrooms. (stairs are in the center of the house).

4 bedrooms are upstairs....ours (no pictures b/c it's not clean right now...but I'll tell you it's HUGE and looks great except for the ghastly border :-), Gracie's, the boys and our guest room.

Gracie's room now houses the boys old bunkbeds and a toddler bed for Grace...this way LOTS of space for visitors! She also has an AMAZING view of Pike's Peak! Especially if you are a top bunker :-)
the Guest bath :-)
The boys have 2 adorable red beds from my parents! LOVE them!
and the guest room...where YOU'll be staying :-) has an AMAZING VIEW of Pike's Peak right from your bed. Just come visit and roll over the in morning to see this.... what a way to start your day with praise. I seriously can't see this view without thinking "God you are AMAZING. I can't believe that the same one who created THAT loves ME"

so...there's our little abode! Gotta go, having the Giordanos and Lemon and her boy (she is a new girl who works at HopeChest) over for dinner tonight!

Can you believe it? I already have a pretty full schedule! We have dinner tomorrow night with the neighbors, Monday night we are having Rick and Laura Clapp and their 6 kiddos over for dinner (they recently adopted from Swaziland), Tuesday night I start Bible study with Hannah and Abby Giordano as well as Claire Mudd while the boys learn KungFu from Mr Vince, Wednesday night it's dinner with Tom and Emily Davis and their crew and then I think I'll give Greg a couple of free nights before I head out of town for a carepoint launch in Raleigh next weekend!

5 comments:

mommy zabs said...

WOW look how settled you are! That is wonderful and amazing! I'm so happy for you and this adventure you guys are on :)

jody said...

cute!
and I wondered how long it would be before you and Laura found each other.
Not long apparently. So glad.

Diane Larson said...

Yeah,Brandi! Hope and pray that your transition continues to go so well!

Anonymous said...

Way to go! You sure are brave, just like your mama! Love ya! Barbie

annNEE said...

Congrats on the new house! It is beautiful! After so many years in Florida, I would have a hard time transitioning to such a cold place. That warm weather made me weak! That's why I moved to LA - not too hard to transition to this climate!

Seriously, I am so happy that you are there and working that you and Greg are working with HopeChest. Exciting!