Life is wonderful!

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since we were in Maryland!  Above is a picture of me and my hubby from the wedding we attended while in Maryland.  I really like to take pictures but I'm usually not in a lot of pictures because I don't like to have my picture taken.  Why.....because I realized the smile on my face hasn't been genuine in a LONG time.

This picture shows my genuine smile!

Family and friends

It's been awhile since I've written about anything but the house but this past week (Wed - Sun) we returned to our old stomping grounds in Maryland.  The main purpose of our trip was for a very close friends wedding and we added a few days to visit family and friends.  The trip was non stop from the moment we arrived till we departed.

I realized how much I really miss everyone and we were very lucky to spend time with many people and so very much appreciate they made time to see us.  I also realized that I LOVE my new life.  It has been difficult to "leave everyone behind" but one of my big goals when we moved to Texas was to start a new adventure that focused on ME and getting my life back on track both mentally and physically.  I didn't realize till this trip just how much progress I have made.  I am in a much better place today than I was a year ago and know that it's still work in progress but some of the big hurdles have been addressed.  It was talking to friends and family that helped me see that I have drastically changed.

We weren't able to see everyone but we knew that would be impossible on such a short trip and hopefully those that we didn't get to see understand that we were crunched for time.

We can't wait to plan our next trip to Maryland.  We already have a few visitors planned for this year or early next year and we are excited to show them why we LOVE Texas so much.

Here are a couple pictures from some of our adventures.

Some of the gang enjoying good food, drink and conversation at Uncle Julio's.

Enjoying a relaxing afternoon with extended members of our family (Joy, Elyse and Nicki).

The handsome groomsmen and groom.  My handsome hubby in the middle.

My good friend Molli - she looks AMAZING!

Great friends Debbie and Mike - a wonderful couple that we have known for many years!

This is HOME!

We are IN!  We moved in on May 24th and we were about 90% unpacked by May 28th.  Of course the last of the unpacking is always the rough stuff but things are shaping up well.  We completed the closing paperwork on May 30th.  Yea things are a bit different down here in Texas, but that is mainly because we owned the land and had a construction loan.

The hubby returned to Maryland this weekend for a bachelor party so I spent the weekend organizing the office, cleaning and buying our bedroom furniture.  Sadly I wasn't able to buy our bed because the store was closed, but hopefully we can get that done next weekend.  Our furniture is being made and will take a minimum of 8-10 weeks so no worries on having the furniture before the bed.

With Rob gone for the weekend I was a bit worried about how I would sleep since normally when he is gone I don't sleep at all.  I woke up Saturday morning rested and refreshed - that was the moment I realized we were home! Waking up this morning was close to yesterday except for the major thunderstorm.  Have I said that it is DARK out here.  There are no street lights and I'm not kidding you when I say you need night vision goggles to walk around the house.  Fortunately we have some night lights but when the power went out this morning I had to carefully work my way through the house to the flashlight, lucky I didn't run into anything :>)

It's been a long process but it was worth the wait.  We love the house and are looking forward to many new memories!

We finally have the keys

Finally, we have the keys to our new house.  We ended up getting the keys late yesterday and spent all day today cleaning the house from top to bottom.  Thank goodness Rob has the week off so we have all our appointments scheduled for tomorrow and Tuesday.  The movers are packing us up on Thursday and unpacking us on Friday.....yes we have that much stuff that they can't pack and unpack us on the same day.

Below are the final pictures of what it looks like!

Front of our house - landscaping will hopefully start in the next month or so.

We love our front door.

 Front entry

  Study

 One of the spare bathrooms

 Kitchen

 Great room

 Exercise room (this is the largest room in the house)!

 Master Bathroom

 Master Bedroom

 Master closet

delayed again

No new photos to post, sadly our close date has been pushed back to May 17th.  We have been assured that they can meet this date....we sure hope so as we are moving May 23/24 so there is little wiggle room.  The stress level in our house has gone up significantly so we are truly going to enjoy the first night drinking a few beverages on the back deck.  When we close on the house I'll post some final photos so everyone can see the finished product.

We want to thank everyone for all the positive comments regarding the house.  This is a dream house for us and we are very happy with how things are coming along.  We have 2 spare bedrooms and would love to have visitors when we get settled.