Moving Day

Well, we made it!! We are finally all moved in- we moved on Sat. June 23rd and now have all of our things consolidated into one place. It's an awesome feeling! We have to thank all who helped us move that day- it was such a big help and went much more smoothly than moving OUT of our townhouse did. Here we are above after a long day of moving- our garage got filled up just a tad, don't you think??


Here's Brian breaking his back on a REALLY heavy load...we're still deciding where that window scraper will look best in the house...



Nicole's brother Sean carrying in a load...thanks, Sean!



Greg supervising Joel carrying in some stuff...wait, why isn't Greg carrying anything?


Go Kendall....whew! It's time for a beer after that one...


Ah, there we go. Greg, Kendall, Brian, Joel and Rod enjoying some sloppy joes, taco dip, and beer. A well-deserved break.



The moms- Mary Kay, Joanie, and Kathy!



Tom, Sean and Pat enjoying a bite...


Our kitchen after moving day. We considered just leaving it like this....



Tiger (left) and Poster (right): "What the HECK is going on???"
Actually, the cats have adjusted really well. Poster had a couple of rough first nights, but is enjoying all of the space to run around in now. He also gave us quite the scare the day after we moved in...Joel stopped by to drop something off and Nicole made the mistake of not shutting the door all the way. Before we knew it, Tiger was out on the sidewalk and Poster was nowhere to be found. We got Tiger back in, and 2 and a half hours later, with the help of Joel (thanks SO much again Joel!) and even our new neighbors looking all over outside, we found him hiding underneath the basement stairs. Stinker. Needless to say, Greg had had quite enough and immediately went out and bought a new storm door (see below), which was quickly installed by him and Joel. Hopefully there will be no more cat disappearances.




Tiger has been excited to play his all-time favorite "stair game" again, as we had no stairs in the apartment.


Our first "real" meal cooked on the stove in our new house! Spaghetti with vodka sauce and garlic bread...mmmmmm.


Our new bed! Doesn't it look great?


Tiger's favorite new spot in the house.
So, there ya have it. We're so happy to finally be in the new house. The wait wasn't really even that long, but at times it seemed like FOREVER. We just love the house and are slowly but surely getting everything in order. Thanks AGAIN to everyone who helped us move!

Ladies and Gentlemen....WE NOW HAVE A HOUSE!!!

TA DA!!! We now finally own this house! WOOHOO!! We successfully closed today and can now call this house OURS. What a great feeling! There's about a million pics below, so enjoy the "finished product" photos!




Of course, we had to do the obligatory "carry over the threshold."


Proud homeowners.


The entryway/foyer


This is what you see when you first walk in the front door.


Living room or "great room"


Kitchen


A view of inside the kitchen


Eating area


Back hallway leading to the garage


Laundry room


Downstairs bathroom


On the landing looking upstairs and into the foyer


Master bedroom


Little hallway in master bedroom w/linen closet, walk-in closet is on the right and bathroom on the left


Master bathroom


Master bath shower and whirlpool


Main bath upstairs


Andrew's room- ha!


The other guest bedroom


Upstairs hallway


Basement


Another view of the basement with Nicole's dad :)


Our view out the back of our house


The back of the house

And there ya have it!! All of the waiting, crazy moving, packing, picking out stuff, dealing with bumps in the road...has finally come to an end! Still lots of projects to do yet- put in a deck, finish the basement (a few years down the road), paint some rooms some different colors as the whole house is one color right now...but we absolutely love it. We'll start moving in somewhat this week, but the "big" move-in date is June 23rd, since Nicole works this weekend and is also studying for her Certified Rehab Registered Nurse exam, which is coming up soon.
We can't tell you how excited we are to finally have the house...for those of you in town, we'll keep you posted on a housewarming party! We can't wait to have visitors!

Also, see the next post for another exciting event of the week...talk with you soon!!

WE MET PAGE!!

Well, we got to meet one of Nicole's heroes on Thursday! For those of you who don't know him, Page Mcconnell is the keyboard/piano player from Phish, Nicole's favorite (former) band in the whole wide world. Nicole's seen, oh, "a few" of their shows and has followed them around the country quite a bit. Phish had quite the following and were able to hold weekend music festivals with 90,000 people attending just to see THEM! Now the band members are all out on their own doing solo projects, and Page came to Minneapolis for the last stop of his tour. Long story short, we were able to catch him as he was getting on his tour bus and grab a pic. What an amazing guy. He stopped and chatted with us for quite a while and was just a completely down-to-earth guy...not that we were surprised! Nicole has been on cloud nine since she met him. She has now met 2 of the 4 members of Phish, in case you're keeping track. :)
We also ran into Nicole's old pals Brad and Tony at the show- the 3 pics below are courtesy of Brad- thanks Brad!

The Final Countdown...

Well, this is it...only a week until we close!! If all goes smoothly, we're set up to close on June 15th. The house is pretty much completely done except for some touch-ups and minor things. They did our landscaping this week (minus the sod- that's coming next week)- doesn't it look great? We were able to pick out our shrubs and trees and whatnot. Also, what do you think of our blue door? Adds some color to the house, that's for sure. :)


Another landscaping pic- we used river rock and black mulch- we thought the colors looked great with the house. Above is just a little empty area that we requested that they leave for us to be able to plant our own perennials...can't wait!


Here's where our future deck will be. We just had them put some mulch down, since that grass under the deck would eventually die later.

SO, there ya have it for house stuff...we're going to wait to show you the "finished product" pictures until next week when we close, so keep checking back!
In the meantime...


On Saturday we did a winery tour with some friends- what a blast! We went to Winehaven in Chisago, St. Croix Vineyards in Stillwater, and Northern Vineyards Winery in downtown Stillwater. Here we are overlooking the St. Croix at the Northern Vineyards Winery- what a beautiful day!


Here's all of us- Joel, Ryan, Alicia, Kevin, Jenny, Greg and Nicole- tasting some wine in Winehaven.


Tasting more wine at the St. Croix Vineyards.


Awww, aren't they cute?


Our view of the St. Croix...soooo nice. What a great day!