Fall Happenings

Fall in Michigan has been beautiful! Perfect warm days and cool nights.

We had some family photos taken this year at Friendship park. They turned out so good thanks to Audra! She did awesome! http://www.audraephotography.com/

 

House Happenings...

 We refinished our hardwood floors upstairs this fall. WHAT A PROJECT! Never again, we will hire out next time. I think they turned out okay... 

(sorry guys, unable to rotate for some reason)

 

We slept for 5 days in our living room- thank goodness that is over!

 

We joined a gym! Finally- Anytime Fitness in Clarkston. Love that it is 24/7 and Love that I can workout with the hubs. Though, we don't really workout together, but its nice to go together. Getting my butt in tip-top shape before we have a baby. (not pregnant...yet :)

First fire in the new house. So wonderful to have a gas fireplace. Can't wait to have it on more often. 

More House Happenings...

I painted the 1/2 bath on the main floor and added a accent wall. 

Pretty much...having been watching A LOT of football.

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Excited to finally kick-off this Holiday Season!



I am a horrible blogger. Its awful. Whenever I feel like writing something down I sit and then....nothing. My mind goes blank and nothing seems THAT interesting to write about. So here I am forcing myself to at least put something down.

This summer has been fun! No big trips just making small improvements on our new little house in the suburbs. We did take one mini-vacation up north over the 4th of July. It was so nice to spend time with my parents and be up there.

Scooters!

Up North Fireworks! Best show ever!

 



On the Pier of Lake Michigan

 



 

Jet Skiing on Lake Charlivoix!

 

We had a really good time. Dan was begging me to make another trip before summer ended. We also had (2) very big purchases this summer- CARS! We both needed them, we are "grown ups" now, We also wanted to get a family car (my Jeep! :) before baby Drwencke arrives- (no this is not an announcment...yet;)

 

Bye Bye sunfire- you have been good to me all these years.

 

 

Love my new Jeep!

 

Dan's Concorde

 



 

His new obsession- (I think he secretly was jealous of my new wheels and wanted something new himself) ;)

 

But life has been pretty routine for us. Working during the week and working on the house most weekends. It has been hard to try and save money to work on the house and not go shopping. Hard but rewarding at the same time. Here are a couple photos of some of the things we have been working on:

 

Guest/baby's room Before

 

 

In progress

 

Boring kitchen table

 

 

Custom kitchen table!

 

Finally finished the dining room- just saving up to have a chandelier installed.

 

Began the painting the kitchen cabinents

 

It was also my 26th BIRTHDAY this past week. Man, I'm getting old. Husband was great and made the day very special. Came home from work to a kindle fire, flowers, and card. :) Since my birthday fell on a Monday we celebrated with my family the night before--and went out to brunch with Dan's family the next Sunday. Thank you Guys!

 

This summer Dan also had surgery on his knee. He had a slight tear in his ACL that needed to be repaired. He is still in PT working on gaining full motion and function of his leg but is getting back to normal. I took a day off work and took him to the hospital. He did pretty well- only a little nauseous on the ride home, which was followed by a quick pull off to the side of the road and open the door. Poor guy.

 

This is how he had to get around post surgery, haha. Lunch box in tow and all.

 



 

 

 

Michigan Summer has come to an end. Looking forward to Fall!! && cooler weather!

 

 

 

I have kind of fallen off the blogging band wagon...

FINALLY a post. A lot has happened in the time since I last posted. 

We moved! Well, I moved all by myself because Dan decided to tear his ACL only a couple days before moving. oy. Luckily, I had my brother's who live close by and were nice enough to help.

We made our first mortgage payment a couple days ago! Exciting. exciting.

We have finished our family room, foyer, basement, kitchen (almost).

Drwencke house so far:

We are working on our dining room, staircase, and outside (which is a BEAST!)

We are pretty happy with all the improvements we have made this far and are looking forward to doing much more!

Dan is currently trying to break into the medical sales field and I am working as a Medical biller for a chain of urgent cares in the area. I am enjoying my new position and I am happy it is more "family friendly." The hours are nice and flexible and if I chose to work after we have children I have the option of going part time or possibly working from home. 

This summer we plan on taking a vacation over the 4th of July up north to my family's cottage in Charlivoix. We haven't been up there for a few years and July 4th is the BEST time up there. 

Finally!!!!

We have a closing date on our house, 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

ALL smiles here :-D

Initially, it was going to be for Friday but stupid title company messed it up. 

Oh well. 

Only 4 more days and that beauty of a house will be ours!

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

This past weekend I went and helped my brother and his wife start painting their family room. 

and by helped I mean...

Just helped with the primer. 

It's starting to look good guys!

Brandt painting away...

Primer going up in their family room

Me RELAXING on their couch after a whole 20 minutes of painting.

(I will have enough painting myself soon enough) ;-)

Dan and I really haven't been up to anything fun at all. We have just been anxiously awaiting the close date on our house and now that it's next Tuesday the end is near! I will tell you that we are SICK of living with boxes all over. I am a pretty organized person and Dan is kinda a "neat freak" so these past few weeks have been a challenge for us both. We feel like we have been at a standstill since January when we found out our offer was accepted.

Tips for Saving up a down payment on your 1st home:

* **

Live below your income:

This should be happening no matter who you are or how much money you make. But if you're trying to save up for a down payment on a house it will happen a lot faster if you live below your means.

 Dan and I sacrificed by renting a 1 bed 1 bath apt instead of a 2 bath 2 bedroom or a townhouse. By doing this we saved an extra $200-$400 a month!! 

We also have skipped out on vacations. While friends of ours took off to tropical warm climates we hung back and just went on a nice date or had a fun weekend. 

*I told Dan it's our turn to FINALLY go on our honeymoon this next year!

You can also cut out things like cable, going out to eat, shopping for cleaning supplies & things like shampoo/conditioner @ the dollar store. 

We saved every cent of our tax return last year! Just put it right into savings so we never even saw it. We also took money out of each paycheck and immediately transferred it to savings. We have it built into our budget that we are saving $600 a month at least. 

Instead of going out to the movies we did a lot of ON DEMAND this past year. It only costs about $5 a movie, you have it for 24-48 hrs, and you can eat your own goodies and stay in your pj's in the comfort of your own home!

There are a lot of things you can do to save money. Those are just some of the things we did- besides the cutting the cable. Heaven forbid Dan live without ESPN. :-)

Seeing all the new VS swimsuits makes me think about this:::

Pretty darn excited...

1.) Last week at current job! I am pretty excited to be moving on, making more, and having some extra perks that I wouldn't have with my current job. But I will miss the girls I work with! They are so wonderful and I will miss them a lot.

2.) I WENT SHOPPING!!! Always a good way to end the week. They had a sale at Express so I went and snagged some new work pants x2 to be exact &&& Dan was able to get (2) new work shirts.  

3.) Loan is out of underwriting and approved! Thank goodness! We also extended our lease for another month because it was just too hard to close on our house before March 1st. This has relieved SO much stress for us and this way we can "take our time" moving in, get our appliances and carpet installed, and begin painting. 

4.) Finally used my $50 gift card to Macy's from Christmas and got a Bobbi Brown shimmer brick compact in rose gold. 

5.) Date night with my man! We went out to dinner and then caught a movie with his brother and a friend- Always a good time.