Dennis and Jen are Adopting!

We received our keys on a Thursday (of Memorial Day weekend), so that evening when Dennis got off work, we arrived at our new home and Dennis started tearing up the carpets and pads. There were some placed in the hallway that the carpet pad was stuck to the subflooring because of pet messes. Dennis sent me into the garage to spray and wipe down the shelves in the garage - those shelves were covered in mold!  We had written out a pretty tight timeline for getting things done in our new home and because our closing date moved farther back than originally thought - our timeline also got pushed back. What we had hoped to accomplish by Thursday was tear up all the carpet and pads and sand the floors down. We worked really hard the first evening and when we both started getting grumpy, I knew we needed to stop. So, we went back to the house we were living in for the night.  The next evening, Friday, we started sanding the floors and by Saturday, we had my parents, Denni...

This is our story of looking at houses for sale and finding out house ...  Dennis and I were celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary in Palm Springs, CA. I had lost my job a couple of months earlier and Dennis' work was really slow. We decided to extend our 5 day vacation to a little longer so that we could enjoy the warm weather and spending time with each other. While we were in Palm Springs, my friend posted to my facebook page asking when we were going to come back to our awesome weather (it was snowing in Oregon at that time). I responded and told her that we weren't, that we were looking for jobs and houses in Palm Springs. Of course, I was joking - although whenever we do travel, I do look at the real estate and job possibilities.  Our cousins's dad happened to see this friendly, joking exchange on facebook and told our cousin, who we were renting their house, that we were looking into moving. So, we received an email from our cousin letting us know that they wer...

People say the first year of marriage is the hardest - and I understand why now. There is so much to adjust to during the first year. Especially if couples move in together after the wedding - like us. When we returned from our honeymoon and I went to work that Monday, I was told that there had been budget cuts and Friday would be my last day. Then, the next Tuesday, Dennis had wrist surgery. So, already within a month of being married - we had traveled out of country, lost a job and had a surgery! Dennis had several weeks off work as did I. We let the bills pile up and pretty soon, we owed double on many of our bills. Things were quite stressful.  Also - we were living in a 525, sq foot, super studio apartment - the 2 of us and Kitty. It was tight quarters for sure - but we made it through those times. It was nice to be able to spend more time together - even though those weren't the easiest circumstances to go through.  About a month after I lost my job, I found anothe...

Dennis and I booked a Southern Caribbean Cruise for our honeymoon. It was a very magical vacation for both of us.  There are some things that happened at the beginning of our journey, that now looking back, are quite funny.  We got to our hotel, after our wedding, still in our wedding clothes and I gave our name to the employee behind the desk. She could not find our reservation and because I had booked the room through Expedia.com, I had to call Expedia to work out the details. So, picture this - a couple still in their wedding clothes, with their bags on the floor all around them and the bride on the phone at the check in desk. It turns out, I had used my maiden name for the reservation and not our married name. So, once that was settled, we were then told that all the rooms of the type that we booked were sold out. We ended up getting the type of room we booked (with a tub in the room) and had a nice evening.  We ordered pizza and it took forever to get to our ro...

Our wedding was one of the best days of my life. That day, and the days following, I realized that it wasn't the wedding that needed to be the focal point of our marriage, but rather living our lives together as husband and wife.  It's funny - from a child - the one thing that I wanted for our wedding, actually was almost adamant about was having a summer wedding. Well - our wedding date was February 24, 2007. I really wanted out door pictures in the sunshine. I was really hoping that there would be sunshine on our wedding day ... so much so that between 2:30-5:30 am, I got out of bed several times to look out the window at the pouring down rain!  I didn't sleep much the night before our wedding. I took a bath in the hotel room and when I looked at my hair - it looked greasy to me. So, I took the time to wash my hair, which meant that I needed to hair dry it also to put it into curlers. I was up until after 2 am trying to make myself ready for my wedding day. Then, I w...