House Delays :(

Today was supposed to be the day! We were supposed to close on our house today, but it has been delayed :( Justin's employer filled out his employee verification form incorrectly which we just found out about on Tuesday. They take 72 hours to process the form and then the underwriter will take 48 hours to process it once they receive it. So right now we are looking at closing next Tuesday. Its tough because we are so ready to move but we are just trying to trust God and leave it all up to him.

We're Buying a House!

We Found a House! Justin and I have been casually looking at houses for a few months now. So about a month ago we decided to try to get pre-approved(thinking it would take a week or two) so I sent in the paperwork, a lady from the bank called me and asked a few questions then within a few hours of sending in the application she sent over the paperwork saying we were pre-approved! Wow! So Justin then texted our friend and realtor Benj Beaver and told him what we were looking for and our price range, so Benj sent over a list of houses currently on the market. We picked out 5 we wanted to look at. Two of them were in terrible neighborhoods but really nice houses, 2 were in nice neighborhoods but the houses were small or would need work, and 1 was a nice house in a nice neighborhood but didn't have central heating and AC. So we had pretty much ruled out the last one but decided to look at it anyways. While looking at the other houses with Benj and weighing neighborhoods and houses Justin mentioned to Benj that we really like the last house on our list to look at but we just wished it had central heating and air. To which Benj replied "It does!" So we got very excited and went and looked at it and LOVED IT!! Also we just happened to know the owners! They were assistant pastors and friends of my parents when we went to TLC. It was listed above our max price but Benj said he thought they would take a lower offer, so we made an offer and the countered with $1,000 more but said they would fix a few things around the house that needed to be done so we agreed! Right now we are just waiting to close on the house. We had to move out of our rent house Feb 28th and close on the new house on March 13th so all our stuff is in storage and we are staying with our awesome friends Michael and Mindi(Thanks guys!!) until we move in.

Here are pics and video of the house.
2322 Tulane

Street View

Front Living Room

Kitchen & Dining Room

Back Living room and Office/Pantry closets

                                      

Guest Bathroom

Guest Bedroom

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Office/Extra room(eventually will be nursery/kids room)

Master Bedroom

Master Bathroom

Keep in mind these are the before pictures, there is some work we want to do, painting, adding a laundry room ect. and adding cabinets in the kitchen. But we are so so excited and cannot wait to start this journey as homeowners!

Red Creek

After all the Christmas Festivities we went to Papa's ranch up in Munday, Red Creek. It has become an after Christmas tradition and I love it! We hunt and eat and spend time together. For Christmas this year Mom and Dad bought the kids a little dirt bike so one afternoon we took the two mules and the dirt bike and filled feeders and toured the property. We didn't see many deer this year but it was still a blast and I can't wait for next year!
I went hunting a few times with Amy and boy is she a character! I love seeing her grow up, she has the sweetest heart I've ever seen in a little girl!

She LOOOVES dogs any kind and size, this is her saying "C'mon Tex lets go play!" when he didn't come she grabbed his collar and said "Tex! I said lets go play!" and took him outside!

Justin on the dirt bike coming back from filling feeders! Man that little thing is fun! I think it was mostly for the little kids but Kellen, Justin and I sure like it too! Thanks Mom and Dad!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE being out in the country! I didn't realize how much I would miss it when I moved to Angelo, but after being in San Angelo for almost 5 years now I miss being in the middle of nowhere!

My little cutie lookin for deer!

Beautiful Texas Sunset

Shhhhh or as my dad used to say "Be vewy quiet were hunting wabbits!"

Pink and Camo is about the cutest combo on a little girl(she also got sleepy and yes fell asleep for a little while in the blind)

My favorite Amy quote from our time at Red Creek was when we were waiting for Dad to come pick us up from the blind last night and she was very very ready to leave and kept asking "Where's Daddy?" so when Dad finally pulled up in the mule she told me "That was perfect timing, but the other timing would have been better" :)

Overall it was a fabulous time with family and we all had a blast!

Catching up

Christmas, Rodeo, New House Ahhhh!
Wow I'm terrible at remembering to post on this thing! First of all I'm going to make excuses haha but seriously Christmas gets a little crazy around here. Then Rodeo and in the middle of Rodeo we moved! We are buying a house. So lots of craziness going on in our family but its exciting I need to remember to post in the craziness, so here it goes!

Dallas Trip

Recently Justin and I decided we needed to get rid of Maverick, our Catahoula puppy. Mostly because we made a not so wise decision in getting him, he will be much happier on a ranch ect with lots of land to run and play on. Also because we have a 50lb limit for dogs at our rent house(oops) he will easily be 80-100 lbs. So we are currently looking for him a home but in the meantime Justin already found me a replacement dog(although I knew it was the smartest thing to do I was verrry sad to get rid of Mav) So we are getting a Toy Australian Shepherd. All that to say last week Justin and I drove to the other side of Dallas to take a look at all the puppies the breeder has and pick one. We left at 7:30 Sunday morning and got to the ranch around 1 and picked out this guy!

He is soooo cute!! And little! He will most likely be around 12-14 inches tall. He will be ready to be picked up on August 31st, I can't wait! After we left the ranch we drove into Dallas and went downtown to this cool place we found on foodnetwork.com its one of the places Guy Fieri went on his Diners Drive Ins and Dives Show

This place was soooo good and really neat. They had lots of different meats to choose from(bison, venison, armadillo ect) Then you pick your cheese and toppings or you can choose from burgers they designed, which is what we did. Also when you order they give you a name(ours was Minnie Mouse) and when your order is ready the call your "Name" 

I got the "Big Tex" burger. It was a 1/2 lb burger(and yes I ate every last bite of it) with cheddar cheese, guacamole, shoestring onions and chipotle sauce. YUM!!

Justin got the "Freshmen 15" burger 1/2 burger with cheddar cheese, french fries, a fried egg, and bacon. We also got fried pickles but we hardly ate any because our burgers were so huge!! 

Yup finished every bite haha.

Then we headed home! We did decide his name on the way home, he will be "Texas Blue" since he is a blue merle. We will call him Tex for short :) Can't wait to get our little Tex on August 31st!!

Jenny

Fort Davis & Balmorhea

We took a family trip to Fort Davis & Balmorhea. We stayed at the Davis Mountains State Park, right outside Fort Davis and made a day trip to the natural spring fed pool at Balmorhea State Park.
Justin, Patty and I drove down Saturday night when Patty got off work(around midnight) We got there around 4 am and drove around for almost 30 minutes looking for the campsite due to poor signage. The next morning we got up and ate breakfast then while Mom and Dad took some of the kids hiking Patty, Justin, the rest of the kids and I drove to McDonalds Observatory to get Mom's camera she had left there the night before at the star party. It looked so cool! I definitely want to go back at night for a star party. After that we ate a quick lunch then drove to the Fort in Fort Davis which is where the hiking trail they went on ended up. We walked around the Fort for awhile then drove into town and went and had Ice Cream at this super cool little shop.

The we went to a rattlesnake emporium. GROSS!! Haha the kids loved it though

After that we walked around downtown Fort Davis, it was a very cute little town.

This was a cute little place, I don't even know what to call it, there was a small hotel upstairs along with an art gallery/store. Downstairs was a restaurant and store. So cute!! (Justin, Patty and I had to leave early and didn't get to eat here but everyone else did and said it was really good)

After that it started raining so we mostly stayed in our tents or the trailer and talked then ended up having to cook supper in the rain. Annie and Kellen got there shortly after we finished eating and we ate s'mores and went to bed. The next morning we got up early and went to Balmorhea State Park. There is a spring fed pool, partial man made partially natural. I wish I had an underwater camera because it was soooo cool! 

We all got to snorkel and mom and dad got to scuba dive!

You can kind of see in the back of the picture close to that little building where the water gets darker, that's the natural bottom part, it was really cool.

                                                  Mom and Dad getting ready to scuba!!

Family picture before Justin, Patty and I had to leave

Matthew would put leftover bread from our lunch in between his toes and then stick his feet in the water and let the fish eat it from between his toes. We had a ton of fun and can't wait to go back!!

Jenny

Skydiving

We finally got to go skydiving for Patty's Graduation, we had taken the class to be able to jump by ourselves about a month before but it was too windy to jump that day. We got up about 3:30 and pulled out about 4am to head to Dallas. We got to SkyDive Cowtown around 8 and took a refresher course and then started jumping! It took most of the day for all of us to go. Justin and Patty went first, the both had to jump IAF(with and instructor strapped to you rather than free falling beside you) Patty, because it was her first jump and Justin, because they were worried he wouldn't be heavy enough to control his chute in the wind to land. Kellen was next, he got to jump AFF(By himself with 2 instructors falling beside him) he did great and made a perfect landing. After Kellen was Mom and then Dad. By that time it was almost dusk and you cannot jump after dusk, so Annie and I had to jump IAF to save on time(4 people in the plane for 2 jumpers=1 plane trip and less time as opposed to 3 people in the plane for 1 jumper=2 plane trips)

After Annie and I jumped we loaded up, got supper and headed home. We got in around 4 am making it a 24 hour day for most of us and a very long day for those who had naps and/or slept on the way home. But it was so worth it! Skydiving is so much fun and I can't wait to go again!!

Jenny