just in time for summer

As I try to organize my life and what I've been doing, it makes sense to jut keep progressing from the wedding until now. This post is perfect since the temp today in the metro Detroit area will be in the 80s. Raining, but 80s. We take what we can get around here 😊

After our wedding we were fortunate enough to be able to take a honeymoon. Our destination: Costa Rica 🌞🍹🍍

It was simply the most amazing country. If you have not had the opportunity, make it your next tropical vacation! 

We enjoyed lots of time relaxing by the pool, drinking fruity drinks, eating and watching the animals peruse the complex. We did some adventurous things and went horseback riding, zip lining, and kayaking. Such beauty to be seen in that country. Just talking about it makes me want to return! 

Here are some of our pics.. I wouldn't dare bore you with the 180 I took while there 😊

Our resort - Occidental Grand Papagayo

A night out on the town - Playa del Coco

Natutal Hot springs & mud bath - Borinquen Mountain Spa & Retreat

Ziplining!! So fun - never again!

Horseback riding along the Rincon de la Vieja countryside!

Papagayo Bay - so beautiful! 

Our favorite activity - laying poolside! 

Black sand beaches and volcanic rock - beauty at its best!

Writing this post makes me want to slather on some SPF and get outside! Maybe ill settle for a Crystal Light mocktail since I'm working and it's raining 😬

 

let's start from the beginning {of January}

it has been soooooo long since my last blog post. it would seem that i'm the kind of girl who blogged during her wedding planning, and then stopped. sadly, it's true. this post starts it back up again, so here we go!

i loved blogging about all of my ideas during the wedding, and things i stumbled upon along the way. there were so many ideas flowing all the way, that I could not even begin to share all of them. planning my wedding was actually one of the hardest, most challenging, and incredibily fulfilling things I have done. it was so nice to be able to dream a dream, and then see it all come together. we could finally see the fruits of my labors on January 19th. on a cold, wintery day, i became a wife.

i think everyone says it about their wedding, but the day was absolutely perfect. i thought that i would be a ball of nerves, and a crying mess all day. i spent so much time fussing over details that i think i finally let it all go the day of, and truly enjoyed the day!

our pictures before the ceremony, but we couldn't see each other

all photo courtesy of pure amour photography

what I also realized (and what you hear so much of, but never really believe) is that all of the details can go unnoticed, even by you. there were so many things that i spent hours agonizing over that I never even saw myself. i spent hours and hours thinking about the branches and hanging votives, probably even days. unless someone has a picture of these, i never saw them, and unfortunately, my photographer didn't capture them. i am sure that they turned out great considering all the time I took to get those together. i hope that they added to the decor, but i'm not sad that i missed them.

while i may not have saw the final product of the branches, there were so many things that I talked about in my posts that did make it into the wedding and reception. here are some highlights:

Our unity candle during the ceremony - blogpost: falling

Our new labor of love: Thorncroft Ct.

I always like how Jeff on Bravo's Flipping Out refers to houses by their street name. "Valley Oak", "Gramercy", "Spring Oak" all sound much fancier than jut their street address. I refer to our new house as "Thorncroft Ct" in Jeff Lewis style. 

After the wedding, we started to look for a new house. We had pretty simple expectations: 3+ bedrooms, 1.5+ bathrooms, 1500+ sq ft, nice floor plan, yard, good neighborhood, master bathroom attached to mater bedroom, attached garage, basement, old wood floors with only a little work needed and in our budget. I mean that isn't asking to much, right?! ;)

We spent most of the winter weekends looking at every house in town that went on the market. We left no stone unturned. Thank god for the Real Estate One, and the ability to have access to listings as soon as they come online. Nick and I would check it as much as we checked Facebook and Twitter. Even with all of these viewings we really were underwhelmed with the inventory. We found one house that we spent some time considering and almost put an offer on twice. But something didn't click with us. After a while the fun wore off, and frustration started to kick in. I was fraud we would never find something that we would love. I didn't want to settle, but t felt like we would have to. Good houses were getting snatched up as soon as they hit the market. 

One day, a house came up on our app, but it had no pictures. The description sounded nice, but we had seen that before. Some pictures came up and we immediately called our real estate agent and made them come out the next day. 

As soon as I walked into this house, I had a different feeling. What would you think?

 

Floral wallpaper everywhere, orange carpet from the 70s, what isn't to love?! 

I think some homebuyers would go running for the hills, but not us! This was our perfect house. 2200 sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, attached garage, nice yard, old wood floors, renovated bathroom off of the master, and 3 blocks from our condo!! We loved it but had other houses to see. I felt giddy leaving that house, I think I knew it was the one. We went back to another house that we had been debating about. We sat in that kitchen for an hour debating on what we should do. We went home that night still not sure of what to do. 

We woke up the next day and we decided to make an offer on all of the wallpaper in that house! The next day we were under contract and on our way to a closing date in April! We were ecstatic to finally find something that met both of our wish lists and was in our budget!

We had 45 days to get all the paperwork complete and plans made for our new house. We had wallpaper to remove, floors to rip out, floors to put in, painting, counters to rip out, cabinets to paint, counters to install. We had so much to decide on, and we worked quickly. We closed and started our first demo April 12th. Our first mortgage payment is due tomorrow and we are all moved in with no wallpaper!

Prepare to have many DIY posts on our many redo projects!