A Wintry Housewarming

The housewarming party came and went and, despite a winter storm that prevented a majority of our friends from attending, we felt as if it was a big success! We put the party on the calendar so we had a goal to work toward and it has really kept us motivated over the past few months. 

The day of the party I was super disappointed that my family was not able to come due to the weather. My mom has been such a big help over the past three months and I wanted her to meet all my friends and see their reactions to all the work we have done (my Dad is in Italy so he wasn't planning to come)! However, I stayed organized and focused to prepare for all the friends that braved the weather to join us at our little party.

Lots of food!

Baby Aris made an appearance!

It was a super busy day so I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked but we had a great turn out! I can't begin to explain how much it meant to me to have so many great friends show their love and support. Naturally, the night turned into a big party but it was a blast.

Pajama time

We now finally feel like we can relax a bit with the house. It has a long way to go but it is comfortable and a great little home for us both (and Dan!).

Thank you everyone for your support!

We treated ourselves to Philly cheese steaks on Sunday (my first ever) and walked around the area exploring. We tried Pat's so the next time we have friends in town we will visit Geno's to compare.

Cheese steak ordering instructions

The party animal needed a cheese steak

Over the holidays we will continue having friends and family over for entertaining! This year we will be doing minimal Christmas presents to each other and picking out our new couch instead! Up next is kitchen renovation prep :)

Mrs. H. Hosts a Party.. and installs carpet and wood floors?

As I was packing for Charlotte last Sunday night I knew we had a million things we needed to do before the triathlon party Friday night. Fortunately, Andrew turned in his final Sunday night so he was free to spend the week working on my to do list!

It killed me to be gone all week while he had so much to do, but he was a trooper and got most of it done! To add to the craziness, we scheduled carpet installation for the morning of the triathlon party. I walked into a true disaster zone on Thursday night after my flight was delayed three hours.

Fortunately, Andrew made sure that every room was completely empty and ready for the carpet guys! Now it was in someone else's hands to work on our house!

Bye nasty tiles!

Poor Dan slept in the living room while we squeezed our bed into the office. It actually wasn't too bad and totally worth not having to wake up extra early on Friday to move everything!

How romantic..

We woke up Friday morning to torrential rain, which is not good news for carpet installation. The installers promised to be at our house by 10am and by 11:30am there was no sign of them. I had 30 people coming to my house in 7 hours so I was a little nervous. A crew of 6 men showed up at 12:00 and the house turned into complete mayhem. Unfortunately, they were not amused by me taking pictures :(

The only picture I could sneak. boo.

Our deer antlers (an engagement gift from my dad to Andrew) were knocked off the wall by the installers. It stayed in one piece but all it's teeth got knocked out! Poor guy..

Love this guy!

In one hour (!!!) all three rooms were carpeted and I was signing a contract for a 10 year warranty. Suddenly, our rooms went from cold and dirty to warm and clean.. and it was awesome.

Our room is finally comfortable!

The cats LOVE the carpet

Now it was time to put my completely disheveled house back together and cleaned in time for the party. Andrew surprised me and came home a bit early, which was so great, and we ran around until the very last minute getting ready.

Not sure how but we pulled it off!

We had about 30 people, most of whom I didn't know, show up for the party. It was so great to see our little house filled with people and comfortable! Andrew and Dan were so awesome at helping me run the party, I truly appreciate living with these awesome guys. 

My two best boys.  Love them.

The party obviously got a little rowdy so it's nice that our kitchen hasn't been renovated yet. I had no issue with everyone shotgunning beers on the nasty tiles! Things took a turn for the worst when one triathlete threw up all over our six hour old carpet :( Fortunately, a tri team member is a professional carpet cleaner so he will be over this week to do a complete deep cleaning.

Poor soiled carpet.. the whole house stinks!

The rest of the house was a disaster zone but we were able to clean up quickly and put out my new rug I just bought from Overstock!

We wrapped up Saturday night with some very nasty Chinese food from down the street (our convict neighbor, Milton, warned us never to eat there again) and ripping up the tiles in the office. We were determined to finish up the wood floors on Sunday.

We ripped out our final tile in the entire house (yay!!) and were ready to begin the installation early Sunday morning. Andrew and I are both gone all week so we had to get everything done Sunday morning before leaving.

 

I don't know if we are finally getting good at the wood flooring or just make a great team but we were able to put the floor down in record time. I smashed my thumb with a hammer so I took some time off to be official smoothie maker (sustenance is important).

Kale, mixed berries, banana, protein powder, peanut butter, honey, almond milk

We were so surprised and relieved to finish the floors at 3:30! It was a beautiful snowy day and we were finally able to relax!

No more wood floor installation!

Next weekend we are expecting about 50 people to our house for the housewarming party! I am so thankful to have such wonderful friends coming to help us celebrate! It will be so fun for everyone to see our house in person :) Hopefully it will be only the beginning of having friends and family at our house!

Holiday Crunch Time

The best time of year for consulting is around the holidays - no travelling and light work load! The week of Thanksgiving I was so thankful to have the time at home since the tri party is only a week away and the housewarming is just two weeks away! My goals for the week were to paint the second floor bathroom and repaint (so sad) my purple bedroom.

Bathroom before - blank canvas

Bathroom before

We will be completly gutting and redoing this bathroom at some point, but we don't have the time or money to do that quite yet. I decided that a fresh coat of paint would have to suffice for our upcoming visitors. The Benjamin Moore color, Fresh Air, is an old favorite of my mom's so I used it on both the bathroom and our bedroom. The bathroom was quick and easy since the walls were already white.

Finished product!

On the other hand, our bedroom was incredibly difficult to repaint. I put so much time and effort into painting the walls purple, the pale yellow paint hardly stood a chance.

The beginning of the end of the purple

After three coats of paint, our bedroom was no longer purple! We still need a lot of extra work to go into the room but it is getting closer to that feeling of serenity!

I was able to finish the painting, my goal for the beginning of the week, so it was time to head to West Chester for Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture, but we had a lovely time with Andrew's family. Next, it was off to Kutztown to visit with my family for a country Thanksgiving. 

Andrew shooting guns with my Dad and Uncle Kyle

The girls took a mini trip was to a local dairy farm, which sells milk, goat and other dairy products in a tiny shed off the side of the property. Everything is based on the honor system, which you don't see very often these days.

So sweet

Claire working it

Write down what you are buying and put the money in the box!

We have a Christmas tree farm down the street from my parent's house where you can choose a Christmas tree and cut it down yourself, so my favorite part of the weekend was picking out our very first Christmas tree! Andrew had to convince me that we should get one (I am worried about the cats) so we headed to the farm to check it out. 

Blue spruce!

We found the cutest little tree and I was finally convinced to get one!

Our first tree

Andrew cut down the tree like a pro and I helped him carry it to the car. 

The little tree cutter

Not loving the prickly tree

I'm such a big help

We didn't exactly have a plan for getting the tree home but the trusty Civic came through again and we were able to fit it in the car with us!

I love this picture!

We wrapped up our time in Kutztown with the 2nd annual Edgar Johnson bowling tournament, in honor of my late Uncle Edgar. It is a silly but fantastic tradition that our family started last time and it gets super competitive!

The Oswald Haughtons

The Oswald boys with their dad

It was a ton of fun and a great way to end our Kutztown Thanksgiving! Love my family :)

The whole crew

This Sunday Andrew's final exam is due, so it was a day in the office for him while I ran around like crazy doing house chores. We are getting carpets installed next Friday so I spent the day ripping up tiles.

Back to reality Monday morning! This week will be crazy for Andrew since the carpets get installed Friday afternoon and we have people coming over at 7 Friday night. Hectic, per usual, but I already cannot wait to get home to prepare for our first get together!

Our little tree :)