Customization Meeting with the Design Center

We had our second meeting with the Design Center this week and it went great! They have Interior Designers on staff so they were able to give us some great recommendations without forcing their opinions on us. We had a pretty firm idea of what we wanted, but it was wonderful having an expert opinion to reassure us that everything would look good.

90% of our selections were pre-priced items so we have a pretty good estimate of what upgrades we will have to pay--but we will have to wait 2-3 weeks for our exact quotes from the team so we can make our final selections.

They are still aticipating that our close date will be December 15th, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will get to spend Christmas in the new house!

This is our brick, gutter/trim colors, and the blue is our front door color. 

This is what our bathroom counters will look like (except our countertop will be solid white).

This is the color of our cabinets (ebony), but the photo doesn't do it justice. 

I think we are going to upgrade to shaker cabinets but we aren't 100% sure yet. 

This is our tile that will be in the kitchen, dining, laundry room, mudroom, entry, and front bath next to our quartz countertop and cabinets. 

Our backsplash. 

Our master bath floor/shower tile & trim.

This tile matches the rest of our house, but is more of a brown base than a gray base (we were having the hardest time matching our shower trim and shower caddy to the gray tile, so we switched it up a bit). 

Our wall color.

 And our carpet.

Now we just wait to hear back from them on the final pricing and schedule our appointment to go back in for final selections! 

Have I mentioned I'm not very patient...?

Initial Meeting with the Design Center

As I mentioned last week, we finally had our initial meeting with the Design Center for our home construction. I won't lie, it was a bit overwhelming to hear them talk about all of the options and what is/isn't included but it was so exciting to get the process started!

They sent us home with a cost sheet for all of the standard upgrades so we can begin deciding what we might want before our next meeting (on May 27th). Of course, being the Type A personality that I am, I went through that list with a highlighter and figured out, to a penny, how much everything we wanted would cost us. After realizing just how expensive that list was, we started narrowing down the list to our "non-negotiables." We had to remind ourselves that we can't change the footprint or location of a house, but we CAN change the interior at a later date (especially if we can get the items at a more reasonable price on our own). I feel like we now have a pretty good idea of what we can afford want moving forward and I think we are prepared for our next meeting!

I have been pinning like crazy and even created a few polyvore boards for inspiration:

Since this entire process is so overwhelming, any tips/advice that you have would be greatly appreciated! 

Donuts, Gas Monkey, Kenny Chesney & IKEA

After such a horrible week, a fun & relaxing weekend was what I needed and that's what I got! Saturday morning, we went to Krispy Kreme and got some donuts for our drive to Dallas. As always, they were delicious!!

Jacob has always wanted to go to Gas Monkey Bar & Grill so we met our friends Cassie and Bryce there for lunch. Cassie and I went to college together (we lived right next door to each other) and I only get to see her every now and then, so it's always a treat when we get together!

I had the brisket grilled cheese for lunch and it was pretty good, but I wasn't super impressed. I would definitely say the hype is more for the environment than the food. 

We finished lunch just in time to go check into our hotel, book our shuttle to the concert (which ended up being a party bus fully equipped with a stripper pole), and take a quick catnap before the Kenny Chesney/Jason Aldean concert.  I might have a slight obsession with Kenny...this was actually my fifth time to see him...

The concert started at 4:30 and ended around 11:00 so it was a long day! We got to see Old Dominion, Cole Swindel, Brantley Gilbert, Jason Aldean, and of course, Kenny. The good thing about AT&T Stadium is there really isn't a bad seat in the entire venue because of their massive screens! There are quite a few standing bars around the arena, so we actually ended up standing for about 3/4 of the concert. We made friends with a couple of Long Island transplants and we all had fun watching a few drunk cougars try to dance (they may have passed out a few times before the night was over). Oddly enough, the guy that we met is actually a recruiter for the Greenbay Packers--call me a skeptic, but I didn't believe him until I got home and verified it online! Small world!! 

To finish off our amazing weekend, we stopped by IKEA on our way home (by "stopped by" I mean, we spent 3 hours there) and enjoyed lunch at the food court. We found an amazing $10 cutting board that I can't wait to use! 

And for those of you wondering, I will post all about our meeting with the Design Center and what's next with the home building process soon!

Linking up here.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I had every intention of writing something clever this week, but that was before my life turned into a series of unfortunate events.

It all started last Wednesday when I got a weather alert that there were tornadoes forming near my mom's house. I immediately text her to tell her to watch the weather and stay close to her safe room--of course she had no idea. She looks out the window to see this (as well as a news helicopter over her house):

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon worried about her and watching the weather to make sure it wasn't headed toward our house. Despite listening to the tornado sirens go off all night, we didn't get tornadoes near our house, just torrential rainfall and this pretty rainbow: 

On Thursday night, we were supposed to go to our first meeting with the design center to discuss our plans for the house we are building (did I forget to mention that we are building a house?), but when we were five minutes from the office, they called to say that they were going to cancel our meeting because of the chance of flash flooding that evening. Are you kidding me?! We have waited 5 weeks for this meeting and it gets cancelled the day of? To say I was angry is an understatement. When they looked at the schedule to see when they could "squeeze" us in, the first appointment was on May 26th. Seriously?! Three weeks away? After crying tears of anger the entire drive back home, they called my husband to tell him they decided to have a big group the following Thursday and we could come in then. I'm sure after calling the 3 other couples who were scheduled the same night as us, they realized how angry canceling appointments and trying to reschedule for a month later made people and decided they better make it right. 

On Sunday, we went to my mom's house for Mother's Day and went to install the glass/screen door we bought her only to realize that box didn't have all the parts we needed--we couldn't attach the door knob to the door! Really though?! Of course, nowhere in town had the part we needed so we had to literally barricade the door so the wind wouldn't blow it open (classy, I know). Luckily, my brother was able to find the part and will be able to fix the door soon.

Yesterday, my brain apparently missed the memo that it wasn't a Monday because I literally could not function. It was one of those days where nothing you do/say is right. I found myself asking questions I knew the answers to and overlooking the most obvious of things. Needless to say, I wish I hadn't gotten out of bed. 

This morning, I get an email from Capital One that there might have been fraudulent activity on my credit card. Why no, Capital One, I did not make 7 charges ranging between $1 and $12 at "Regis Hairstylists/Salons, Classified: Professional Services, and/or the Casablanca Hotel." I quickly called Capital One and told them they were in fact fraudulent so now my credit card is shut off. Thank goodness Capital One is on top of things and caught the issue before the identity thief got crunk on Amazon! 

Finally, I come home to discover that my crockpot barbeque pork tenderloin looked like this: 

Pinterest fail. 

If you need me, I'll be hiding under the covers of my bed...

P.S. Please send good vibes to us for our design meeting tomorrow--apparently, we need all the good luck we can get this week! 

Our Love Story, Part Three

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You can read Part One here & Part Two here.

I could write so many posts on our relationship and our many visits to see each other, but I’m sure these posts are getting boring, so I will try to wrap this up in one final post!

After our first weekend together, Jacob and I both knew that we had an undeniable bond. During one of our late night phone calls, we started planning our next visit and since Jacob was out of vacation days (he spent all of his at the dunes), it was decided that I would fly out there again.  Luckily for us, I was at a good-paying job with commission bonuses so money wasn’t an issue; unluckily for me, that employer was the worst and would slowly suck the life out of me.  With that being said, I honestly don’t know how we could have made the relationship work if it weren’t for that job, so I do thank God for sending me down that path. We decided that it would work best for me to go visit him over Memorial Day weekend—he wanted to take me to Lake Havasu with some of his friends.

Lake Havasu

At that point, we still hadn’t used the terms “girlfriend/boyfriend” or really talked about being exclusive—we were still trying to sort out the whole long-distance thing, so the last thing we needed to worry about was labels.

Remember those butterflies that I talked about in the last post? Well, they made another appearance on my flight to Phoenix (and every trip after that). I will never forget the anxious/excited feeling that I felt every time I went to visit and every time he would come visit Oklahoma.

Shortly after that Memorial Day weekend at Lake Havasu, I finally asked Jacob if I was his girlfriend. His response was “You have been for awhile.” Well goodness, how’s a girl to know if you don’t say it? Haha. We never could pinpoint exactly when we became official, but since 29 is a significant number to us (both of our birthdays fall on the 29^th of our birth months), we decided we would claim May 29th, 2012 as the day we made it official.

Over the next year, we made more trips back and forth than I can even count. You always hear about trust issues and fights that long-distance couples have but that was never the case with us. There was one point where we started to wonder if we could make it work, but with lots of self-reflection, communication, and prayer, we made it through that tough stage. We did quickly discover that the conversation about who would move where caused a lot of tension, so we just refused to talk about it; call it denial, call it naïve, call it whatever you want but I had faith that if we were meant to be then that issue would work itself out and I was right.

In early 2013, Jacob randomly made a comment about selling his house and moving to Oklahoma. I just shrugged the comment off because that was always such a touchy subject for us. Little did I know, he was serious—within a few months, he had sold his house, moved in with one of his friends, sold his quad and toy hauler, and started looking for jobs in Oklahoma. By August, he was packing a U-Haul trailer and heading to Oklahoma! I was still in shock and very overwhelmed—I struggled with the idea that he would give up everything he knew and move across the country, I felt guilty that I didn’t have to give up anything, and I felt so much love for the man who was willing to that for me—for us.

On December 31^st, 2013, Jacob asked me to be his wife! He was so nervous that he could barely get the words out but it was absolutely perfect and I wouldn't change a thing about that night. 

When we were discussing my ring later that night, he said he was so afraid I would find it at his apartment (I’m notorious for ruining surprises) so he had it hidden in his coat pocket in the closet for the past FOUR MONTHS—he bought the ring before he even left Arizona! When I asked him why he bought it so early instead of waiting to make sure he wanted to be in Oklahoma and with me, he said “Do you think I would have moved to Oklahoma if I didn’t know I was going to spend forever with you?” 

Our Love Story, Part Two

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You can read Part One of our Love story here.

Last time we left off, I had just received my Valentine’s Day flowers (a day late) and was preparing for my trip to Arizona. It was such an odd feeling going to meet Jacob—I mean, I had known about him my entire life and spent HOURS talking to him on the phone but had never seen him in person. I had no idea what to pack or how to feel, but I was so excited!

I don’t think I have ever had as many butterflies in my stomach as I did on that flight from OKC to Phoenix.  Once the flight landed, I text him and told him I had landed and quickly ran to the bathroom to check my hair and makeup. He opted to avoid coming into the airport to greet me at the terminal, like you see in all of the cheesy romance movies, which was probably for the best because I honestly wouldn’t have known how to act meeting him in front of all of those people. Instead, he asked me where I was standing in the pickup lane and said he would find me. Of course, given how directionally challenged I am, it took him awhile to interpret my directions and find me. Haha

When he pulled up, those butterflies that were in my stomach made their way to my throat and all I could do was nervously smile. He grabbed my suitcase and we headed to his house. I don’t think I stopped talking the entire 35 minute drive to his house—I have no idea what I said or if he even got a word in, I just know I was nervous and don’t like awkward silences so I made sure there was no opportunity for that! Haha. We stayed up late talking on Friday night and he grilled some food for us. I honestly could not get a good feel for the situation—did he think of us as just friends or did he want more?

On Saturday we went to the Medieval Fair (not usually something that ranks high on my list of things I want to do, but we had fun). On the way back to his house, the traffic was horrible and it was starting to make me nervous. All of a sudden, the car in front of Jacob came to a complete stop and Jacob had to slam on his brakes and swerve to the left to avoid hitting them. Boom! I thought we had a blowout from driving on the side of the road, but Jacob immediately said “that motorcycle just ran into us!” I looked in the rearview mirror just in time to see a motorcyclist rolling on the ground, cars swerving to avoid running him over, and his motorcycle nowhere in sight. Apparently, he was going too fast to slow down and ran into the trailer hitch on Jacob’s truck, sending his bike under the truck and him into the air. What an end to our first date! I was so glad the motorcyclist was okay (aside from a little road rash) and nobody got hurt, but I could not stop shaking. Jacob felt really bad about scaring me to death and kept asking if I was hurt and telling me everything would be okay. After about an hour, we had the police report filed, the motorcycle was towed, and we were on our way back to his house. We were both so shaken up that any plans we had for that night were shot; we just sat and watched TV.

Sunday, we surprised his grandparents (who had actually met me before) and they were quite shocked because Jacob never told them that we were talking or that I was coming to visit. We had brunch with them and then headed to one of his friend’s houses for a cookout. Of course, everyone wanted to know who I was and how we had met. We told them we technically met online but knew of each other before and they kept giving us a hard time about it—they were convinced that we had actually met on a dating site like eHarmony (little did they know, it was more like meddlingmothers.com).  

At last, the dreaded Monday (the end to our first weekend together) had arrived and that meant Jacob had to take me to the airport. I don’t think we said a word the entire trip to the airport—we were both sad to see our visit come to an end. We hugged goodbye at the airport with not so much as a kiss on the cheek and I walked into the airport.

I sat at my gate thinking about everything that transpired that weekend, imagining the future we could have had, and choking back the tears at the thought of us just being friends. Then, I looked down at my phone to see a text from Jacob that said “Do you have to go? I don’t want you to leave.” A smile beamed across my face and with that I knew, we were more than just friends—we were meant to be.

Our Love Story, Part One

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I’ve never been one of those hopeless romantics who talks about their dating life non-stop, so I have never taken the time to write about how Jacob and I fell in love. In fact, most of my close friends don’t even know the story, so this post is certainly overdue!

Our love story actually started years before we even knew each other...you see, our moms were best friends in High School and they continued that friendship into adulthood. Unfortunately, our mothers lived just far enough apart that it was inconvenient for them to get together (and they had husbands who controlled their every move), so ironically Jacob and I never actually got to meet when we were little. His family moved to Arizona when he was 9 or 10, forcing our moms to keep in contact through the occasional phone call, extremely rare visits, and mandatory Christmas card. Because of this, Jacob and I grew up aware of each other but never thought anything more of it (although, I did make numerous comments about “that cute boy” in their family pictures).

When I was probably 17, mom made a trip out to visit Jacob's mom (Kim) in Arizona. What I didn't realize, is that Kim had told Jacob that I was probably coming with her and that he could help entertain me (an obvious attempt to set us up), but I actually didn't go on that trip. We'll chalk that one up to fate because he was a partying 23 at the time, and wouldn't have been the least bit interested in an underage girl who he had to babysit.

Fast forward a few years…Kim gets diagnosed with cancer and the prognosis wasn't looking good. Mom made a few more trips out there to visit. After spending a lot of time with Jacob and watching how he cared for his mother, mom started making comments about how amazing he was. Unfortunately, Kim passed away and never got the chance to see us together; however, it is 100% because of her (and her unfortunate passing) that we are together.

You see…after his mom passed, I tracked him down on facebook and sent him a message letting him know that I was there if he needed anything. We may have sent a casual message here or there but nothing serious. Then, as my mom's birthday approached in July I realized how sad she was that she wouldn't have Kim to talk to on her birthday, so I sneakily got Jacob's phone number from her phone and text him asking him to reach out to my mom on her birthday. He did and of course mom was ecstatic to have heard from him.

Now, having each other’s phone numbers, we talked every couple of weeks. By December, we were talking every day and joking about meeting each other. I finally got brave (probably a late night on Ambien) and asked "what would you do if I showed up at your door one day?" I don't recall his answer, but it was something to the extent of he would be excited. That was my green light! I started looking at flights and booked a weekend trip for March.

As Valentine's Day approached, he was starting to feel me out to see if there were any other guys in the picture by asking if I'd get flowers from anyone--I said “No...I never get flowers on Valentine's Day.” As it turned out, I didn’t get flowers that Valentine’s Day either, but not because of lack of effort on his end--he actually ordered flowers for me, but the flower shop was so busy that they didn't deliver them that day. Towards the end of the day, he confessed that I should have received flowers--I was so surprised (and he was quite angry)! Needless to say, when the flowers arrived the following day, I was swooning...

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our Love Story…