Home Improvements

This weekend we started doing some home improvements.  We decided at the 1st of the year that we would start by tackling the bedroom with new coats of paint.  The first room to get painted it the guest room.  We thought that the house needs to be freshed up since we will be having a lot of guests visiting us with the upcoming wedding.

So here is the green paint color in the guest room before.  I didn't not like the color, it's just that the room needed to be throughly cleaned and painted.

[caption id="attachment_996" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Green wall"][/caption]

Of course it didn't take long to get the primer up and on the walls.  That green was gone really fast!

[caption id="attachment_997" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Nice and white!"][/caption]

And then came the new color...we picked yellow.  Basically all the wall art is beach themed so the yellow is the sun and hopefully it will all come together after we get the new comforter to match.  We did have some help along the way too.

[caption id="attachment_998" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Reily did a good job of sleeping while we painted"][/caption]

And here are our yellow walls:

[caption id="attachment_999" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="With a nice snowfall out the window"][/caption]

SNOW!

St. Louis got snow and I'm not talking about just a couple inches here or there but our house got 10, almost 11 inches of snow in the backyard!  It is the most snow I remember seeing.


Reily has really enjoyed this snow.  It's completely covered her legs and she is galloping around the backyard and loving every minute of it.

[caption id="attachment_988" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Action Shot"][/caption]

Here is Reily playing in the snow on You Tube. She has loved playing in the snow, although her leg does hurt a little afterwards but it's hard to get her to pace herself or back inside.

8-6-11

It's official...we have a date and a church.  We will be getting married on August 6th at 11:30AM at St. Ambrose Catholic Church on The Hill...I figure the rest will just fall into place now.  We do need a reception hall that is free that day from about 2-6 or 3-7 and then I'll feel a little less stressed but it's so much better now that we have a date...

[caption id="attachment_979" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="St. Ambrose"][/caption]

Nothing like a nice Italian church for a wedding day!

Wedding Overload

So trying to find a church and place to have a reception is insane.  Who would have thought that it would be so hard to talk to a priest or a planner at a church to at least let you know dates of availability?  For some reason, it is difficult to get answers from them.

Although I may have had a break through with the Old Cathedral, they have dates available in August but we need to have permission from our pastor that we can get married there.  Problem number 1, we don't have a pastor because we don't belong to a parish.  Which coincides with problem number 2, we don't belong to a parish so we can't just call our church to get married there.

Why does the Catholic church or the St. Louis Archdiocese have to make this so complicated?  Why can't we just pick a church that we like and pay them to get married there?  It's not like the churches in the City aren't needing money...

And don't even get me started on reception hall costs...Too Much on a very small budget!

Brrrr....

Hey baby it's cold outside!

[caption id="attachment_972" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="My car covered"][/caption]

It's a little chilly in the Lou this week.  We had another great snowfall this week, about 3-4 inches at our house and schools were cancelled.  The roads weren't too bad by the time I went into a meeting at 10AM but the car were still driving about 45MPH on the highway.  Today it's even colder with a high of 17 degrees and the lows in the single digits!  But this is winter in St. Louis, what more can you expect?

Just a few weeks ago at Christmas we had snow, then the following week at New Years it was in the high 60s with tornado's and now more snow.  You have to love the crazy Midwest weather, it is why I moved back!

New Year, New Changes Already

This week has been interesting.  It was going along smoothly and normal until Thursday.  I went into the office to get some information on HUD housing, since I had a HUD house showing on Friday.  I figured I'd run into my co-worker and get some help or at least talk with fellow agents or our managers to get my questions answered.

After checking in with a couple other agents I walked over to my co-worker's desk only to find it was cleaned out.  I was then entering our Broker/Manager's office to get up to speed with the new changes.  She was leaving the agency and going into investment real estate.  Although it wasn't a huge shock, she had informed me that major changes were coming but I didn't know the extent of it.  We didn't have our regular Wednesday meeting for me to get updated before they made it official.

Now my new role is that I'm staying with the agency and keeping my license with them.  I'm also going to be taking on everything by myself.  It's more of a role that I've been thinking about taking on and now I have the push I was needing.  I'll be making calls to get listings and still working with buyers.  I'm very excited to take on this role and now I get to do things my way and learn from other agents.

Another milestone, this is my 100th post!  Wow, two and a half years in STL and 100 posts.  I should pick up the pace a bit.

San Antonio & New Years

I spent 6 days in San Antonio, way more than my 4 day rule.  And it was a lot down there, but I was able to catch up with  a couple friends who I haven't seen in a very long time.  I was able to see my friend Niki's little boy Gavin during lunch at Alamo Cafe.  He is adorable and was so good while we were at lunch.  He even posed for pictures with me.



And then we had fun pinching each other's cheeks.



Scott made it into town on Thursday and we did some serious outlet mall shopping.  It's always nice to be able to get up there and find some great deals...we actually drove up there twice!  We had dinner at El Jarro with my brother and learned all about his job and Lubbock.  And I finally got to see his new car, it's pretty nice!  After dinner, Scott and I headed downtown to check out the Christmas lights around the Riverwalk.  That is the one thing San Antonio does well at Christmas.  Those lights are amazing to see.

[caption id="attachment_956" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Us on the Riverwalk with the Lights"][/caption]

We stopped in at Durty Nellie's to listen to the piano player for a while.  The crowd was a little older and it wasn't my favorite piano player, however it was still fun to watch people look like idiots and sing along.  On our way back to the car we did stop by the Alamo.  They still had the Christmas lights up and a huge tree.  It's a different view of the Alamo when you see it at night.

[caption id="attachment_957" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="In front of the Alamo"][/caption]



Kelly made it to San Antonio on Friday.  After a quick trip to the outlet mall Scott and I picker her up at the airport and it was off to Alamo Cafe for lunch.  I love Alamo Cafe!  Then it was back to my parents house to get ready for spedini dinner that my dad was making for our New Years Eve dinner.  The meal was excellent!

New Years Eve was spent at Cowboys Dancehall.  We got there early enough to watch them set up for the PBR (Professional Bull Riding) event that was happening before the main concert.  We even sat next to some Fins who informed us that there were cowboys in Finland and that the people there were not as nice as the people in Texas.  They were fun to watch during the bull riding.

[caption id="attachment_955" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bull Rider's Introduction"][/caption]

The bull riding event was pretty exciting to watch.  They made the ring smaller than it normally is so they could fit more people in to watch.  Also, there were two groups of riders that went at different times during the night.  The first group fared much better, seeing that only 1 or 2 were able to stay on for 8 seconds in the second group.  Either way, it was a new event for New Years Eve.



Once the bull riding was over we headed to the main stage where Jack Ingram was to preform.  I had never seen him before but knew a few of his songs.  He is a pretty good entertainer.

[caption id="attachment_961" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Jack Ingram"][/caption]

Our official New Years Eve pictures with party gifts:

[caption id="attachment_963" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="New Years cowboy hats"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_964" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Kelly and me"][/caption]

I finally started dress shopping on Saturday.  Kelly, my mom and I went to our first dress shop to check out styles, fits, color and prices.  I found about 5 that I liked but was not in the mood to try anything on.  I was pretty much overwhelmed as soon as I walked into the store and was asked questions.  However, I'm really happy we went and I did find a few that I really would like to try on, on the next visit.

Later that afternoon, Scott was still helping my dad with computer issues and then they were driving out to Rudy's to get some rub and sauce.  Kelly and I went out to visit with the Hotlzinger's.  The girls are getting so big now, Allie is 5 and Katie will be 7 in a couple weeks!  It was fun to catch up with them and see all the new toys they've just got from Christmas and Birthday.

After leaving we picked up Scott and went out to La Cantera to walk around and view the new addition to the mall and we then stopped at Kona Grill for some sushi.  Later we met up with my friends Jon and Aarti for quick drinks at Lion & the Rose.  It was a very long day and a very long trip to San Antonio.