Max Attack!

Oh my heavens, it's been AGES! I'm so sorry (to no one, cause I'm sure anyone that DID read this has long since given up after my weeks months of silence).

There hasn't been a whole lot happening over here at the Pines (which I'm still getting used to calling my self...) Other than the arrival of Max.


He's our new adopted pup dog. We got him from NBRAN, which is a great Brittany rescue organization. I found him on facebook, where they post several pictures a week of britts that need a good home.
I fell in love with him because of the above picture, and immediately felt that he NEEDED to be in our lives. I had to try to convince Shan of this, as he doesn't necessarily agree with my views of fate, but I just had a feeling that bringing this dog into our home was very important.

The one thing you may not be able to tell from the above pictures is this:
Max only has three legs. His front left leg had to be removed due to a break that was never treated, which resulted in his constant licking, and an infection. He's also on thyroid meds because he has hypothyroidism. It's okay. We love him anyway...it's sort of like bringing a little old man into the house. There were a few things we didn't know about him until he got here (we didn't meet him until it was time to bring him home, because he was being fostered in CANADA)...he's short. As in no where near as tall as a brittany...as in he can pretty much stand right under Murphy. He's also not purebred like Murph. He seems to be part beagle. This is supported by the fact that he bays instead of barks, especially when he's on the scent of rabbits.

It was a little touch and go to start. The first day he came in, he took over all of Murphy's bones, and got very aggressive when Murph would try to interact with him. But after a few days, they were good buddies.


I promise I'm going to try to be better about this thing. I'm currently working on some floor plans for you to ooh and aah over, since no one has come to see the house since we moved in, I may as well give a virtual tour...

cruisin' along

That's right! For the honeymoon, we headed on a seven day cruise around the Caribbean.
besides the happy honeymooners, Daddy, Starri, Manda and Michael were also along for the ride.

We left Miami Saturday, and cruised all night to our first stop at Half Moon Cay, an island in the Bahamas that the cruise line owned, so it was just the cruisers on the beach.

One of the only pictures of Shan pre-sunburn

Yes. Shan did proceed to get one of the worlds worst sunburns on this beach. But before that, we did have a great time swimming and hanging out on the beach before getting back on the boat to float over to St. Thomas. (Luckily, we had a sea day in between, so Shan could sort of recover from is 12th degree burns).

Maegan's Bay Beach, one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world

(check out that awesomely splotchy sunburn that Shan is sporting)

St. Thomas was another hang out on the beach day, and a little shopping before boating on over to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We did a lot more site seeing in PR than the other locations, mostly because there wasn't a swimmable beach there, but also because there were these great old forts there that used to encircle all of San Juan. Shan loved checking out all of the old structures, and look out towers.

Shan and I at the fort

View from the lookout tower

That brings us to my favorite, and least favorite part of the trip all rolled into one.


Grand Turk. I have wanted to see Turks and Caicos pretty much since I came out of the womb, so I was SO excited to see it for reals. We had arranged to go on an excursion at T&C that included a catamaran ride, to snorkel at a reef for an hour,
before getting back on the "party boat" which included drinks (and, unfortunately, drunken dancing...)


and a little beach time on a private beach,


before taking us back to the main beach...where I proceeded to not hold down all that rum punch I'm seen slamming in a few of the previous pictures. While I was paying for not eating enough to counteract the alcohol consumption, my new hubby was out scouting some real estate for us (I wish!)
Before he dragged (because I couldn't walk) me back to the boat, so that we could finish up our trip and wind up back in MIA.

Check out Shan's AWESOME leg burns

(yes, they still look like that almost a month later)

Overall, we had a great time. We did learn that we're not necessarily cruise people, as we enjoyed being on the beach more than boat activities. We didn't really partake of any of the awesomeness on the boat, except for the karaoke most nights. We do plan to try to return to T&C for our 5 year anniversary, where I can hopefully actually enjoy it, not in a drunken stupor.

I'll end with this; because it just seems fitting:

Yes, this is probably the MOST pictures Shan and I have ever had taken together, with the exception of our wedding.

Thanks to Starri Nation for the pictures!

she's baaack!

Okay. I'm back. and on a real computer.
There have been a TON of changes in the life and times of me and mine...which most of you already know about, but for anyone out there that doesn't or anyone who stumbles upon me on the interweb (hi!) I'll fill you in...

volume one: the wedding
Most of you know we got married here. Shan and I left on Wednesday for a leisurely drive down to Asheville. Thursday we got up and had a great last day before the wedding hub-bub began just to ourselves. We went on a tour of the Biltmore, since Shan had never seen it before. We also had a wonderful lunch at the Bistro, before checking out the wine cellar where the ceremony was actually being held.

Friday, family started rolling into town, and it was time for a rehearsal-less (we didn't actually rehearse anything) rehearsal dinner at Luella's.

The whole pre-wedding party, getting ready to chow down on some BBQ!

The only thing Shannon asked for in the whole wedding process was to have BBQ for the rehearsal...so we went to this great little whole in the wall, and ate til there was literally NO MORE ROOM, before Shan and I went our separate ways for the night before tradition.
My part of the party (Crys, Daddy, and Starri) headed back to the Inn at Biltmore for some post dinner drinks with Arrie, before crashing for the night.

The day of, Crys and I got up to go have our herr did before the rest of the family arrived and the getting ready proceeded.

(and now for a stream of pictures...)

My favorite picture of the wedding party!

The wedding itself was perfect. Exactly what we wanted it to be, with just immediate family (with the exception of Shan's sister, who we really missed :( )
We had the ceremony and the reception in the same room, the Champagne Cellar. Which to get into, you had to walk down this beautiful tunnel

and into the room that we had decorated with what felt like hundreds of candles (thanks Crys, Manda and Arrie!!)

After the ceremony, our guests were given a tour of the winery and a wine tasting, while the room was flipped for our reception. (which was just a cocktail hour and dinner--and of course cake) The dinner was amazing--seriously some of the most delicious. food. ever.


All in all, it was an uneventful event. We had a wonderful time, with wonderful people and wouldn't have changed a thing about it.

Pictures by Starri Nation, and Sara Wise
flowers by Amanda Jewel

In progress

I do believe that our Internet will be hooked up tomorrow and then I'll be free to blog from a real computer instead of from a iPhone. There will be pictures! And details of the wedding and honeymoon and house! Thanks for your patience and stay tuned...

Settled...ish

So we're here. We're married and honeymooned and everything. We're certainly not unpacked though... Right now I'm just testing my blogging ability from my new iPhone! Yes that's right my husband (boy that sounds weird) bought me one for our one month anniversary. I'll be back later with more details as soon as I figure out this app.

My apologies

I'm sorry for those of you checking in regularly, only to be disappointed by the fact that there hasn't been an update. The truth is, we're in a holding pattern until we get into the house (next Friday, if all goes well!)

We had our inspection last Thursday. Save for a few minor problems, there were no deal breakers, and we're ready to move forward...and are certainly looking forward to closing on the 13.

Lord knows we're looking forward to getting out of this hotel. Murphy is included in that too! He's so cramped up here...and even though he gets two days a week at doggy day care, it's still not as good as having him in his own place.

We only have one more Monday morning of getting up at 0300 to get down here in time for work. This past Monday was ROUGH. After getting up, driving three hours, dropping to dog off at day care and working all day...I was really looking forward to some blissful unconsciousness. Murphy had other plans. Right before we got ready to go to bed, he started puking ALL over the place. And just when we thought he was done, he'd start again. At one point I had him in the tiny hotel bath with me (so he wouldn't KEEP throwing up on the carpet/BED) and he was just shaking like crazy, to the point I was so worried that I called the Emergency Vet Service here in town. Of course they recommended we come in at once, and why wouldn't they? For walking in the door they planned to charge me $85...and that doesn't count any treatment he would have needed. Shan and I decided to wait him out a bit, to see if he calmed down. And after about an hour of emesis every 10 minutes, he drank a little water, and fell asleep.

He's fine now. And, for the record, if he'd kept it up, we WOULD have taken him to the vet...but it seemed that he had eaten something that aggravated his stomach (it looked like rubber) and past experience with a pukey puppy has taught us that once he gets it up he's fine. So we let it play out, and he's back to his usually chipper self.

I promise more house related posts as soon as we get into the, you know, house.

Can you say STRESS?

Ugh. Shan and I are both so STRESSED these days...it's miraculous that one (or maybe both) of us isn't dead.

Because of the buy-out situation with the house, we're using the equity of our Traer house to pay the down payment on the new house. But, until we actually close, we're trying not to over spend...just in case we need to dip into our savings to cover any extra costs. We still need to book a flight to Miami for the honeymoon, and book a hotel room for that night...but we haven't yet and prices are only going up and it just getting more and more frustrating.

I'm not even looking forward to the wedding or the honeymoon anymore, because they're starting to feel like something else I need to check off a list. I'm really upset that that's how I feel about my own wedding, but moving, starting a job, and trying to get ready for a wedding are just too much.

Speaking of the new job, it's going relatively well, except that this week I'm doing my absolute least favorite part of the job, and I can't wait to be done. I'm a little irritated with it, because it won't even be part of my regular duties once I get into my hired position, but it's still something that I need to be able to do. For the record...I CAN do it, I just don't LIKE/WANT to do it.

I'm so tired of living in a hotel. I feel bad for Murph being cooped up here all day. On Mondays and Fridays he goes to doggy day care...which makes me feel like one of those over-indulgent puppy parents that dresses him in fur coats (ha), and feeds him out of rhinestone dishes..but it's the only thing we can do with him due to our bi-weekly 3 hour drive.

Okay. I'm done whining for now. I think.
Grump.

Old home sweet home

I'm sorry I'm not a better picture blogger. I really wish I were better, but I'm not a camera toting fool like some people. I will try to work on that in the future.

After my first official week living in the QC (in a hotel, whoo!) I am happy to be back at home (in Traer) for the weekend. Shannon is currently up on the roof cleaning the skylights. He has actually taken the glass out of the window and is cleaning up/painting some roof issues. It's weird to be able to sit on the couch and talk to him while he's on the roof. He say "hi" by the way.

We're having the home inspection on our new home on Thursday, which I won't be there for. But, I promise some pictures soon! We're still not sure when we'll actually move all of our stuff down there, as we intended to leave our Traer house staged until it sells...but that means leaving all of our furniture.

The new job is wonderful! Any job would have been welcome, but this is what I really want to do...so that makes it even better. Currently I'm working in a clinic setting during the day, but eventually will be moving to the hospital on thirds. Most people detest the idea of working over nights, but I am SO looking forward to it, as I have always been a night owl.

The next few weeks are going to be seriously busy...so I'll do my best to update along the way...but no promises.
-Shannon is going Turkey hunting in Wisconsin this weekend (leaving Thursday)
-May 11 Shan has a dinner event, for which he has to wear a suit (he's fancy!)
-May 13 We close on our house
-May 28 there's something....oh yea. The wedding! (Of which we still need to figure out the Shan's suit situation and wedding rings)
-June 4 a friends wedding
-June 10 leaving for Miami, for the cruise which leaves on the 11.

So. Blogging will probably take a back seat...but I'll do my very best to eventually post pictures of the new house, decorating ideas, and of course any wedding/honeymoon stuff. So stay patiently tuned...

HOME run!

Yes. I'm punny.

Shan and I came down on Sunday and looked at eight more houses. Some of them were quite strange, including one that had a full sized stove sitting in the middle of the kitchen! (as in not against a wall, or anything...) Most of them were either too expensive for what they were, or needed more work than we wanted to do. There was even one that clearly had hippopotamus sized rats, okay maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration...but there were rat turds the size of marbles...

Annyway. We wound up looking at one we had previously looked at, and liked pretty well at the time, just not as well as the Le Claire house. The house sit on 4/10 of an acre, is two story plus has a full finished basement, three bedrooms, 2.5 bats, and a two car garage (which Shan fully intends to build onto). It does have a pool though.

When we looked at it about a month ago it was listed at X dollars. Since then it had gone to buyout and was owned by a relocation company (I don't know what it is about us and relocation properties) and had dropped approx 15k.

We decided to put in an offer yesterday for 7k less than that (so X-22k) with a closing in three weeks.

We did find out there were two other offers...but since we were able to close so soon we felt pretty good about our offer. We came home, said a few prayers, ate some Chick-Fil-A, said more prayers and went to sleep.

Today they chose to negotiate with us, and wanted 4k more than our offer. Shan told them at first we would maintain our offer, but would release them from their obligation to replace all carpet. They came back and told us that was already a done deal...but met us in the middle and accepted 2k over our original offer....

So that's the story of how two young people bought their second house a mere month before their wedding.

Here's a link til I can get my own pictures up: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-Detail/5115-White-Post-Rd_Bettendorf_IA_52722_M83430-64481

On the Hunt

Let the house hunting commence! Check back for updates soon.