erin & sammy's house

We started off our housing journey as a married couple living in Sam's parents basement, then next our San Diego 1 bedroom un-airconditioned, dishwasher/laundry-less apartment, then off to our LA studio that was 550sq ft., then to Grandma's house and currently Mom's house. We have been so lucky and blessed in all our housing locations. We found our CA places through lots of prayers and miracles but also horror stories and then our UT places with lots of help from family.

But we're so excited to FINALLY have a place of our own that's bigger than 550sq feet, that not only has air-conditioning but it's own laundry room! Here are some home building updates just for memories sake and because it's exciting!

OCTOBER 15th

We chose a dirt lot, chose a home layout & signed the papers for our new home!!

NOVEMBER 19th

Chose our interior options for the house and spent a good chunk of money ;)

DECEMBER 6th

We have a hole! 

 DECEMBER 24th

We have a foundation!

JANUARY 12th

We have half a house! The main floor is framed and it's starting to look like a house!

January 18th 
Can you tell we're excited about the progress? We now have two finished floors with working stairs and a front door! And it was so surreal walking around like we owned the place-oh wait we do! That's weird.

JANUARY 27th

Had our pre-drywall meeting and the insulation, electrical, plumbing, and the driveway are all finished & we have roof shingles!

FEBRUARY 15th

Left for Hawaii and came home to a completely different house! The outside stucco is painted, the front siding is put on, dry wall is finished, tile is done, laminate flooring is in and I couldn't be happier with it (tears of joy people! It's so pretty!), and all the cabinets are in!! It's going so much faster than we thought! That means baby girl will have a nursery to come home to! 

FEBRUARY 22nd

The outside of the house is finished and looking so good! We love all the light we get through our amazing windows! 

MARCH 7th

The backsplash is in and now grouted and I love how it turned out!

 The light fixtures and mirrors are in!

 Now we're just waiting on the carpet install and appliances!!

MARCH 14th

Carpet is finally in and things are starting to get cleaned up so it doesn't look like a construction site anymore and you can actually see how good the floors look!! 

MARCH 21st
The appliances are in and look soooo good!! They make everything look complete and I'm so excited to move in! It's the happiest house! Definitely a light in this crazy world right now.

APRIL 3rd

We had our last walk through of the house to check out every little detail before we close and we seriously can't wait another week to move! 

APRIL 10th
We are officially HOMEOWNERS! It's so surreal and it's so fun! Living in CA we never thought we'd own a house anytime soon but then moving to UT we felt so behind everyone else who had a home right out of college so it's been so amazing to see this dream become a reality! I can't wait to bring baby girl home to OUR house!

woodland hills home

Just when we finally got everything situated in our new place (the pictures hung and the packing boxes thrown away due to our limited storage space) we find out we're moving again! That's a whole other story but I just wanted a reminder of our cute little 550 sq feet home and of all the good and hard times we shared here. 

One nice thing about the move to Woodland Hills is that we finally upgraded to a new couch, bed/mattress, and tv stand after getting rid of our well loved craigslist furniture we had for 4 years. 

Cutie place all decorated for Christmas! 

We enjoyed little perks of the apartment like working out together every night and then relaxing in the hot tub or playing tennis together. 

The months we lived here were definitely the hardest we've ever experienced. There were a lot of tears shed here during the crazy couple months of change and disappointment but I also grew spiritually and was able to support Sam in a way I haven't before and it made us closer than ever!

my favorite girls

I went home for a weekend and got to see some of my favorite girls. 

These girls right here (we missed you Maddy) are my everything! The only way to describe our friendship is more like family. I grew up with them. We've known each other basically since the day we were born, I don't remember my life without them. We've been through joy school together, they were still friends with me during my awkward homeschool stages, my bad perm in 6th grade & loved me even if I occasionally peed my pants from laughing so hard. We've spent countless hours together at music lessons, swim/waterpolo practices, church dances and sleepovers.  But most importantly we've been through the good and the bad with each other. I love that no matter where we are in our lives--babies, school, marriage, work, from NY to TX to ID to CA we can still drop everything and be  there for each other. Literally crying thinking about how much I love them!

AND 

my sistas!

gma Lola!

& mamabucks!!

december

I love December because it means

The end of semesters:

Hallelujah! Sam will be finished with his first semester of law school in 3 weeks. We are literally counting down the days!

Winter:
A San Diego December isn't exactly "winter" because it's not snowing and freezing but slightly overcast is a perfect winter for me. I can't seem to talk enough about the weather can I? (But seriously, it was 90 degrees on Thanksgiving. Absurd!) 

Christmas:
December 2014 also means Sam and Erin's first Christmas. Yay!
Being our first, I realized how unprepared we were for this festive holiday. And no dental hygiene license means no job, which means no money but hey, at least I have LOADS of free time. I suddenly went into major craft mode. (What? That has never happened. I am the most unartistic person.)  First I made a garland. Next Christmas stockings, with my mom's help of course. Then things got really carried away and the next thing I knew, I was making ornaments too!

Now that we had all the fixings, the final ingredient for Christmas was a tree. There's no better place than Christmas Tree Country to find a little tree. (It's the same place we got our pumpkins which you can read about HERE ) 

On our way home with Norman (that's his name)

Our first Christmas is already starting to be better than I imagined. See for yourself: 

And this is why I love Sam. Yes he is wearing the stockings I made.

|| Erin

life in limbo

I am stuck. Stuck in the stage right between graduation and looking for a job. I check the mail regularly for any sign of my dental hygiene license. But until it comes, which in reality is about a week and a half, I am in limbo.

I must admit, life in limbo is pretty great. I have no commitments, no plans, no anything for that matter! Without plans or requirements to get done there is no need for a list, but "To Do Lists" are my thing! So here's my daily schedule as follows:

1. Wake up
2. Pack Samuel's lunch for the day
3. Drive Samuel to campus
4. Do the dishes (not having a dishwasher is the worst! but I've found doing the dishes makes me feel semi-productive for the day)
5. Make dinner
6. Leave for the days adventures

Let me explain #5. It might seem out of order, it's not. San Diego is great and all but there is one thing wrong with it. People don't believe in air conditioning! Our cute little apartment is on the second floor so all the heat rises leaving our bedroom a constant 90 degrees. Uncool. Literally! We have recently resorted to pulling our mattress into the living room because it is about ten degrees cooler. Why does everyone say San Diego weather is a dream? Live in San Diego they said. The weather is perfect they said. Wrong! So naturally I have to cook dinner in the early hours of the morning before the dreaded heat kicks in. But no matter how hard I try I can not escape this heat. Hence "To Do" #6.

living room bed

#6 basically means leave the house as fast as possible and don't come back until 7:30pm. And I do just that. I don't have much of a problem deciding what to do because hello! I live 2 minutes from Fashion Valley. Every girls' shopping dream. I mean look at it! And that line up though! It would knock any other mall out of the park! But I live in limbo remember? Unemployed means no money but that doesn't stop me from a day of dress up. Am I right or am I right? The employees glare as I walk into the store because how dare I enter; let alone try on any clothes!! But I smile right back because soon enough I will be rollin' in the hundies. (Hopefully) 

fashion valley. the stores just go on and on forever

Just yesterday on my Fashion Valley adventure as I was walking out of Anthropologie, a Greenpeace guy (If you're not sure what a Greenpeace guy looks like just type that into google images) stopped me and said, "Save the whales and have lunch with me?" Clever, but I didn't fall for it and instead gave him a nice no thank you....The people you run into at the mall. Gotta love 'em! 

|| Erin