It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well I told you guys I was planning on putting up our tree first thing...and that's what I did! The rest of the house is not set up well enough to post on the blog, so I thought I would at least show you our tree. Also, notice the wall in the background, that is the color we painted the great room. Well, I will post more later! Tonight we have a volleyball game, so I must go for now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few pics of us painting! Since we signed our contract last Friday, we have been busy bees trying to get the house ready to move in! First I decided to tear down the wallpaper, big mistake! If you ever have a chance to paint over exsisting wallpaper, definitely do it!! It's such a pain to pull it down. I started off with DIF, a gel specially created for removing wallpaper. You spray it on the wall and then it is supposed to make it easier to pull down. Well, I sprayed the entire wall (as you can tell by the spotted wall in the above picture) but by the time I started to tear it down, it was already dry!! So I resorted to the vinegar and water method and after hours and hours of scraping and pulling, we got it all down. BUT - then you have to go back again and scrub the walls to get all the excess glue off. THEN - I had to go back and spackle the areas that we tore into the sheetrock! Dude, it was a long and grueling process! Today though, we finally completed everything we wanted to get done for now. Eventually we will do the bathrooms and guest bedrooms, but we are so proud of what we have done so far! And might I say, it looks pretty darn good! (I didn't have my camera on me today, so I will update again soon with the pics of the finished product.) Tomorrow we start the big move! We have brought a few boxes over already, but our plan is to get the rest of it done tomorrow! The first thing I plan to put up is our Christmas Tree. I am so excited about decorating our own house. Hopefully, we'll get around to putting up some lights outside as well! And don't worry, I will definitely take some pictures of that to share with each of you!

Well, I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving with a lot of turkey, dressing and of course PIE! I wish we could have come back to Texas to visit, that's one of the hardest things about living so far away! We miss you all so much and can't wait to see you at Christmas time!

Happy Birthday Sister!!! Only 3 years away from the big 3-0 :o)

Proud New Owners...

Today we are officially proud new owners of our very first home! It's been kinda crazy around here, but the day finally came and we are so excited! I have been sick for the past few days and actually had to take off work yesterday because I felt so bad. Luckily, my boss is so great he told me not to come back today so we could enjoy closing on our house and I could rest up and get well! So this morning we met the attorney's at 10 am to signed our lives aways, then we headed to the new house to pick out paint colors! We decided on caramel and winter wheat for the living room. We had originally thought we wouldn't have to paint the entire great room - but once we looked a little closer we realized the current paint job was going to need some touch up so why not just re-do the entire thing! So tonight after Lex get's off work we are headed to Lowe's to buy our very first ladder and get started painting! This afternoon I am packing up a few essentials for us so we can spend our first night in the house! We're taking the air mattress, the BBQ Pit and a radio! Don't worry I will definitely take plenty of photos for you guys to enjoy in the days to come! We can't wait to get settled and for each of you to come and visit us in our new home!

Happy Birthday - Allison Pace, Karen Barton & Britney Baggett!! November 4th is a popular day!

The Flood

Well, if you have not heard, when we returned from our Gatlinburg trip this past weekend, we unfortunately were suprised by a flooded apartment!! Apparently on Saturday night a guy out walking his dog noticed that a pipe had burst outside of our apartment. Luckily, he got in touch with our maintenance department and they came to check it out. Well, of course the pipe was flooding our apartment and the one next to us. They ended up working until 4 am Sunday morning to get everything moved out of the way of the water and dry up as much of the mess as they could. Well, we get home about 6:30 Sunday night with my parents, who were planning on staying the next two nights with us in our spare bedroom. There was a note on our door and some water soaking up our Welcome mat, which we thought was kind of strange. The note was from maintenance letting us know what had happened. We opened the door and were shocked at what we saw! (pictures below) It was a mess! So basically this whole week we have been trying to get all the water out and fighting with management to make sure they are proactive about getting this mess cleaned up! Luckily, Lex got them to pay for my parents hotel room and today the carpet cleaners came in and got most of everything put back together. I think tomorrow they are coming back to steam clean the carpets and move our furniture back, then it'll all be done! Nothing was severly damaged, a few wet clothes and such, but nothing serious! Anyways, I am looking at it now as a great way to get ahead on our packing! We close on our house in two weeks...so I'm thinking why put everything back...I'll just start packing it all up!!

Fourth Fastest Growing Company in South Carolina!

Hey check it out:

http://www.elliottdavis.com/fgc/2005-announce.htm

My company is the fourth fastest growing company in South Carolina! Go FGP! They just release this today! We thought we were contenders, but it's pretty exciting to know we are #4!

Weekend Pics

Cindy and Mom doing Dance Dance Revolution - now you can see where I got my coordination :o)

Here's the gang at the Log Cabin Pancake House!

Mom and Dad playing pool!

Lex at the Guiness Book of World Records, he's barely tall enough to pick this guys nose! :o)

You can't get this in Texas...

Gatlingburg, TN

We took a trip out to Gatlinburg, TN this weekend to meet up with my parents, Cindy & Matt. This time of year the Smokey Mountains are beautiful, as you can see in the pictures above! If you don't know much about Gatlinburg, we have described it as the "Myrtle Beach" of the mountains. A ton of shops, mini golf, carnival food, and arcades - a typical tourist trap! We really enjoyed our cabin as well, it was fully equiped with a pool table, outside hot tub (that come to find out was probably used as a bubble bath by the previous occupants, mainly because of all the bubbles it created when Cindy and I got in!) We also were joined by a black bear on Friday night - Lex and I weren't there yet, but apparently he found his way onto the cabin's back deck and into their ice chest looking for beer and coke! So the rest of the weekend, we were on the lookout for more bear siteings! Unfortunately, but probably fortunately as well, we didn't run into any more bears! On Sunday we went out for a big breakfast and then Cindy and Matt headed back to KY while the rest of us checked out the Smokey Mountain National Park - we hiked up to Lurel Falls and Cataract Falls - both of which were beautiful. I will attach some pictures to let you see what all you are missing in Texas :o)