The land we love so much

When Kolby and I seriously started considering building a house we started looking for a place to build. We have always wanted to live out of town, but not too far. The idea of living out in the country is just so appealing to us. Not to mention we've been looking at houses for sale for a while now and can't find anything we like.
While browsing the reality websites we found a piece of land that we l-o-v-e-d! It's out in the country but in this little up and coming subdivision, the other houses are so cute too! I thought for sure this would be the place. On Monday I contacted the reality office to find out more information about it. The website said there were some restrictions, so I needed more details. I figured since it was in a subdivision it would have to meet some sort of size requirements etc. What I found out though really blew me away! There were multiple pages of restrictions...here are some of them:

- No more than three vehicles may be parked outside of the garage
- Must have at least 3 trees with trunk diameter not exceeding 2 inches, must be planted in the front
- All planning including landscaping must be approved by a board
- You may only have up to 2 domestic animals and non for breeding purposes

I mean the list goes on and on and on....I think it's a little overboard with some of the things. It's definitely not a right fit for us. I don't want to feel like I'm renting when I've purchased that land and built the house myself.
So the search continues!

More to love

Here is a link to the house that we love. This will show the floor plans. http://www.globalhouseplans.com/plan_details.asp?id=16842

I really love how pretty much the whole downstairs is open. Then the upstairs is open to below...another feature that I love. Kolby and I have talked about making the rooms upstairs bigger and putting that bonus room in the basement. This could all change though. In fact Maggie is also building a house and her sister Annie built a house so they are also finding houses for me to look at. Just today Annie sent me a house that I love....oh the decisions. Thankfully I have a while before I have to decide.

My future looks bright

I have yet to take pictures of my Christmas decorations...in all honesty I could probably just repost what I put in this blog last year because it's basically the same. I have a few additions, the lay out is different and I have new furniture....but all in all it looks pretty similar. However, I think I'll post pictures anyways, but that's not today.
Today though I am so excited about my future plans. Kolby and I have decided to build a house. This is still about 3 years away, but we are so excited. We have a piece of land that we are also excited about and want to purchase right away. Hopefully they will call me back today. There are some restrictions to what you can build, so as soon as we get that figured out, hopefully it will be ours. If not though, that will not put a damper in our plans, we'll just look for a new spot. We've been looking at floor plans all weekend and think we've found the perfect one for us. And last night we spent a lot of time talking about finances and deciding what the best plan of action would be. Start now, borrow a big chunk of money with low interest rates. Or start a littler later, borrow a little smaller chunk of money with possibly higher interest rates..it was all very confusing. I think we are making the best decision for us though!

Now here is what we fell in love with. The picture makes it look like a mansion, but it is actually a nice modest house just right for us.
Oh I also want to add that while we are totally in love with this house....haha plans change so don't hold me to this!

I love Christmas

Pictures will be coming soon, but I totally decorated for Christmas. I just could not help myself. I have been excited for Christmas for months now and decided weeks ago that I would be decorating before Thanksgiving this year. For a lot of people, especially in my family it is very Taboo to decorate this early. OH WELL.
It's done now, and I love it!

New Moon

That's right people, the picture says everything. I am very excited that tonight at 7pm I will be watching this movie. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm equally as excited as most of my students.

These will be the death of me...

Camel crickets, cave crickets....whatever you want to call them. I hate these things more than anything. They are so so so scary. My first encounter with one of them was in the shower...there it was just sitting on the side of the tub, ready to attack. If you've never seen one you have to understand that they are actually crickets, which no harm done right? Crickets aren't scary. These crickets however LOOK like SPIDERS....BIG spiders BUT they JUMP like crickets. Not only do they jump which is bad enough but they jump AT you. So just imagine a fairly large looking spider jumping towards you.
So after that terrible morning in the shower I have had to move my shower curtain every single morning to look and make sure one is not in there. This has been months now and I still do this every morning. My fear does not stop there though. Kolby ran to the store one morning to get some milk for breakfast and I was going to take that time to once again take a shower. This time Olive found it...thankfully she killed it for me, but I was still terrified. She found it behind the toilet and drug it out. I leaped onto the bathroom counter wishing that Kolby was home so he could dispose of the body...Since he was away I covered it with a towel and decided to get in the shower. So now before I walk into my bathroom I have to stand outside of the door, flip the light on, look everywhere on the floor, again look in the shower and NOW before I can go to the bathroom I lift up the toilet seat to see if one crawled into it...
I know this is making me sound patetic, maybe even crazy but these things FREAK me out! I have been gone a lot recently because of the fundraising I'm helping with. Kolby told that he's seen a couple more, this time one was in the hall way and one was in the living room....THE LIVING ROOM! So I have decided I have to get rid of them...I just have to. So this morning I go online to try and find natural ways to kill them. I come across this story: http://www.asktheexterminator.com/Crickets/Cave_Crickets.shtml. Which the picture alone is enough to make my heart start pounding. The story was fine, I'm glad to know someone else has my same strong dislike and fear of these creatures. I should have stopped at the end of the story...but NO crazy me wanted to look at the comments. To the first person who decided to comment, you call yourself Shaun. I would just like you to know that I am now afraid to not only shower, but also sleep at night. Thank you...

Hot cocoa

I'm currently drinking hot cocoa hoping that will be a substitute to caffeine. I need some sort of sugar in my body to make sure I'm going to make it through the day! I took the youth group 2 1/2 hours away to see the bands that played at convention. I think it was a good time to reminisce about convention and remember those feelings and commitments we made.
Honestly I did not want to go. I have been so busy lately that I really wanted a day to rest, not to mention this week is going to be insane trying to get everything organized for the rummage sale/silent auction. I went anyways and I just decided that instead of thinking about how much I'd rather be at home, with my husband and in bed at a decent hour I was determined to have a great time. With a little prayer and determination it happened!
We saw Brandon Heath, Francesca Battistelli and Leeland. I totally love Fran, she has been a favorite of mine for a while now. I also like Brandon Heath, I had only heard his stuff on the radio, but his lyrics are amazing. The first time I heard of Leeland was at convention. I love them! They are so catchy and fun. I really want to buy their cd! check them out if you get a chance
http://www.myspace.com/leelandmusic