Happy Father's Day

We went over to Biagini's for Father's Day to swim in the pool and hang out. David had baseball practice for the first part of the afternoon and then met us over there. It was a nice, relaxing day! 

 

 

 

I can't think of a better dad for Nico than David. I am so thankful that he is able and that he chooses to be a stay-at-home dad! It definitely works out well for all of us, and I know that Nico and him have plenty of fun every single day with their little routines and activities. David is such a great guy, and he continues to amaze me with how great of a father he is.

 

 

 

And a Happy Father's day to my dad, too! Thank you for all that you do! I am proud to occasionally be told when I am acting like you.

A Happy Belated Anniversary

So it's my year to plan our anniversary, and on the actual day this year, I was stuck in bed with post dollar hot dog sickness from the Ranger's game, or atleast that's my best guess. With David's baseball taking up the past few weekends, I decided to plan an outing during our Austin househunting weekend, while my parents watched Nico! My mom told me about this secluded, romantic, Italian restaurant, Trittoria Lisina that is nextdoor to the Duchman Winery. Sounds right up our alley, right?!

 



 

 

We had a couple glasses of wine and walked around the winery for an hour or so before our dinner reservation. The views were amazing- nothing like what we are used to. David was in heaven. It's always cool to see him right in his element with that Italian ambiance. He gets so excited over that kind of food. It was definitely worth the wait of celebrating our 4th anniversary!

Austin house hunting... Take 1

We went down to Austin the weekend of June 7 for our first attempt at finding a new house! My parents (and Ryan came down with us) watched Nico most of the weekend so that we could have plenty of time to look!

I wasn't too hopeful going into this house hunting process, because any really nice house that we saw online was gone within a few days. Timing is so crucial! There were actually only 1 or 2 that we were really excited to see that were still on the market. Our realtor put together a list as well.

We looked at about TWENTY different homes throughout the Southwest area of Austin and some surrounding areas. After about 6 hours, we actually found "the one" on the LAST house that we decided to look at for the day. Points for David because he came across this area while looking on his phone in the backseat that afternoon.

I walked into this home on Canterbury Dr. and that that warm fuzzy feeling. It had all of the major checkpoints on our list- open floorplan, upgraded kitchen, 4 bedrooms, and a good size backyard with a deck! It even had a greenbelt behind the backyard and to the side of the house. Score! We decided to put an offer on it that night, and we also went back in the morning to look again with my parents and Ryan.

To briefly sum up our 1-2 week experience with this house, our offer was accepted and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Then, the inspection came. There was a laundry list of issues that made the house a dealbreaker- roof issues, in need of a new water heater, the below grade structure was going to cause drainage issues, the deck was deemed unsafe and needed repairs, and the list went on. We were totally bummed. We rewrote the offer in hopes that the seller would correct all of the issues. As expected, the seller immediately came back and basically said no way.

So then, just as we had basically forgotten about this house, the seller came back a few days later and said they would look into fixing a majority of the issues! Talk about an emotional rollercoaster! After taking a little time to think about it and talk to other contractors and our parents, we realized this would be a bad deal. Even if most of the issues were fixed, that house would inevitably have more issues down the road. We went with our gut feeling.

This whole mess was a good learning experience, even though the end result totally sucked. We got to know the area really well, so now we believe we have narrowed down where we would like to live! We fell in love with the neighborhoods just on the outskirts of SW Austin, out towards Dripping Springs, primarily because of the gorgeous views of Hill Country. We drove around through Dripping Springs and saw the high school and some other hot spots around town. It already feels like home and where we are meant to be.

And best news of all from this weekend, we accepted a great offer on our McKinney home!

Bring on house hunting weekend #2!

Our First Home



Here are the professional pics of our first home that our realtor posted online. I sure do love this house. I remember that feeling I had walking into it for the first time, like "this is the one!" 

 

We made some great family memories there and were able to make a house, a home. We made it ours with updates like wood flooring, paint, and a backyard patio. We held quite a few family get togethers and holidays there. (The one that stands out in my mind is the first Thanksgiving with all of our families, where we dropped the broccoli rice casserole all over the oven not once, but twice.) It's where we grew together in our first 3 years of marriage. And I do believe that ultimately, it will be remembered as the house that we brought Nico home to.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Big news!

Yep, our first home is officially on the market.

Austin, here we come.

We have both loved the town of Austin, especially David. He has not only mentioned how much he would love to live there one day, but he is a big UT sports fan too. When my parents moved there last fall, I recall David jumping up and down and fist pumping over the new potential chance that we, too, could consider moving there. It just made sense.

After my parents left, we still put off the idea for a while for a few reasons. 1) We had to stay in our home 3 years, which put us through April of this year, in order to keep our pricey tax refund that we received when we bought the home. 2) David was committed to a baseball team through July. 3) Our home is here with us both growing up here so there is quite a bit of attachment there. My inlaws are there, and I know that is an adjustment being 4 hours away from their grandson instead of 30 min. (But Cindy, 4 hours still isn't tooooo bad! :) )

Well, we started thinking more and more seriously about it all last month, and two things really got the ball rollin. The first was that our realtor highly suggested that we put the house on the market in the summer (as opposed to waiting for the fall like we maybe thought), since that is the best time for buyers due to school starting in August. Secondly, I mentioned to my boss that we were thinking of moving there sometime in the next handful of months. Coincidentally, the PT position for south Austin opened up 3 days later.

Needless to say, we have taken that as an omen and are running with it. We are looking forward to a new chapter!

A funny park day

We went to a newer park today that has a huge playground and a splash pad. Nico was in heaven.

So the part of this experience that was funny is that there were these girls there playing "school." The tallest one the teacher and was directing all of them around on where to sit, what to do, etc. Nico followed orders right along. It was so cute to see him listening to them from a distance! (And nice to know that he is capable of listening since he doesn't do it often to me these days! Ha!)

Exhibit A on the non-listening thing: Here's my goofball insisting on climbing on top of the couch after our park trip and thinking he is hilarious. Gotta love him.

Ryan time!

It's always good when my brother, Ryan, comes into town! I don't see him nearly as often as I would like with him being in Arkansas, but fortunately, he is moving to Dallas soon! He came in town this week for his BFF Kyle's wedding shower and stayed with us for a week or 2 just for fun. Nico loooooves him and emphasizes the AN on the end of Ry-AN. It's cute.  

 

 Our little fam of 4 at the wedding shower...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Buddies...

 



I told Nico that Ryan was coming back soon and he waited in the window for 15 minutes straight. It's the longest I can recall him sitting still ever!...

Hangin out on the couch with pooh bear and froggie...

Happy hour!...