Oh How I LOVE Our New House!

Our new house is fabulous! We love it so much!
I am 99.9% unpacked and organized!
Short post! Pictures to post later!
Have the rest of the week off! Going to the spa in town Thursday for massage, facial, hair highlight and cut. Friday, my Mom, Grandma and Aunt are coming over to see what all has been accomplished in the house and we are going to lunch!
View of the golf course is more fabulous than we expected!
Have a great week!

Today is Closing Day!

Today is our closing day on our new house. We will be moving in tomorrow. I am off work until 9/8 to get settled and unpacked.
Stay tuned for pics of the new house next week. We will not be getting our internet hooked up in our new house until next week, until then, I am sure I will be finding other things to occupy my time.
I saw the house last night and it looks fabulous! We are both so excited.
Have a great weekend!
P.S. One of my bff's Chaley found out what she is having today and won't tell me until she tells her kids tonight...I am dying to find out if it is a girl or a boy!!!!!

Happy Birthday to Me and Hank!

Better late than never! Jeremy and I have been so busy packing for our move this weekend, our blog has been put on the back burner. I had a great 32nd b-day. We went to Chicago on that Saturday for our nephew Hank's 2nd b-day party! What a great b-day party! We stayed the night at Darci & Kyle's. Darci and I went on a fabulous walk on Sunday morning (my b-day). We then came back and got ready to go to brunch at Wishbone. We had tickets to attend the Cubs game and the game ended up getting rained out...bummer! Still had a great time!


Some of my b-day presents. Jeremy got me a gift certificate to the spa in Gibson City. Some friends got me wine and I got this really cute Birthday Girl glass from one of my bff's:)


Love this glass!

Little AC/DC Devil! Her Dad went to a concert the night before:)

Mr Singer performed at the b-day party! He sings kids songs and the kids were all mesmerized and sang along with him and sat still the whole time he performed!

Our niece Maggie and our nephew Hank!

I love my Aunt Kim!

Enjoying a glass of wine in my new cute glass and in my pj's!

Wishbone for brunch on my b-day!

John and Jan at Wrigley!

Uh oh! They are pulling out the tarp!

Me and Magpie B.

Me and Jeremy!

I had to post this picture of my friend Erin's "firepit". It is the cutest thing ever and I want one! It is a table top firepit and her husband Mike got it at Walmart on clearance for $25!

And of course my precious angels! They were so tired yesterday from watching their Mommy and Daddy pack this weekend! Poor things thought they were gonna get left behind.

So this is an exciting week for us. We close on our new house on Friday! And move in day is Saturday! We are looking forward to getting settled in our new house. We have EVERYTHING packed except for a few of our clothes. Our house is so bare and echos because it has nothing in it.

We are trying not to think about the fact that our house still has not sold and just hope it does soon! We want to be able to enjoy our new house!

While I am trying to remain calm this week...I am taking next week off and am soooo looking forward to unpacking and getting things accomplished in our new house. I am also going to clean this house real good so it is good to go when it does finally sell. I am painting a dresser this week for our guest bedroom. I ordered some really cute knobs from Anthropologie! I will post a picture of the final product when complete. Hopefully later this week!

Have a great week!

Principal Darnell!

Well it's official, Principal Darnell has began his duties with kids! The teachers have all given him praise and are really happy he is there. The kids have been super. Yesterday the kids were there for a half day, today was the first full day.
Cute story: Yesterday, at dismissal, a little 6th grade boy came up to Jeremy and said "This was the best day of school ever!" and gave him a big high five! How cute is that! Mind you they only had 12 minute class periods (so I am sure it did seem like the best school day ever). The Middle School is 6th, 7th, and 8th so this kid would have been new to this school. Funny!
In just over a week we will move to our new town! We are very excited and ready to be settled in our new home.
We have reduced our price on our current home in hopes that it will sell very soon! Having two mortgage payments does not appear to be very appealing to us.

I hope to post in the next day or so our weekend in Chicago and my Birthday that was this past weekend.

Favorite Vacation Spot!

I am participating in a fun post on Kelly's Korner blog, Show Us Your Life Friday.....this week's theme is your favorite vacation spot.

This past January, we took a trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with 3 other couples. It was the best trip ever! The resort was fabulous, the beaches were gorgeous. The food was spectacular. I got a couple of massages, one on the beach. We hung out at the beach and pool every day and just talked for hours and had the time of our lives. We will definitely be going back, hopefully sooner than later. We stayed at Ocean Blue Golf & Spa Resort. Highly recommend it. The lobby of the hotel is open air...very cool. The airport when you fly in to Punta Cana is open air as well. We did go into town one day and find a shopping mall. We just wanted to see what the town was like. The mall had some high end stores but I managed to find a cute hat and flip flops at the Puma store. And we ate at Hard Rock Cafe. Just talking about it makes me want to go back already! Oh and the weather in January was perfect. 85 and sunny every day and laying on the beach we never got too hot because of the breeze!

Virst thing in the morning

The guys playing in the ocean

The markets along the beach

Our daily view

Heaven on Earth!

One of the pools

I love palm trees

Me & Jerm at the pool

The group at dinner one night

Giveaway & Birthday Weekend!

Jenn at this blog... http://firstcomeslovereviews.blogspot.com/2009/08/old-bay-giveaway.html#comments is hosting a giveaway for some seasoning that I have read on a few blogs is really good. Log on to her blog and register to win the Old Bay Seasoning.

This weekend is my birthday weekend! I like to celebrate my bday for a week maybe even two weeks. After all, I was born the exact same day Elvis Presley died! August 16th, 1977! This weekend we are traveling to Chicago to spend some time with our little nephew Hank. His 2nd b-day party is on Saturday. We are staying the night in Chicago and then going to a Cubs game on Sunday. Yes, I am not a Cubs fan, but since I have not been to a game at Wrigley Field and lived in Illinois all my life, I figured it was about time to go. Plus, it will be something fun and new to do for my b-day. Other than that, I have lunch plans with friends over the next week to celebrate. I am sure Jeremy and I will go to dinner on Friday for my b-day dinner..hmmm where shall we go!?! We are also having an Open House on Sunday so hopefully since it is my birthday we will have some luck....what a great birthday present that will be!
Because I am getting a brand spankin new house in the next 2 weeks, I figured I better not ask for much from Jeremy for my birthday:) After all, I will want to buy some new things for the new house. I do know I am getting a comforter set for our bedroom from my in-laws and a comforter set and picture for our guest bedroom from my Mom, Steve & Chloe. So that is exciting!
We had a showing tonight. So that is good news. Glad to hear we had a showing at least. Hopefully the little prayer over the weekend worked for us. Anxious to hear the feedback on the showing.
Stay tuned on Sunday for pictures from the weekend.

Weekly House Update!

I love our railing on our stairs!


The railing upstairs

We decided to put tile above our shower to add a little to it.

Why did I take a picture of the garage? Because it is very large. The picture does not really do it justice.

Jeremy and I went to check on the house this evening. There haven't been a lot of changes but I did manage to take a few pictures. The house should be done in the next couple of weeks. Still projecting to move August 29th. Still have not sold this house yet! I am hoping it sells soon so we both can keep our sanity:) While at Jeremy's Grandma's funeral this past week, a Pastor that is very good friend with Jeremy's family said a little prayer for us to sell our house. She said she has done it in the past and it has worked. I hope it works for us. We have a very nice house, there has to be the perfect person out there for this house!
Enjoy a few pics from the new house.

Reception & Honeymoon!

Kelly's Korner blog is hosting a Show Us Your Life Friday and today's theme is Wedding Reception and Honeymoon! How Fun!
If I could redo our wedding day and honeymoon, I would do it. It was the absolute best time of my life.
Our Wedding reception was held in the Grand Ballroom at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center in Urbana, Illinois. We chose to hold it there because we had a lot of guests and it was one of the only places to hold them all and because the hotel was right there, our guests could just go straight to their room after the reception without driving.

Our Grand entrance, getting announced as Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Darnell

Our Wedding cake was cheesecake. We also had a chocolate fountain with fresh strawberries!

Our First Dance as husband and wife....to Tim McGraw & Faith Hill...It's Your Love!

We chose to have a sweetheart table as our head table..since we had a small wedding party, to allow the wedding party to sit with their significant other and for the two of us to look out and see everyone!

After dining on beef or chicken, salad, veggies, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and cheesecake, the party began! Dancing all night long. The dance floor was packed all night! Some of Jeremy's Pekin and college buddies even paid the DJ to stay an hour longer:)

I had to include this picture, because my husband does not dance very much! But I told him he had to dance with me at our own wedding reception:)

We honeymooned in Riviera Maya Mexico. We stayed at Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort. It was heaven on earth. I would go back in a heartbeat. They treated us like royalty.


Our honeymoon sweet. We got in late at night, thus the darkness, but you look out to the ocean.


More of our honeymoon sweet.



Our favorite drinks at the pool! We had many of these. The bartenders called Jeremy...Yeremy! too funny!


One of the pools, yes this day was rather cloudy but the sun came out later.


The view from our room


One of the things Jeremy wanted to do was go deep sea fishing. He caught this 83 inch sailfish. The deep sea fishing was not all that it was cracked up to be. This was caught the last 20 minutes of our trip. We also went to the spa and had a couples massage which was fantastic!


The honeymooners candlelight dinner!

Wish we could relive our honeymoon again! We did take a trip to Punta Cana Dominican Republic with friends this past January. We would go back there as well!

Sad:(

We are saddened tonight that Jeremy's Grandma Darnell has made her journey to heaven this evening. She is peaceful and now with Jeremy's Grandpa. Please keep the Darnell family in your thoughts and prayers as we all grieve during this difficult time.

House Updates!

Jeremy got home from work today and told me that he stopped at the house and that it had made a drastic change just since yesterday when we were there. So I immediately wanted to go see what took place today. Much to my surprise, the fireplace trim was put in(it still has to be painted white) a bunch of trim got done, as well as a few doors hung and the cabinets. We got to pick out our granite tonight for our countertop which was exciting. We chose a black/brown mix granite. It will look fabulous with our cabinets. Keep in mind when looking at the pictures that the paint still has to be finished. It is not all painted yet.

Front will have black front door and black shutters

The fireplace wood part will be painted white

We are very happy with the kitchen cabinets. They look fantastic!

The french doors going into our master bedroom


The guest bathroom

More of the cabinets in the kitchen (desk area as well as pantry cabinet)

With the progress of the house, I am sure I will have many more pics to come soon!

A Fun Weekend!

Jeremy and I had a fun weekend! We both had Friday off. We took off Friday morning and headed to St. Louis for a night away. It was much needed with all the stress of worrying about selling our house. We went shopping at one of my favorite malls ever!!! The St. Louis Galleria! We ate lunch at Cheesecake Factory (please note!!! I did not eat a piece of cheesecake! I wanted to save up and have a big ol hot dog and margarita at the game) I have been reading some other blogs that rave about this little boutique store called Francesca's. Well Galleria had one! I was so excited. It is a reasonably priced fashion boutique. I got a cute dress to wear to a wedding in September(stay tuned in September for pictures from the wedding and the dress I bought). I also got a shirt. After we left the mall we headed back to our hotel downtown St. Louis and got ready for the game. Jeremy had not been to the new stadium (I went last year with some girlfriends). Saturday we woke up and went for a long walk down by the Arch, we both took $20 to the Casino and played the penny slots...we lost:) We came back to our hotel and had some breakfast and got ready and went to Union Station. It was a good night away.

Me & Jeremy at the game!

Whitey Herzog signing autographs at the game

Cards Win!

My purchases!

Had to get a pic of my girls in from the weekend!

We made a trip to the house today to see what was shakin! The tile has been put down and looks great. It is kinda hard to see since it has not been cleaned but we are very happy with it.

Around the tub has not been grouted yet, but I can't wait to take a bath in the jacuzzi tub!

Please continue to say a little prayer for Jeremy's Grandma Darnell. She is not doing very well and remains in the hospital. We anticipate this week will be a difficult week.

On a better note, our friends Chris and Kelly's son Alec is home from the hospital and recovering from his tractor accident. He has undergone a few surgeries to repair his foot and is progressing rather well.