Our First Official Home

Back in December 2012 Jake and I moved into a new home! In our first 18 months of marriage Jake and I moved six times... That's an average of every three months! First was the Rexburg apartment, for like a month or two, then the townhouse, for like 7 or 8 months, then the Cromwell's basement, for about two and a half months, then house sitting at the Rice's, for like three or four months, then the apartment behind Kmart, for like three or four months, and now, finally, the condo, so far for five months! Almost a record! We bought the condo from Jake's parents, who bought the condo from Jake's sister when she bought a house.We feel super blessed to be able to be building our equity rather than just feeding a big useless hole our money!

We had a few projects that we wanted to do before we moved in. We painted the walls and trim, replaced the base boards, and added blinds. It was so much work! But so worth it! I am so disappointed in myself because I have very few before pictures. I'm working on doing better with the house we are flipping!

The kitchen used to be a deep maroon red, we painted it yellow and did one yellow striped wall

We chose the middle yellow

The family room and hallway used to be dark brown, we painted it blue with one blue striped wall

Don't get me started on the pile of shoes.....

We extended the stripes to the washer/dryer wall

The bathroom used to be dark green, we painted it purple with one grey wall

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2nd bedroom used to be a greenish blueish color, we painted it light grey

The master bedroom used to be a light khaki color, we painted it light grey. Sorry our old mattress is in some of these pics- oh well.

Happily ever after sign from my mom and cute C pillow from my mom

We got this Mitsubishi AC/heater unit installed and its cool because its literally silent inside and outside of the condo but we think the thermostat is broken in it so we need to get it looked at.  

Look how flat our bed looks with the new mattress!

All of the trim used to be a peachy off white color, we painted it all white

The front door used to be peachy, we painted it white

The base board used to look like this

Jake ripped that out and nailed in this

The bedrooms had no blinds or curtains and the kitchen and bathroom had red and dark brown roman shades. I think that's what they're called.... We bought plain old boring traditional white blinds that all look like this

 

I am going to sew window treatments for them. Here is the link to the fabric I bought for the kitchen. Here is the link to the fabric I bought for the bathroom and I'm doing the same style as the kitchen. The second bedroom window will someday have curtains. Like when its a baby nursery. The master bedroom window will eventually have curtains, too. Here is the link to the fabric I'm thinking about.... But I haven't bought it yet. The bedroom closet will eventually have curtains, too, because we took down the doors cause I hated them!

It has been a lot of work but it has been so much fun! I can't believe how different it feels to live in a colorful place that is ours. I love being able to make it ours I love making it look and feel like our home.  It's been so much fun!!

We are super blessed that this opportunity to better our living situation came along.

Here are some more pictures of our place:

Front of condo

 

Our garage and the back of the condo. That thing on the wall is the AC/heater we installed in our bedroom. The window to the right is our bedroom and the window next to that is our spare room

The entry to our condo.

This is the hallway that leads to the garage. Our car slot and our small storage room is to the left. Our big storage room is to the right.

We have two storage rooms. Don't judge the mess in the small one!!

This is where we get the cleaning supplies and fill the water softener for our condo building.

This is the condo building right next to ours and the crawl space where Jake changes their water softener. You couldn't pay me enough to crawl in there. Nope.

Our ward is very kind and humble. We are in Idaho Falls 14th ward. We spoke in church right away, lol literally the bishop asked us to speak before he got our records in, when we introduced ourselves and gave him our name and number he asked us to speak on Sunday. Jake teaches valiant 10 and 11 year olds in primary. I am the assistant primary chorister and Jake's teaching partner, I kind of just float around where I am needed. I've helped in nursery, choristering, subbing, being a teaching partner, literally do what they tell me to each week. Our building is super weird, it has a full two stories. Some buildings have a small upstairs but ours is huge. Everything primary and nursery is up there, there are that many classrooms! And there are two giant rooms, one for primary singing time/sharing time and one for nursery. The library is upstairs, too. The chapel, bishops offices, and sunday school/relief society/elders quorum, and gym are all downstairs. I kind of like just being upstairs in kid land for the last two hours haha. The women in the primary are very nice and I love working with them.

As far as neighbors go... Our first time ever hearing from the lady below us, Jan, was one night when we were painting our bedroom, before we even moved in. It was almost midnight, but we were just painting. It required walking to the middle of the room to roll our brush and walking to the wall to paint. Well I guess she heard Jake too much (he's a super loud and heavy walker) because after a while she started banging on the ceiling with a broom or pole following Jake everywhere he walked! It was crazy!! So the next day we were ripping out the old base and installing new base, so it was going to be super loud. But we were starting at like 9 am and wanted to be done by like 8 pm. So we pull up and start running the tools and base up to the condo and out walks Jan with a camera. I walked up to her and said, "Hi you must be our neighbor!" She barked back, "Not for long, I'm not! I'm MOVING!" I literally had to hold back my laughter. I said, "Oh, really? When do you move?" She was taking pictures of the condo and said, "As soon as I find the moron who will buy this place! You young kids are so loud and rude!" Then she stormed back inside and slammed the door. So I helped Jake finish unloading the car and then I said I'm gonna go kill her with kindness! Haha! So I went down and knocked on her door. She barely opened it and peeked through at me. I held out my hand and said, "I didn't get to officially introduce myself, I'm Rachel." She opened the door the rest of the way but didn't shake my hand. So I lowered my hand and said, "What is your name?" She said, "Jan!" and then briefly shook my hand haha. Then I don't remember exactly what was said but it was basically her telling me that she is 70 years old and has health problems and that this is a retirement community (there are all old people living in the condos, but it is not a legal retirement community) and that she hates that young people always live above her (Jake's sister, her husband, and their two year old lived up there before Jake and I). She said we need to be silent. I basically said well we haven't even moved in yet, so you're assuming we'll be loud but we are really not. We both work and go to school from 7-8 every day! We're never even home. And then she was like are you planning on having kids while you live here because this is no place for kids. I just ignored her question and answered with, "we have no kids." I said, "I just want to warn you that we will be loud today, because we are replacing base board. We will finish today, hopefully by 8. Then we should be done with the loud things. She said thank you for warning me, I really appreciate it. Maybe I won't move. Haha! Backfire!! But I just smiled and said, nice to meet you, see you around. Dane and Shalina had previously warned us about her, because Jan was always VERY mean to them... But I guess me going down did good because ever since she has never hit the ceiling again and she is friendly when we see her! But like a month after we moved in we noticed we never saw her and her car was always gone. She was MIA for like 2 or 3 months, everyone in the condos was freaking out it was quite the drama. Then we all find out that she met some old man online and they went off and got married on a whim! HA! HAHA! I don't know why it's so funny. So we ran into her when they were visiting and she said that they live in his house, like an hour away, but she's not selling or renting out her condo so it is just a weekend getaway for her if she needs it. SCORE! I love not having anyone beneath us! She married this guy named Cliff and I went full out paparazzi on them lol Jake was like Rachel! It's Jan and her new man! Come look! And I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures of them haha! Just to show Dane and Shalina because they would get a kick out of it. It was funny.

So, our other neighbors are Dean and Liz, who are right across from us and they are the HOA president and VP. They are AWESOME we <3 them. Below them, across from Jan, is Bob and Myrna and their son Bill. Bob and Myrna are so sweet. Bill's a jerk. He's never been married and his life revolves around caring for his parents which makes him a jerk to everyone.

All in all we love living here! The front windows of our condo looks out to a golf course and its super pretty, I love it! I just realized that I didn't take a picture of our patio or the view but this post have been waiting five months so I'm just going to put it up and add pictures of the patio/view later! :)

HOA Job, Tinkerbell

The condo that Jake and I bought has an HOA, home owners association. Before us, Dane and Shalina vacuumed for them and now we are vacuuming for them. It's like an hour or two every other week and brings in a little extra each month.

The vacuum we use is awesome. Unfortunately, it suffered a sudden unexpected death, involving a 220 outlet. So we bought a new HOA vacuum, which I appropriately named Tinkerbell. Tink is a trooper and makes my job easy because I love her color, it puts me in my happy place, and she's light weight. Yay! Here she is!

The one on the right is the dead one and the one on the left is the new one.

Jake's Finger Injury

 So one Wednesday night a long time ago Jake and I needed to borrow the Cromwell's truck to pick up a coffee table and side table from Carlisle Beauty because one of the girls there sold it to me. But the horse or snow mobile (I don't know which) trailer was hooked to the truck. It was black outside but Jake has unhooked it so many times he didn't care. He pulled the truck hatch down to get something from the back and it slammed down on the trailer jack with his finger sitting there... I was sitting in the truck and heard him scream like I've never heard before... He then yelled, "I just cut off my finger!!!!" I of course was like, "You WHAT?!" He was squeezing it in his other hand and started running inside to his parents house. I ran after him and called the home phone and said, "Jake cut off his finger, get dad!" We got inside and I still hadn't seen it. I felt so sick and got sick when his dad said let me look at it and see how bad it is... Bleh! It wasn't cut OFF like Jake thought, but pretty close. Dad C., Jake, and I got in the excursion and rode to the urgent care. They took FOREVER to numb him or give him anything for the pain. I was so mad because the place was empty, they were not busy they were sitting around! And Jake was sweating and shaking it was sooo sad he was in so much pain at this point. I finally nagged enough that the doctor (an idiot @$$) came in and started giving him numbing shots. I thought Jake was going to pass out, it was SO HARD to watch. He was in so much pain. The shots were put in his palm, the back of his hand, and all the way up and down his finger. It was awful he was not gentle at all. And he was like enjoying the pain. He was a jerk. He said, "You can swear just don't hit me hahaha" No one else laughed with him, not even the nurse. The nurse apologized like 20 times about the doctor. He was nice. Then they kind of cleaned it, but not really. That was such a big deal because Jake had been working at a sewer flood all day and so he wasn't confident that it was clean. They took x-rays and sure enough he broke it nice and clean it looked like another knuckle. They did a HORRIBLE job stitching it back up... Truly horrible. We went to a specialist the next day in Rexburg who was like disgusted and asked what urgent care we went to and told us not to go there again haha. The next day Jake had surgery, where he would get two pins and his nail removed and a fake nail put in.

Jake is so funny when he wakes up from surgery. He is so talkative. When he got his tonsils removed I was sooo embarrassed by some of what he said. Now I don't care.

Click here to read the funny things that Jake said after he got his tonsils removed. :)

I walked back right after he woke up, he hadn't said anything yet. Jake woke up from his finger surgery and the first thing he said was that he was thirsty. The nurse went to get him water and said that his mouth felt that way because of the medicine that was supposed to prevent choking. It dries up his mouth. After her explanation Jake said, "So I can't drool?" And the nurse said, "nope, she's sure cute but you can't drool over her!" He said, "Whose cute? My wifey? When can I see her?" I said, "Jake open your eyes!" He said, "Hooooney! Thanks for coming! Thanks for being here! Can I have some waaater?" Haha!

He kept saying, over and over and over again, "So he cut off my finger?" And I would say, "No, you cut off your finger, the doctor sewed it back on and fixed your bone." He would scrunch of his eyebrows, but keep his eyes closed (hhahaha) and say, "No! WHY would I do that??" I would say, "Well you didn't mean to! It was an accident." He would say, "Stupid. Sooo stupid. Sooo stupid."

I would ask how his finger felt and he would tell me it felt like, "BAM! A hammer smashed it" haha and then I would ask how his eye felt and he would raise his eyebrows real fast and say, "The doctor had to get rid of my eye too??" And I would do that over and over again with all sorts of different parts- eye, nose, teeth, other fingers, toes, etc. One time I asked how his ear felt and he was especially dramatic. He said, "Whaaat whyyy did the doctor cut off my ear??" Looked like he was going to cry. I said, "No your wife bit it clear off and he tried to fix it..." His face drooped in like a wow seriously way, but the eyes stayed closed, and he said, "She would." Hhahahahahaha!!!!!!! HAHAHAHA! Really??

One time he said, "I wish I could kiss my wife." I said, "Do you want me to go get her?" He said, "Yes! That would be great!" I said, "Okay, let me do it magically... Abra cadabra..... Wammo!" Then I said, "Hey sweetie.." He opened his eyes so wide and said, "Honey, is there something you want to tell me?? Are our kids going to go to Hogwarts?" Hahaha!! I LOVE that he thought of Hogwarts in his drugged up state! It was so funny.

This one is a LITTLE inappropriate, but just don't let your kid read it... :) I was asking him all sorts of questions to get his answers and one of the random ones I asked was, "What is your favorite color?" He replied, "Naked wife." Hahaha! "That's not a color babe, what's your REAL favorite color?" He did his upset face, "It is too my favorite color! Have you seen my wife?? Where is she, can she come in? Can I have more water?" Hahaha, um, yes to all the above deary. :)

He kept talking really loudly and so I would say, "Shh the other patients are sleeping..." He would look annoyed, eyes STILL closed, and say, "Well why are they sleeping??" I would say, "Because they had surgery and they are tired." He would mutter under his breath, "surgery... tired... surgery... tired.... surgery.... tired.... Sounds like me." Then I would say, "Do you want to go to sleep? You can. Your eyes are closed." He always said, "I don't knoooow..." This conversation happened multiple times because he kept talking loudly. Then one time when I said shh people are sleeping he got super annoyed and said, "Well they can just wake up then!!!" I busted up laughing and said, "Jake! The doctor told them to sleep! They just had SURGERY that is a big deal you know." He said, "surgery... surgery... sounds like me..." Hahaha dork :)

At one point I said, "Who is your best friend?" He said, "Matt, Matt Crabtree." I was taking lots of videos, I wish I knew how to get them from my iphone to my blog but I don't!! But I was going to take a video for Matt so I said, "Yeah that's right, you and Matt have a serious bromance huh? Do you want to say something to him?" He perked right up, eyes still closed, and said, "Matt? Matt? Matt is here? Where is he?" I broke his little druggy heart and said, "No, Matt's not here I am just going to take a video for him..." He said, "Oh... Matt you're my... You're my best friend..." On and On haha I have it on camera :) He is so funny.

One time I said can you open your eyes for a second? He opened them and then they were shut again and life went on and like probably 45 seconds later he started gasping and said in a panicked voice, "I don't think I can open my eyes!! I can't open them!" I said, "Yes you can" He opened them SO wide and said, "Oh! OH! Phew! I did it." Back to closed again. Haha!

So when Jake got his tonsils removed and they took off the heart monitors (I think that's what they are.... There are three of them and they stick them on you like stickers on your chest...) Jake's reaction TOTALLY embarrassed me.  Now I just think it's hilarious and if it happened again I would think it was hilarious. But I was so embarrassed! Here is the background before I tell what he said. So over the summer, before his tonsil surgery, he would wax my armpits, like for Bear Lake or swim suit season. It was awesome! But at first he SUCKED at it and it was so painful when he would mess up and leave a waxy mess! So one time he was laughing at my pain and I was like I'm going to wax you so you know how it feels! He of course refused. But when he walked past I dipped the wax stick in the pot and got him with it. So now I HAD to get the cloth on and rip it off before it dried and made a huge mess... Hahaha so evil. It was seriously SO funny though.... I still laugh just remembering! But anyways that is the extent of our waxing each other! That's it! Once we were done with summer I went back to shaving my pits! But for some reason he remembered that, even on sleeping drugs, and when the nurse ripped off his heart monitor sticker his face contorted and he said, "OW! Why did you just do that?? It feels like you are waxing me!" The nurse laughed and said, "How would you know what it feels like to be waxed?" Jake answered right back with, "Because my wife waxes me and I wax her too..." I'm like, "Uh... No... NO...!" Hahaha I was mortified. I said, "Ha ha.. ha.. ha... Jake, no we don't... That was ONE time..." Hahahaha! Oh man.... So this time she rips the first one off and Jake's face contorts and I think, "Haha! Here we go again!" But instead he said, "Owwwww what a mean mean hair pulling sticker!" Hahaha! That it is, lovey, that it is!

I have all sorts of pictures and videos on my iphone but I have NO idea how to get them on here :(

He now has the pins out and his finger is doing really well! His nail is so ugly but the doctor thinks it will eventually be pretty normal looking.

It has taken me so long to post this because I don't have pictures on here but oh well maybe someday I'll figure out how to get my phone pictures on here! There are pictures on facebook and instagram if you follow me.

New Foam Mattress!

When Jake and I got married we inherited the "Cromwell honeymoon mattress." I call it that. Gross, I know. It started with Jake's sister Zsahnae (I think?) and her hubs Josh and then got passed down to Shalina and Dane, then Shalina gave it to Jake when we got married. Jake has two siblings getting married, Tyson this Friday and Kayla June 1, and I have a brother, Ben, getting married June 29. So it was time for the mattress to GO to one of them.

We were going to give it to Kayla, because we already got a su-weet gift for Tyson and Memrie, but then Kayla said they found another one that's already in Utah so they're taking that one. So we're giving this one to Ben! Which I am happy about because Tyson and Kayla have LOTS of family who can hand stuff down and help out newly weds and Ben doesn't... So I'm glad that I can hand some nice things down to help him out. Now to get the mattress down to Utah!

So we went mattress shopping and came away with this beaut...

We have box springs but the foam mattresses are supposed to sit on a totally flat surface so it won't mold into the shapes of the boards or springs in the box spring. So we bought two 1/2 inch MDF panels to set on top of the box spring. We had to cut them to the right size. I helped Jake (woot woot) cut them with this table saw.

Then I cleaned out Marcie, my favorite thing EVER, I love having a clean car!! And Jake played cut throat racquetball (three person racquetball) with Tyson and Jed. I watched the last few points. It's a fun game to watch! Especially with these three because they are hilarious to watch with how similar they are and how competitive they are! I kept thinking, "DO NOT give Tyson a black eye!" Because his wedding is this Friday! Jed is in the red, Jake in the gray, and Tyson in the black.

My hubs-

We then went home to put together our new bed!! Here's our old mattress

We laid the boards on this way (You can see we wiped it off with a wet rag)

Can't forget to put on the bed skirt (we ALWAYS forget)....

And the new mattress!!!!

I'm fond of it. Our bed looks so flat when we make it, it was always lumpy before! We both slept like rocks last night and my back didn't hurt when I woke up! Now this thing just better last us for the next 20 years like we were promised! :)