Happy 1st Anniversary

In our FIRST home that is... Today, one year ago marks the first official *full* day we spent in our first home. I would have loved to make a post on the first day we got our keys, but since that was yesterday and we were in Mississippi and im not cool enough to have a laptop yet, that did not happen. So for now you will have to settle with the first 'full' day in our home. Which is just as good right?

First [I see a trend of using this word quite a bit in this post... hmm....] lets take a look back through the years shall we?

This is where it all started. This was our first home together, well... it was a rental so even though it wasn't the 'first' home, it was the first home we lived in together [geeez... to many firsts]. This was back in 2006, don't mind the fancy photo effects. This was when I first got my Photoshop and I was experimenting around with the photos. -Also I have limited amount of photos of our 'rental' homes because back than I had the thought of 'Pffftt... it's just a rental, I seriously don't care...' but now that I look back I wish I had taken more photos, but anyways. This home was a 'town house'. It was 3 bedroom/2 bath but it was small. I believe it was under 1100 sqft, and very outdated. Think white walls, blue tile in kitchen, living and bathrooms and blue carpet in the bedrooms. Yep... I may love blue but someone apparently loved blue more than I did!

This was the home where Josh and I shared our Christmas's together pre-baby. Those were our 2 cats... well technically they were mine. While Josh was over in the middle east, a girl that sat across from me in my unit at the time was telling me about how her sister saved 3 kittens from an old man who was going to throw them over a bridge. She was taking one but there were two left. So me being the animal lover that I am, couldn't just take one and leave one alone, by itself, so I took the other two. They were both boys [brothers]. Of course when I told Josh he was um.... excited? I guess... ha! They were good cats [Ninja and Gixxer] but they started to get bad tempered after Jayden was born so we gave them to a family friend who LOVED cats... so they went off to another [good] home :)

This was my shady desk area... it was small and I really didn't have a theme going on. I really couldn't have a theme or style anywhere in this home because of all the freaking blue! It was just my computer and some of my awards and other Military memorabilia. [Thats Ninja smiling for the camera :) ]

This was also Jayden's first home. There he is with Daddy. He was about a month old in that pic. Those are the memories I miss most being in this house. Even though the Kitchen was like a throwback of 1980's... the memories are what I really remember!

In May of 2008 we decided to move to another rental. At this point I was out of the Air Force and working for the Government. Josh was still in the AF and at this point was undecided if he would get out that following September or stay in. Because of the indecision we went ahead and rented just to be 'safe'. This home was much larger. If my mind serves me correctly it was just under 1600 sqft. 3 bedroom/2 bath and a large 2 car garage [and separate laundry room, where as our previous home had a 1 car and the washer and dryer were in the garage]. This home was also in a nice neighborhood [more family friends] and was on the corner of a quiet street.

Here was our 'office' set up. We actually moved the desks into the laundry room because it was seriously the size of another bedroom. It was huge. I still didn't have any style yet because I always had this thought of 'it's a rental and I just can't really change anything'. I would have loved to take some paint to these rooms!

I like white just like the next person but everything was white. White walls, white trim, white cabinets, white appliances... it was a bit to much. Felt a little sterile if you ask me.

The living room was fairly large though. The ceilings were super high and it had a fireplace with mantel. Minus the fact that a can of white paint threw up everywhere, this room was fairly nice.

The downside to this house however was the yard... or lack there of. That's it. Yep. I'm not joking. It was seriously small. That door you see to the right is the door that leads into the master bedroom, so if we had company over and we wanted to use the small patio set we had in the backyard, we would either have to go out the front door, walk down the side of the house and come through that little gate, or go through the master bedroom... which is just weird. Either direction is just weird. We love to spend a lot of time outside in the warm weather so the lack of yard was really starting to get to us.

By September of 2009 Josh had decided he was separating from the AF. He had been offered a job with the Government and so from that point on we decided that we wanted to buy a home. Since we knew we were both here for a while we didn't want to rent anymore. We wanted to invest our money into our own home and do things to our own home and change anything and everything we wanted without having to ask for permission and also paying someone elses mortgage. So it only made sense to BUY a home.

The main selling point? The abundance of YARD! We fell in love with the backyard. It was huge compared to the tiny 5x10 backyard we had previously. Not only is it what you see in this photo, but at the end of the photo, towards the end of the house, it continues up the side of the house also. Complete with a shed, a covered patio and a 36K gallon in-ground pool [8ft in the deep end]. Normally im not fond of pools, basically because I grew up in Massachusetts and pools are kind of a downfall up there because the Summers seem short and the winters are long, but living in Florida our winters are seriously only about 1.5-2months long [it's already back up into the 80's right now!] so a pool is a MUST.

Of course the photos were taken in the Summer. I have photos that were taken when we moved in but even though it's warm out this time of year, it's still ugly ;)


One thing we did sacrifice was living close to work. The town we worked in [and also rented in] previously was literally less than 5mins away from our work, but all of the homes were extremely close together [lack of backyard space] and there was no real 'zoning'... meaning you could live in a very nice home but your backyard view would be a run down trailer park. Nothing against people who live in trailer parks but I just know if im going to pay almost 200K for a home I don't want to walk out on my back patio and see a run down trailer with billy bob sitting out in his shorts drinking a beer. And lastly... we moved 30mins north of where we once lived and you get more house for the money. The town we moved to is also more 'family' oriented. It's away from all the night clubs and bars so it's more quiet and more 'neighborly' and our home easily would have sold for 300K or more back in our old town, so we sacrificed a short commute to be able to live in a quiet, family neighborhood on a large lot... Coming home to this home has been worth the annoying commute... It really has! :)