Buying a House!!

So this isn't exactly a for sure thing yet, but we have a house that we've had our eye on for the last month or so and it's totally in our price range. The down turn in the Central Oregon real-estate market was bad for a lot of people but for us poor newlyweds, it's a very good thing. It's probably our only chance to buy in this lovely area.

We've had our broker buddy Grant help us and he found us the perfect house. It's got 4 bedrooms and a bonus room (used to be a garage) that Jim can put his pool table in, so as you can all imagine, he was instantly sold on the idea.

It is a great house. The only complaints I have are of the old owner's terribly tacky taste. She's one of those women who must have looked through hundreds of arts and crafts/how to give your home a makeover on a tight budget magazines and thought she could do it, but she got a bit carried away. There are 2 bathrooms. In the first, she thought a rock wall would look nice so she took grey puddy (looks just like playdough) and slopped it unevenly across the whole wall then squished river rocks into it. It looks like she let her kids do it. The other bathroom was done in a Hawaiian, tiki theme and has an awesome turquoise color (Charlotte Hornets turquoise) and dried grass for curtains over the windows. I wish I had pictures. I'll get them and then you'll all fully understand how bad it truly is.

Aside from some minor cosmetic issues, we're both very excited about the house and are meeting with our loan officer this afternoon to get approved and then we make an offer. Keep us in your prayers. We both know that if it doesn't happen now, it's for a good reason, but we kinda hope it does:)

Snowboarding!!

So, I have been putting off snowboarding since it became cool years ago, mainly because I thought I was the only one who hadn't tried it yet and I didn't want to make anyone stay back with me the entire day on the bunny hill when they could have been having fun.
Well, my husband has been doing it a while...the P-towne posse apparently went every weekend in high school.

Jason's whife Chelsea and Stephen's girlfriend Kelly hadn't done it either so it was perfect. Bachelor was absolutely gorgeous but holy crap do they rip you off. During the off season, which we luckily hit, it's $56. During Christmas break it's $65!! If you have to rent gear you're looking at another $40. We borrowed or brought our own gear so that helped a little. We girls got our free lessons at Bachelor and sucked horribly while the guys went and played on the halfpipe and did backflips.

They came back and helped us with technique and rode down (rather slowly) with us, teaching us along the way. It was actually a lot of fun. It took a little bit to get the carving thing down but I got the hang of it. Every muscle in my body, however was screaming the next day. I think that was due in part to playing indoor soccer immediately after a full day of snowboarding. Jim played goalie and it might have been the funniest thing I've ever seen (full bright orange Beaver sweatsuit). He was a natural. I'll get pictures!

New Years 2008

We celebrated the new year with awesome friends. Jenna and Phil came over and we all went to my parents house in Sunriver where I played Dance Dance Revolution for the first time ever, and sucked horribly! Those arrows move so fast! We went out to dinner for the Kelley's 1 year anniversary and planned on ice skating but chickened out....way too cold!

The weekend also included innertubing behind a 4wheeler, Phil nearly running into a stopsign due to his wife's crazy driving, buzz cuts and rat tails for boys and short, matching bobs for the girls. For more details, see Jenna and Phil's blog.

The lady cutting my hair told me that she cut a girl's hair that was a lot like mine and her husband left her and then came back to her when it was long again. Who does that?!! Lucky for me, Jim likes it and it will always grow back.

Christmas Sweaters

So, I'm going to try and catch up on my blogging. Christmas season was nuts. Jim and I had 5 Christmases this year. Being newlywed can suck sometimes:)

We went and visited Heather and Jeff in Newberg and they told us that the local bar (the only one in Newberg) was hosting a Christmas sweater party and in order to get in, one must be wearing an awesome Christmas sweater. Jeff graciously donated some high quality sweaters to the cause and we showed up as the only sweater-wearing idiots. We were had by the Heidrichs. Oh well. It was funny. Heather and I even had matching ones!