The only constant in life is change. 2017 has been all about change! Some exciting things happened this year…Where do I begin…

Well, for starters, Kurt and I bought a home together back in February.

We looked for a home, but didn’t like any of the homes we went and saw. Nothing popped up with what we were wanting. We both agreed we weren’t going to house-hunt anymore…

You know how it goes. I happened to be online looking and this house popped up. I sent the link to Kurt and realtor. Our realtor said we had to come look at it immediately, it would sell fast. So, our realtor met us there that Sunday night and we saw the home.

It was beautiful and meticulously maintained; original everything with nothing ever touched. We had a blank slate to work with. We met up Monday evening and put an offer on the home…to find out the seller was heading to Kentucky and didn’t have email or online capability. Needless to say, it was a nerve-wracking 24 hours. We amended our offer and put MORE down for our earnest payment.

Tuesday afternoon I got a call. “Hannah, I have bad news for you. Get used to writing out mortgage payments every month. Congratulations! You have an accepted offer.”

Phew!

Prior to closing, we did the usual home inspection where we quickly discovered the fireplace had water damage. It was one of the first items we went after in our amendments. Throughout that process, the seller’s estate agreed to cover the costs of the fireplace rebuild – tearing down floor to ceiling brick, installing a new fireplace, and rebuilding the entire exterior chase. There were a few other repairs, like fixing a few outlets and supporting one of the walls in the basement.

The fun stuff? Being able to pick out a new fireplace, brick and all that goes with it.

The crappy part to this? Fireplace being completely built not to contract on many, many levels.

Anyway…

So, when the contractor came after us for interest, on top of not releasing the money in escrow, I handed everything over to the attorney. Documents, pictures, more documents, and the list goes on. Hopefully, we’ll get somewhere and things will get resolved. If and when that day comes, I will blog about it.

Oh, and did I tell you the fireplace work started the week of our wedding?!

That leads me to number 2!

Kurt and I got married in April.

We had a very small wedding. With Kurt being in school and working full-time, I planned all the details. I love doing arts and crafts, and being able to be creative. I, personally, made all our invitations and programs, as well as put together all the decorations for our backyard reception. We didn’t want anything big so we kept it very quaint.

In fact, it was very laid back. So much so, I called a florist the week of the wedding to get boutonnieres and flower bouquets. Oh, and I bought my wedding dress four weeks before the wedding. And I could keep going with how laid back everything was.

The wedding was absolutely beautiful. I didn’t see Kurt beforehand. Gosh, it was awesome walking down the aisle and seeing his reaction!! Standing hand-in-hand with him at the altar. Saying our vows, exchanging rings and lighting our unity candle. Take me back to that day!

I’m incredibly blessed to have amazing in-laws and a new sister and brother in law. They are truly everything I have prayed for. I’m so grateful!

#3 – I turned the big 3-0!!!! 

#4 – Races?!? 

I haven’t been racing much this year. I have a few things planned for fall, but we will see what happens. Most of the races I wanted to do this year didn’t really pan out. Major things came up the week of or weekend of the race, so I didn’t do them. With life being extremely chaotic this year (and a year full of lots of change), my thoughts were to wait until the last minute to sign up (and yes – pay out my butt to race).  I’m still running…even running with both dogs. Bravo and Lexi LOVE running with me. Bravo gets so excited when he sees me put my tennis shoes on, and races to the door to grab his leash off the hanger.

There’s many more things that have happened – This is just a peak into life. I’ll be back to share more!!!!!