Party Time

OK, posting at a reasonable hour this time! Woohoo! The housewarming party this past weekend was a great success! There were plenty of late nights leading up to it but in the end we got everything finished up that we wanted to finish up and the party turned out just as we had hoped.

Since we pretty much spent every waking second that we had cleaning up the house before people started showing up, we decided that it would probably be best if we just called in an order for some grub ahead of time. Earlier last week, Wendy and I went with her sister's family to the "Taste of Maitland" which was an event put on by the local chamber of commerce that a lot of local restaurants attended and dished out plate after plate of delicious food. I wasn't sure it was possible to be hungry and full in 3 different cycles in a matter of only 2 hours, but I can now fully assure you that it can happen. Afterwards, Wendy and I were really raving about the new BBQ joint that was there. Once we decided that we should order some food instead of taking the time to cook it, we knew just where to order from.

4Rivers Smokehouse!


Their brisket, pulled pork and barbecue sauce was awesome! Probably the best brisket I have ever eaten. For all of you in Orlando who are looking for some good 'cue check them out. They are located on Fairbanks in an old repair shop. Get ready to wait though, the line was out the door for the entire time I was there... We decided to order 6 pounds of brisket and a couple quarts of baked beans. Good choice! Wendy baked some cupcakes and brownies, and we had several other dishes that people brought. So the food was great! Why do I like talking about food so much? I thought this was a house blog???

Anyways, everyone really loved the house and all of the work that we have put into it. My dad was totally amazed that I was actually able to install a ceiling fan without even a little wobble in it and even more amazed at our painting abilities. I'll just give myself a big pat on the back, ha! I guess Wendy deserves a little credit too...

We also figured out that we can "double stack" our old sofa behind the new sectional for a poor man's stadium seating set-up for watching the game. We capped the night off with a Gator victory, so I gotta say it was a great day! Also, we were in bed at 8:45... on a Saturday. And it felt great.

Allan

Welcome In

OK everyone, well as I am writing this first blog post it is currently 2:26 am, on a Sunday night in November. Occasionally I have a really hard time falling asleep, due to who knows what (couldn't possibly be the two Diet Dr. Pepper's, DDPs for those of you in the know, that I drank earlier today...) and so to pass the time I decided that it would be a great idea to keep a sort-of journal of our entire journey into homeownership and all of the ups, downs and 50-year old wiring, near death experiences that come with it. Stay tuned for that story, ha!

I guess most of the reason why I'm having such trouble falling asleep tonight is that we have been working all weekend around the house and trying to fix this place up before we have our first ever Housewarming Party. It's actually going to be a Housewarming/Gator Football party, and according to my sources (mostly wikipedia) this makes the party approximately 75% more manly and by no means would I expect anyone to make fun of me for being excited and unable to sleep over a namby-pamby housewarming party. There will also be beer.

We're actually hoping to have two housewarming parties. This first one is going to be a family only shin-dig and later on we'll have a big "friends party" assuming we find some friends between now and then... For this weekend, my mom, dad and brother are making the trip down from Jacksonville and they will be bringing my Grandma and Grampie along with them. My parents have already spent some time at the house when they came and helped us move in but after a couple dozen trips to Home Depot and Lowe's, thins have changed quite a bit around here. I'm excited for my grand parents to see the place too! Even though Wendy's family all live here in town they are sure to be surprised by some of the changes we've made just recently. This will be the first time that Wendy's Grandma (Nono) will get to see our house and I am fully expecting a nice long "It's SOOOO Nice!" within 2 minutes of stepping in the front door. Just picture that in a thick old Italian lady voice and you'll appreciate so much more. Her other Grandma, Mimi, hasn't seen the place since moving day and so she will be pleasantly surprised that we aren't sitting in lawn chairs in the living room and using moving boxes as makeshift dining room tables. All in all, it should be a good time. I did mention that there will be beer, so a good time is pretty much a given.

Anyways, I just wanted to give a good kickoff to the blog and let you know some of the things we will hopefully be discussing in the posts to come. House hunting, short sale drama, mortgage spreadsheets, tadpole pond turned to swimming pool magic tricks, paint sample infatuations and PLENTY of other home renovation goodness. Stay tuned, there's plenty more to come!!

Allan