she said yes!

I am ELATED that after 3 months I can FINALLY blog about one of the most exciting things I've ever done with my little brother!

On Sunday, October 14, 2012, Matt popped the question to his girlfriend of 3 years, Liz!  

Whoo Hoo!  Welcome to the family Liz!

I was honored when Matt asked me to go ring shopping with him back in July.  We have been on Matt for months to buy a ring and pop the question but he just wouldn't do it.  Then one day, out of the blue, he was like "Lets run up to Shane Co."  Um, hell yes lets go!  I never imagined that he would actually invite me along.  I was so nervous the whole car ride there and wasn't even sure he would buy a ring once we got there!  Dintelmann style, we pulled in about 45 minutes before the store was set to close to begin the search for the perfect ring.  I'm pretty sure we looked at less than 5 rings when he found "the one".  It was gorgeous; what I call a vintage/antique white gold band.  About three diamonds later, there it was.  The ring.  It.  Is.  Stunning.  It was all I could do not to tear up in front of him.  Here I was with my baby brother, picking out an engagement ring!  To my surprise he bought it- we paid and he was to pick it up the next day after the stone was set.  

I was bouncing off the walls the car ride home.  I wanted to freakin' tell everyone that he had FINALLY bought a ring.  Matthew quickly brought me back down to Earth and firmly advised me not to tell anyone.  Excuse me?  No one?  Not even Jeremy?  Um, no.  I had to tell Jeremy!  I just had to have someone else to talk to about it!  Not only was I not allowed to tell anyone, I had to keep this a secret indefinitely!  He still didn't know when he was going to propose and there was no forcing him to decide on a date!  To my surprise, and I'm pretty sure everyone else that knows me, I kept it a secret!  It was so incredibly hard not to tell my Mom!  I came soclose last weekend to letting her browse the pics in my phone and just stumble upon it but I knew I had to keep my secret for Matt!  

It was so exciting to receive the text from Matt with the pic of Liz wearing the ring!  "She said yes!" was what we were all patiently waiting to hear!  

I know I speak on behalf of our entire family when we say we are thrilled to have Liz as part of our family.  That fiery redhead is one of the sweetest, down to earth, little country princesses we've ever met!  She is a dream in the kitchen, sophisticated, and a down right delightful person.  She not only loves Matthew dearly but she has stolen the heart of my son, Gage.  He loves his "Uncle Liz" and is so excited about the weddin'.  

Thank you, Liz, for being the wonderful person you are and for taking care of and loving my brother the way you do.  And thank you, Matt, for choosing to spend your life with someone like Liz and for including me in one of the biggest decisions of your life.  You're not only my brother but one of my best friends.  I love you and I am so proud of the man you've become.  

our first trip to Montgomery!

Last week Gage and I headed down south to meet my Mom, my brother and his Liz, and of course my amazing hubby to visit our new sweet home in the state of Alabama.  I've been though Alabama before on the way to vacation and have even vacationed in Gulf Shores but I had never been to Montgomery.  We have spent the past several weeks researching the Montgomery area like it is our job!  We are fortunate to have family and friends who have friends and family who live in the area that helped guide us in the right direction.  Everyone told us to stay away from the city of Montgomery unless we could afford to live in east Montgomery.  Well of course we can't afford east Montgomery at this stage in our lives so outside of Montgomery is where we're going to live!  It was difficult to decide on renting vs. buying but ultimately buying a home won.  I just can't help but feel like we would be throwing our money away by renting.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to house hunt!  I was so tired of being the person on the other end of the house hunting deal- sick of cleaning up my house in a moments notice and leaving for an hour or so during the worst part of the day.  Being the one who was making people leave was my cup of tea!  Although we own our current home this was my first house hunting experience- Jeremy bought our house just as we had began dating so I never got to experience the actual home searching and buying process.  I am obsessed with House Hunters on HGTV and had prepared myself for the big hunt.  It pisses me off when people complain about paint colors or landscaping around homes they are looking at to buy.  Hello!  You can change that folks!  I decided that was NOT going to be me- I had a short list of what I wanted and promised myself to remain open minded and look past hideous decor and crappy paint colors.

I couldn't do it.  

I tried so hard to be nice and polite in the first home we saw but it was so hard!  It smelled funny, the floor in the kitchen was crappy and needed to be replaced, the current owners had tried to paint the kitchen cabinets and did a horrible job, the carpet was dirty, the bathrooms were down right disgusting.... it was awful.  I kept mental list of what I would need to change... new floors, cabinets, gut the bathrooms... I was looking for a turn-key home with very VERY few projects and that house just wasn't it.  Although it was only the first house we looked at it freaked me out.  Was that the type of house we can afford?  Am I going to be taking on a project after all?  Maybe we should rent?!

Our realtor was simply fabulous.  She knew instantly that I was freaking out and having a mini breakdown inside.  She reassured me that we would find the "perfect home" and helped me not be distracted by the atrocious house we had just left.  I nixed the next three houses based on their exteriors, square footage and locations.  Then we pulled up to the next house.  It was cute from the outside, had crappy landscaping but was in a great subdivision.  The first thing I noticed was the HUGE backyard!  You could build another house back there!  There was room to build a garage, put in a pool, plant a garden, have a swing set AND still have plenty of grass left over for Gage and our dogs to play in.  As we went inside I fell in love.  This house had everything that we wanted; white cabinets, tile in the kitchen, tile backsplash, real hardwood floors, a giant walk in closet and big master bath...  It was perfect... and the second house we had looked at.  Each house after that just didn't measure up.  We even looked at brand new homes that just didn't compare.  I knew I had found our house but we still had two days worth of hunting left to do and Jeremy hadn't even arrived yet!

We spent the next day looking at homes around Montgomery and a few actually in Montgomery.  The first house that Jeremy saw was the house I had fallen in love with the day before.  Bless his heart he tried so hard to give each house we looked at a fair showing but I think in his heart he knew that the first house was our house.  We decided to sleep on it and see how we felt the next morning.  Well, he wanted to sleep on it.  I had already slept on it and was already arranging our furniture and decorating it in my head!

Sunday morning we ventured into downtown Montgomery to find his new office and see just how far of a drive he would have to work each morning.  Have any of you ever been to Montgomery?  It is like the land that time forgot.  We found his office building, parked and decided to get out and walk around.  There was a beautiful historic fountain in the circle from the 1850's and loads of historical markers full of information about the city of Montgomery.  His office is just across the street from the bus stop where Rosa Parks boarded before changing history!  We walked down one street and every single shop was closed.  When we peered in the windows you could see vintage- and I mean vintage- decor and signs.  The buildings looked like they had been closed since the 1960's!  There is a sweet little soda shop next to his building and down a block or so is the infamous Hank Williams museum and a few newer restaurants and thats about it.  Perhaps we didn't walk far enough or didn't drive to the right parts of downtown but it was a little sad.  From what we saw it is nothing like Lexington but we're hopeful it will grow in the coming years.

someone had a little attitude that day

the capitol building is in the middle

gorgeous historic building downtown

where my honey will be working! 

We did find the mall in Montgomery and some local restaurants that we want to check out when we are officially residents of Alabama!  We also found an amazing flea market type place full of antiques and vintage pieces!  It was awesome!  We didn't have much time to spend there but I can't wait to get back!  We made the decision Sunday afternoon to put an offer in on the house that we had found.  The next afternoon our realtor called to say the sellers had accepted our offer!  It was quick but we were prepared and knew where we wanted to be and what to look for!

As of today Jeremy has 27 days until graduation, 29 days until we close on our house in Kentucky and 30 days until we close on our home in Alabama!  We had a great time and are anxious to get moved and most important be back together as a family!  I actually didn't cry this time when I left Jeremy at the airport.  It was so weird, I was like excited to drop him off because I knew that the next time I saw him it would be for his graduation! Weird, 27 days into this he was beginning week 4.  Now he has 27 days left and is in week 17 with 4 weeks to go!  We're almost there!