I posted a blog entry in August just before I officially became a homeowner called My New House – Before.  In that entry, I showed several photos of what the house looked like at that time.  This entry shows what the house looks like now (or at least what it looked like at Christmastime).  (I apologize for the quality of a couple of the photos.  They were taken with my iPhone and I don’t have a picture like it taken with my camera yet.)

Here is a link to the Flickr photo album with these photos and more.

2009 was quite a year.  The most important and exciting thing that happened to me this year is that I bought my first home.  I’ve looked and talked and planned for several years.  The pieces all fell into place very quickly at the end of July for me to officially begin my search for a home.  The house I bought was the first one me & the realtor that assisted me looked at together.  Greg (my realtor & Lindsey’s father-in-law) found me the perfect house.

My other major purchase of 2009 was a Nikon D90 camera.  I’ve had fun playing with it this year.  Although, I haven’t ventured far from the automatic settings yet.  One of my goals for 2010 is to learn more about what all my camera can do.

Lindsey, Kelly, Hayley, & I saw the Paisley Party Tour stop in Tulsa in January.  It included Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, & Darius Rucker.

My mom’s birthday in January marked the beginning of a very bad ice storm.  I don’t remember ever having weather like that.  The ice was crazy.

In March, Kelly & I went to San Antonio for a few days.  We saw a bit of a history at the Alamo, had dinner on the top of the world, and even visited the beach.

In April, we took our annual trip to Dallas/Fort Worth for some NASCAR.  While down there, we visited the Sixth Floor Museum & Dealey Plaza where JFK was assassinated.  Jeff Gordon finally won a race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Memorial Day weekend I traveled to Charlotte, NC to visit Penni and go to the NASCAR races that weekend.  It was a weekend full of rain but it was a great weekend of visiting old friends and meeting new ones.

In June, I went to a couple of concerts.  The first one was Casting Crowns at the Church at Pinnacle Hills.  The second one was Chuck Wicks at the Poultry Festival.  I got to meet Chuck in person twice (once by accident) that evening.  It was great!  He’s hilarious and very down-to-earth.

Lindsey, Shelby, & I made last minute plans to go to Junction, TX in July to our cousin Lacey’s wedding.  We made Mom come too.  We took our time going down to visit Mom’s brother (our uncle) Mark and also to visit Dublin for some wonderful Dr Pepper.

In the beginning of October, Shelby & I traveled to Dallas.  The University of Arkansas Razorbacks played the Texas A&M Aggies in the new Cowboys Stadium.  Shelby, our uncles Mark & Rod, and I went to the game.  It was an awesome game in an aswesome stadium.  I’m hoping we get to go again next year!

In mid-October, I traveled to Phoenix with a couple others in my department for an SAP conference.  Besides the conference, we took some time to do some sight-seeing.

The last trip I took in 2009 was with Shelby the first weekend of November.  We went back to Dallas/Fort Worth for the NASCAR race.

Here are the blog entries I wrote this year related to my year in review.

January 3, 2009 10:57 pm - The Nikon D90
January 4, 2009 5:54 pm - New Camera – Day 2
January 10, 2009 10:32 pm - New Baby
January 11, 2009 2:38 pm - The Red Coat
January 24, 2009 8:56 am - Tulsa Bound
January 26, 2009 6:40 pm - Family Tradition
January 28, 2009 1:34 pm - Be Still!
January 29, 2009 6:32 pm - Tulsa Time
January 29, 2009 8:27 pm - Ice Storm
February 1, 2009 12:02 pm - Ice Storm Aftermath
March 5, 2009 9:00 am - San Antonio Bound
March 6, 2009 9:25 pm - Where’s Dad When You Need Him?
March 7, 2009 8:31 am - 173 Years Later
March 14, 2009 3:03 pm - Life is like a box of chocolates
March 14, 2009 3:59 pm - A bit of history
March 15, 2009 6:38 pm - The San Antonio Zoo
March 15, 2009 6:57 pm - The Texas Beach
March 15, 2009 8:03 pm - Sea World
March 21, 2009 2:40 pm - Tower of the Americas
March 21, 2009 4:15 pm - San Antonio Re-Cap
April 18, 2009 4:05 pm - Who Dun It?
April 18, 2009 4:45 pm - He finally won
June 20, 2009 3:58 pm - Chuck Wicks Times 3
June 27, 2009 4:47 pm - Casting Crowns
August 9, 2009 4:58 pm - My New House
August 23, 2009 5:42 pm - My New House – Before
October 7, 2009 9:52 pm - Long Wait
November 6, 2009 3:32 pm - Shop a Little, Race a Little

As far as 2010, I don’t really have any plans for any major traveling.  I know we’ll go to both NASCAR races in Texas in April & November.  Other than that, this may be a year that I take it a bit easy as far as traveling goes.  I do need to catch up on here with some blog entries.  I really want to share what my house looks like now that I’ve gotten it painted and decorated.

As you know, I’m currently working on fixing up a few things in my new house.  (Well, I’m unfortunately probably not being very helpful especially this week.  My mom and especially my dad are being very helpful!)  Anyways…I’d like your help generating ideas for something.  I have a large wall in my entryway (actually going up the staircase) where I’d like to paint a bible verse.  I need ideas!  I’d love to hear verses that you love or that you think would be neat painted on the wall.  (It’s amazing how many verses there are that I forget when I’m trying on purpose to think of a good one for something like this.)  I don’t have an immediate deadline to pick one so feel free to think about it for a couple of days.  Thank you!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I am in the process of buying my first home.  The process is moving on along.  At times, it seems really fast.  While at other times, I feel like I play the waiting game way too much.  I guess that is the nature of the beast that is home buying.

I went by the house yesterday and took a bunch of pictures inside and out of the house.  As soon as the keys are mine, we plan on doing a bunch of painting and floor cleaning/replacing so I wanted to have a set of pictures that I can use to compare to later on.  Plus, more than one person have asked for more pictures of the house.  This kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

Here is a quick tour of the house followed by a link to a Flickr photo album with these photos and more.  I’m going to hold off sharing what our preliminary plans are for wall colors and so forth.  I do want to let you know that the paint color on all of the walls (minus trim) will be changing.  Plus, the carpeting will eventually all be replaced (with wood laminate, more than likely, in the dining room & master bedroom and then new carpet everywhere else).

Let’s start with the exterior of the house.  Right now, the yard is not fenced in (except for the sides where the neighbors’ fences are & a barbed wire fence at the back of the property line where it separates me from a large field).  It is a great shaped yard, though.  It will be perfect for my dog Gracie to run and play (after a fully enclosed fence is put up).

This is a view from the front door looking straight ahead.  The doorway to the right is the formal dining room.  The little closet ahead is the coat closet.  The staircase to the left leads upstairs.  The door to the left is a little half bath for guests.  The back room is the living room.  The 2nd picture is a view down to the front door from the upstairs balcony.  As afraid of heights as I am, I’m going to have to rely on people who climb ladders to clean and decorate that ledge.  Haha.  The 3rd picture is a view from the back of the house to the front door.

This is the dining room.  I love the light fixture.  I actually love all of the light fixtures in this home.  They are the colors I would pick (not a gold-tone person so I lucked out & have none of that in the house).

The dining room has a doorway that leads into the kitchen.  (You can see through to the dining room in this picture.)  I love this kitchen!  (You’ll have to excuse all of our junk sitting on the counter.  There is a sink in the midst of that clutter.)  On the right hand side of this picture, between the refrigerator space and the top cabinet, there is a door.  This is a good sized pantry.  To take this picture, I am standing in a breakfast nook area.

If I make a 90 degree turn to the right from where I was taking the above picture of the kitchen, I can duplicate the next picture.  This is a view from the breakfast nook into the living room.  The open glass door on the right leads to the back covered patio.  To left of the fireplace is the utility room/garage and the master suite.  I love all of the windows on the main level of this house.  There are 5 in the living room/breakfast nook area plus the glass backdoor.

Here is the master bedroom, bath, and closet.

Now, let’s head upstairs.

On the 2nd level there are 5 rooms – 2 spare bedrooms (pics 1 & 2), an office (pic 3), a bonus room (pic 4), & a full bath (pic 5).

That does it for the walk-through.  You can check out the full photo album here.  I’ll start posting during/after photos as soon as we get started.  I’m hoping that is very very soon!

If all goes well, this should be MY house within the next month or so.  The home buying process up to this point has gone very quickly.  I went to the bank a week ago Friday to get all prequalified.  I looked at this house on Wednesday and then I made an offer & accepted the counter-offer on Friday afternoon.  The house is in a great location – a quiet cul-de-sac 5 minutes from work, as a matter of fact.

The house is going to need a fresh coat of paint in all of the rooms and the carpeting will need to be replaced.  Other than that, it is a 2150 square feet house in great condition.  I’m looking forward to officially getting the keys and being able to decorate and move in!  I have a feeling the closing process is going to take what seems like forever!