10 Years!!!

 It was 10 years ago today that I married the love of my life. We have had an incredible journey so far and I am excited to see what the future holds for us. Here are some highlights of our marriage.

- The most obvious and most important, we have 3 beautiful children who bring us so much joy. They add so much excitement to our lives

- We have moved 10 times in our marriage, so it's not a good thing that we are moving one more time next month! 11 times in 10 years!

- The first place we ever bought was an apartment condo in Rocky Ridge, we lived in it for maybe 6 months...who would of thought that that $5000 down payment would turn into the house we are moving into now?! Good luck finding anything with a $5000 down payment now! I think that condo cost us $125,000. Crazy how times have changed!

- We had a dog, Sabey, she was a crazy dog, but she was a good dog. We had to give her back because our lives weren't suited for her. It was a very sad day. It was the first time I ever saw Jeff cry.

- We have been to Mexico twice without children. Once was our honeymoon but we have no pictures because our camera was stolen.

- Jeff completed 1 year of university before we were married and 3 years after. He worked like a dog. Full time in university and at one point he held 2 jobs, neither were glamorous. Thankfully he landed a job at First Calgary part way through his 2nd year of university.

- We got a rejection letter from the U of C business school after his second year of university. We had no idea what we were going to do with ourselves. Luckily, a few weeks later they couriered a letter of acceptance to us!

- Jeff completed his designation as a CA and it has been an incredible blessing to our family. He has been blessed with great jobs that allow him to be home with the family instead of drowning in work.

- We have traveled to Disneyland or Disneyworld 5 times with our children and I see many more trips to come!!

- 5 years after giving Sabey back, we were in a better position and found Bella. I swore we would never have a dog, but caved and I am so glad we did because she brings a lot of happiness to our family.


- Jeff had the opportunity to work for a company that took him across the world many times. He was able to travel to Singapore on numerous occasions, and Paris twice with this company. He always said he would take me but never did. In all fairness the timing was never right. I have told him he has to take me there at some point in our lives.

- We have been very fortunate to travel with my office a few times without kids. Once on a Caribbean cruise, once to Las Vegas and once to Victoria. We have an amazing family who is so willing to help us out so we can take advantage of these amazing vacations.

- As a 10 year anniversary celebration we took our kids on a Disney cruise with my parents and his parents. Turned out to be THE BEST VACATION ever!! I do need to blog about that trip so I don't forget about what an amazing time that was!

- We bought a timeshare in Fairmont, which we haven't used yet, but we are VERY excited to use it next year!

For my 10 year anniversary gift he spoiled me and we upgraded my diamond in my wedding ring. It's not like I ended up with a 2 carat diamond or anything, and its not something that will get noticed, but it is something that means so much to me!

 As you can tell, we have both gained some weight since our wedding day...what can I say, we were young then and I love my husband even more now then I did then. We were so young when we got married but I am so happy we have embarked on this journey together. There is not one other person I would rather spend my life with and I am so grateful for this man! He is an amazing father and an amazing husband. I could not ask for anything more in my life!

SOLD

Our house is SOLD!! That means we have sold 2 houses in 1 month!! We feel very fortunate to have had this happen, and are very excited for this new chapter of our lives.
We are headed to Langdon and have bought a house that is not too far from the school there and that will be a great house for our family.

Here are a couple of teaser pictures of the new house...you will have to come visit to see the rest.

 
The house is listed as a bungalow with a loft. It's a pretty interesting layout. The house has a huge main floor with everything you would expect on the main floor, including a decent size laundry room with a sink! Which if you know me is a huge plus. I LOVE having a sink in my laundry room and think of it as a necessity. The main level also has the master bedroom with a nice closet and decent en suite. The en suite has a large shower with 2 shower heads! We are pretty excited about that. The walk out basement is unfinished and I am pretty excited to develop that the way we would want it done. Where are the kids bedrooms you ask? Well, there is a small upstairs in the house. All that you find up there is a full bathroom, 2 bedrooms and a small loft area. Perfect for the kids. They have their own level. I see no reason for us to go up there except to put the kids to bed. Although we do plan on putting 2 bedrooms in the basement to eventually move Clara and Donovan down there. I guess Elliot will have a whole floor to himself, who would complain about that, right?
And then there is the yard. We can't complain about that, it's huge! The house is on a lot that is just shy of 1/4 of an acre, which is about what our house is on now. This house has not much front yard, so that land is all back yard. I wish I had a better picture, but I don't. Even more reason for visitors! I do want to point out the huge stamped concrete patio. We first saw this type of cement patio at Jeff's aunts house. I thought it was cool there, and now we get to enjoy it at our own house.

The house has some interesting features about it that you wouldn't pay extra for, but we are pretty excited to have them. Jeff is excited about the underground sprinklers. We don't have them in our yard and he struggles to water our yard cause it's so big there is no water pressure by the time it gets through the hose to the sprinkler in the yard. I am excited about the cool blinds the house has on the huge windows. I am excited that our master bedroom is on the main level. I am so excited for my laundry room sink and a bigger kitchen. I love the look of the rounded corners in the house, such a simple thing that usually costs too much to be worth paying for.

We will definitely miss Chaparral. Jeff has a brother here and we are good friends with their family. It is hard to leave that behind and it was the hardest thing to overcome when making this decision. We love the people in our ward and we love having a lake. We have great neighbours and it's scary to trade them in not knowing what we will be getting. Clara is so sad to leave her friends and her school. I sure hope this works out for us because I will feel really bad if we end up hating life in Langdon. I don't anticipate that happening, but we won't know until we get there.

We have just over a month to pack up the house and move into the new place. I am SO excited!!!