The Next Big Plunge

So Billy and I took the next plunge in our relationship. We have signed a sales contract on a new home. As of June 22, we will be home owners. After a lot of prayer Billy and I decided to look for a house to buy. (The $8,000 tax credit was what really helped us make that decision.) So starting at the end of March we looked aggressively for a house with the understanding that if God opened doors for us we would walk through and if he closed the door we would move on.

After some searching, some stress, and a lot of prayer we found a house we really liked that was in our price range. The house is located in Knightdale which is a city outside of Raleigh. Billy will be about 15 minutes from work and I will be probably 40 minutes from work. Where we live now is on the west side of Raleigh and Knightdale is on the east side of town. But the area is growing which will be good for resale value in 5-10 years. (when we grow out of it :) )

Here are some pics of our soon to be house if all works out:

The Front of the House

The living room when you first walk in


The living room looking back at the front door


The dining room next to the living room


The kitchen (the door in the background goes to the laundry room and then to the back yard)


The kitchen take 2


The kitchen take 3


Master Bedroom (Their bed was huge. We think it was a California King.)

Master bathroom..to the left is the dual vanity to the right is the walk-in closet...go straight and you walk into a room with the bath tub with the toilet (see below)

Master bath (has a garden tub :) )

Bedroom 2 (This room has a nice size walk-in closet.)

Bedroom 3 (Billy already says this will be changed immediately to an office. :) )

Bathroom 2

Our back yard

Presenting Dr. Robyn Keown...Well Getting There

Back in January Robyn had a white coat ceremony to celebrate the ending of her 2 years in med school. What I really don't get is that her 2 years won't be up until June but they did the ceremony in January. Well anyways....this bachelor-degree girl just doesn't have the knowledge to understand such a thing.:)

Here are some new pics I took with my new camera that the Keown's got for me for Christmas. Billy is not in any because he was not able to make the trip with the Keown's because of work. We went down Friday during the day (which I had off because I was tracked out) and came back Friday after the ceremony. It was a long day.

Robyn had signed her name on this document. The next pic is me trying to zoom in. I was still trying to figure out my camera.

Robyn and I...should have combed my hair first.
Robyn and her parents


Robyn, Heather and Levi (Robyn's sister and brother-in-law)

The Beast

I know this is really late but I thought I would try to catch up....So for our first Christmas together I was really wanted to make it special for Billy. A couple months before Billy was going on and on about wanting to buy a TV. He kept saying that prices were going down and that it was a good time to buy. I on the other hand really didn't want to spend a whole lot of money on something that we didn't need. We had a perfectly good working TV.

Until one day this is what we saw....

(still waiting on opportunity to take pic...will be updating soon)

Billy researched the problem and figured out the only way to fix it was by hitting it. So every time our "not-working-so-good-TV" had just a line going across the screen we were to hit it. It was quite annoying when you were watching something you would have to get up off the couch to hit the TV and then sit back down. This started happening about a month before Christmas.

Even though I was putting some money back for a TV I still wasn't sure if I was going to get him one for Christmas until we started having problems and I was getting frustrated with it. So I researched and researched for the best TV at the best price. I would even ask Billy what he wanted for Christmas and he would always say a Panasonic, Plasma, Flat Panel, 42" 720p or 1080p TV. My reply would be, "That is a big item to purchase and I would rather purchase that as a couple and make that decision together. I just don't feel comfortable buying something that expensive without your opinion," even though he would constantly tell me exactly what he wanted.

So while searching I found exactly what he wanted on a website from hhgreg except it was a 50" instead of a 42". I didn't think that getting a bigger TV would be a problem. :) It was even a better deal to get the bigger TV. So when I went into the store I saw it but the price was not what it had on the website. After talking with a gentleman, he was able to knock off $200. I was so proud of myself. I first said I would take it and then called my in-laws to ask if they would keep it for me because there was no way I could find it at our one bedroom apartment. He would see it for sure. Of course they said yes. I later came over and wrapped it while Billy was at work. I thought for sure he would find out that I was sneaking around but he didn't.

Up until Christmas I would constantly ask Billy what he wanted and he would reply back with a TV and I would say I didn't feel comfortable buying it. So this went back and forth. Christmas morning I had a decoy gift that I had him open at the Keown's in South Carolina. He was some what excited about it but I could tell there was some disappointment in his face. So I constantly apologized for not getting what he really wanted.
Billy had to work the day after Christmas so we left South Carolina Christmas evening. Before we left, Billy's parents asked us to stop and check on the pets because they would not be returning home until a couple days later. (Billy didn't know that I asked ahead of time for them to ask us to do this.) So when we got back to Raleigh, Billy went to check on the dogs and I went to the spare room downstairs and called to Billy, "Hey what is this in here?" Billy came into the room and found this.

He was so surprised. I was almost crying and I think he was too. He had no idea, but as soon as he saw it he knew what it was. It wasn't until he opened it that he found out that it was bigger than he had ask for. Check out his reaction.

Now the beast of a TV sits in our living room and the other TV is in our bedroom where we still have to get up and hit it once in a while.