Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts

2.02.2012

World Traveler

Just a few days after getting home from Salt Lake City, I packed up my car and made the 11 hour drive down to my parent's house in Florida.  It was my Dad's birthday and my mom and I came up with a plan to surprise him.

The dogs stayed with Baron and I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to make the drive.  I drove into town at about 6 o'clock in the evening and just walked through the front door.  My Dad was sitting in his living room when I arrived and just stared at me for a few seconds before getting up and whispering, "Does Mom know you're here?!"  Haha!  I guess it was a good surprise!

I got to spend a few days with my parents and see some friends too.  I got to see my friend Vicki and her kids, Rachel and Carson.  We're now working on a plan for Rachel and Carson to come visit this summer once we have the house finished!




On Monday evening I drove up to Jacksonville to have dinner with some of my best friends.  I wasn't really invited to dinner but I got the details from my best friend's sister and I just showed up on my best friend's door (where I lived before getting married).  She opened the door and just stared at me for a few seconds letting the door close on me!  I opened it and we both dissolved into puddles and hugs all around.  Our other friend was meeting at her house so I hid in the bathroom and when she arrived I yelled, "What took you so long?! I'm starving!!".  She just said, "NO WAY!!" and ran over to hug me, insert more tears!


We had dinner at "The Loop", one of our old stomping grounds.  And after dinner, as a tradition, we drove over one of the biggest bridges in Jacksonville, with the windows down, screaming singing "Don't Stop Believin'" at the top of our  lungs.  We may or may not continued our tradition of a chinese firedrill at the stoplight at the bottom of the bridge...things we'll never tell our kids...or will force our kids to participate in, we'll see!

It was the shortest trip ever but well worth the drive to see some friends and family.  Sometimes the thought of being so far away from people I love is overwhelmingly sad, but the fact that I haven't seen these people in six months but we can pick up right where we left off is a blessing.  I have to remind myself how lucky I am to have family and friends even though they're 682 miles away from me, because there are people in the world who don't have anyone to lean on.


House Update:
The short story is that the realty company who works for the builder has been acting totally unprofessional.  At one point the woman who we don't really care for called our realtor and yelled at her for being "hard to work with" and then hung up on her.  After that she called our realtor's boss and told on her for being difficult and told them both that if they had a problem with her they needed to talk to her and not her boss.  Um really?! Because we have...several times...then we went to your boss. 

Apparently they all worked through their issues and it was left at an agreement for the woman we can't stand to apologize to all parties and come up with a solution for us. 

A week and a half later we got an email from her that listed five options that we had to move forward.  Problem was that none of the options were really anything new, just variations of options that we already knew we had! 

Baron and I both decided that we are no longer comfortable moving forward until we can meet with the builder directly.  We no longer want to talk to people who have no authority and who keep promising things to us and then changing their story later. 

We are calling the builder today to set up a meeting as soon as possible. It will just be Baron, myself, and the builder.  We do not want the people from the other realty company there because it will turn into a "he said/she said" and nothing will get accomplished, therefore it would go against "ethics" for our realtor to be present.  Our main objective is to let the builder know how he is being represented and that we are not happy.  Hopefully we come to a resolution that we can both agree on.  It's not the money that is bothering us the most, we just need to get a feel of the builder and how he responds to our complaints.

Ugh...never saw this being a part of our house building process.  I know it'll all work out and in a few years we probably won't even remember all this drama.

1.04.2012

It's been a year!

Hey y'all!  Another way random post comin' at ya today, but that's how my brain works.  Baron always says to me, "Brekke, you switch topics so fast that I can't keep up!"  Haha, c'mon rocket man, I can assure you I'm not talking rocket science! 

- Yesterday the sweet, Amanda,  from Kevin & Amanda invited me over to meet some of her girlfriends and have a Chocolate Taste Testing and Painting party! How fun!  Stephanie from All Artful taught us how to paint like professionals.  The amazing thing was our paintings all turned out great!  Amanda just got back from New York and had a bunch of chocolate for us to taste test.  Helllllllo, cheat day!

My finished painting!


- Our meeting with the architect yesterday went great!  They had fixed everything that we had issues with and we should get to finally sign off officially on Friday. Yay! Enter panic mode, because that means we'll have to make all the decisions about color and such very soon after.  I can't believe that we'll be living in our first house this year!


- A year ago today I was driving to Gainesville to visit Baron.  When I got to his apartment there was a note on the door that said this...
"Dearest Brekke,
Meet me at the location of our first kiss.
Love, Baron"

So I drove like a madwoman to this little chapel on the water where I knew I was gonna run in and find him.  I got pulled over on the way, started sobbing and told the guy, "I'm about to get engaged!" and he let me go (thank you officer!)  I ran up to the church and as I opened the door about three or four people walked out together and were smiling at me.  One girl even had tears in her eyes.  I looked inside and saw Baron all dressed up standing at the altar.  I ran down the aisle to get to him and he said all kinds of nice things, then got on one knee and asked me to marry him.



Reinactments of the day :)

- I heard about Free Crappy Portraits from several other blogs that I read and just had to send in a photo.  Seriously, I love this picture, and I don't think it's crappy at all!! Captures us so well.  All you have to do is send in a picture with a short description of the people in the photo.  Here's what I wrote:

"Baron is a real rocket scientist, like too smart for his own good. Brekke is a "Domestic Goddess" at the moment. We just moved to Alabama from Florida after our wedding in May. We're both big Florida Gator fans. We love our two dogs, Macey and Max (both Boston Terriers, one black and one brown), and we're both kinda miserable right now because we're trying to lose weight, haha!! Baron likes flying remote control planes and checking up on the stock market (boooooring!) and Brekke enjoys learning to cook, blogging, and obsessively painting her nails. Oh and she drinks A LOT of Diet Coke."

We're featured on their website today, go check it out and get yourself one! I seriously want to have this framed!


Happy Wednesday y'all! I hope the rest of the week is good for you!

8.31.2011

WILW

I'm loving that I've lost 10 pounds since starting Weight Watchers five weeks ago.  Slowly but surely wins the race...right turtle?!



- I'm loving that we have a three day weekend coming up. Yay for Labor Day!  I'm hoping I convince Baron to go look at model homes this weekend.  We drove around last weekend looking at houses (way outta our price range) just for fun but I wussed out when it came to actually go inside and looking at any of them.  Not sure why...I guess I just feel like an impostor or something. Ha!


- I'm loving that it's time for Gator Football on Saturday!! Yayyyyyy!  It's going to be an adjustment to be a Gator up here in Alabama, but you gotta do what you gotta do I 'spose.



- I'm loving that in less than two weeks my sista-from-anotha-mista is flying here just to drive all the way back to Florida with me the very next day.  I am so. freaking. excited.  I lived with this girl for six years of my life.  The hardest parts of my life were lived with her, but also some of the best.  I'm so so excited!!

This is typical!


I'm loving my little family. Love my husband and my two hounds that seem like lately are costing a pretty penny but they make me smile every day!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

8.02.2011

Big Surgery Day :(


Just dropped this little boy off for his big surgery today.  No puppies for us in the future!  I hope he does ok, he's getting the rest of his shots and a microchip during the surgery too. Poor little guy :(  He has to stay until about 5 this afternoon so I'm taking advantage of him being out of the house today!

Got my first Weight Watchers weigh-in in just a few minutes, hope it goes well.  I did really well this week, followed the plan perfectly.  Makes it a lot easier with a husband who supports me and eats my Weight Watchers conncoctions and tells me they're delicious.  :)

We had a great visit with my mom, it was so good to have her here.  Macey was crazy-excited when she walked through the door and slept with her a couple of the nights she was here.  We got a pedicure, went shopping, and made it to the Farmer's Market and Cathedral Caverns.  The caverns were awesome!! I wasn't sure if it would be interesting but I was so glad that we went. It was 60 degrees inside the caverns which was such a relief after being out in the 90+ degree heat and humidity.  We also drove through some of the tornado damage close to our house.  It's really humbling to see these foundations that used to have houses on them, makes you think twice and count your blessings.


Outside the opening of Cathedral Caverns


Looking out from the inside...awesome!

Driving allllll over being a tourist, caught a pretty sunset :)

Some tornado damage near our house

Just a few extras :

These 2 went to Chili's back home & sent me their pic :)  Course I was there in spirit!! Miss you two!!

Found this pic on my phone.  Taken @ Lindsay's wedding, haha, love my family :)