Where did March go?

Hi faithful blog readers... if you exist anymore.  It's been over a month since my last post!  I hate that, but we've been staying pretty busy.  So, here's my attempt to capture what's been going on.

We moved!  At the end of February, we were so blessed to have the help of friends and family to move us a few blocks down the street to our new house.  Moving is A LOT of work! I didn't do a great job getting a picture of our whole crew, but here are a few.

Jenn came down to help us on the first weekend we had the house.  Adam let us borrow his truck and we made a big dent in getting stuff taken down to the new house.  She was a huge help!

JW and Dakota making a trip.  

We had some great friends and parents help us make the big move the following weekend, and by the end of Saturday, February 25th we had everything in!

I mentioned how much we didn't like the indoor-looking palm tree plants that were planted in the front and back beds, so our moms pulled them right up and put them on the curb.  Love it! :)

Joey's dad came over the next weekend and helped us install cabinet hardware, add towel bars and toilet paper holders in the bathrooms, install smoke detectors, outdoor light fixtures, and hang curtains and things on the walls.  He was a huge help and we learned a lot from working with him.  He's moved a bunch of times so had a lot of helpful tips.

One weekend in March, I baked some small loaves of banana bread and we took them around to meet our new neighbors.  We have enjoyed getting to know them so far!

Since moving in, we've had some issues preventing us from doing laundry...  

 We had to have an electrician come out to install a new outlet for our dryer to be hooked up.  We realized when we tried to hook it up for the first time that there was only a gas dryer hookup and not a large enough outlet for an electric dryer.  That got fixed finally last week, but we've since discovered that there is something wrong with the drain that discharges the dirty water from the washing machine.  Our garage flooded this weekend when we tried to use it. I haven't been particularly thankful our washer and dryer were in the garage until this happened.  Oh home ownership!  We did a few loads of underwear and other necessities at my parents' over a week ago, and our fingers are crossed that the plumber coming tomorrow can get us up and running  pronto!

We did some fun stuff in the month of March too that was unrelated to the house or moving. 

We celebrated my dad's birthday with family dinner and a mini bundt cake tower for dessert.

Taylor came in town for a weekend from Lubbock.  It was fun to hang out with him and to go watch part of Hunter's baseball tournament together.

 Our Harley girl turned 3!

We took Hunter and a friend on a tour of Minute Maid park as a gift we gave him for his birthday.  They were cute and we had fun spending the morning with them.

We saw Tim McGraw at the rodeo with some sweet new friends from church.  The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo is a pretty big deal and a lot of fun.  We grew up going every year, but hadn't been in years.  It was a blast!  

 JW also started playing in a men's baseball league with Adam.  They had a scrimmage a couple of weeks ago that Nana and Papa came to watch with me.  I hadn't watched JW play since high school.  I still have a crush on my man in his baseball pants.  It will be fun to go to games this spring.

We sure haven't sat still much over the last month since we moved, but we are loving our new home and are so thankful.  There are a lot of projects, but we've come to learn that home ownership involves a lot of work to get settled but is very rewarding.  Here's to hoping I can do a better job updating more consistently in April!  Thanks for sticking around!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day friends and blog readers!

We feel so blessed to celebrate our love today with a set of keys to our new home.  We love each of you very much and are very grateful for your role in our lives.  Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Big News!

We have some big news.... We're buying a house!!!  A lot of you probably know this by now, but I still  want to write about the last few weeks so we can remember this process.  The Lord has been so faithful to direct and provide for us every step of the way.  I love being able to look back at times when the Lord's provision has been so apparent.  It is comforting to look at life and know that He has provided before, and He will do it again.  This is one of those seasons I know we will look back on and be reminded of God's faithfulness.

This all happened really fast.  We met the man who owns the house we're renting over the Christmas holiday for the first time.  We had communicated by email as he's on a work assignment in Brazil, but had never met in person.  While he was over, we started talking about the upcoming months and his plans.  Our lease will expire at the end of May, and he wasn't sure if he'd be returning to Houston and need his house back or not.  He mentioned he would let us know in the next few months.

So, we decided to start looking at the housing market so we'd be prepared if we needed to move again.  After crunching some numbers, we decided we'd prefer to go ahead and buy a house rather than lease again.  We started doing some research online thinking we'd be ready to buy in the next few months.

Well, a few days into our "research" we found a house listed online that was down the street from the one we're in now.  It had been totally renovated, was in an area we clearly like, and was in our price range.  We got in our car at 9:00 that night and drove down the street to see it.  It had just come on the market.  There wasn't even a sign in the yard.

I called the listing agent on my way to work the next morning, Wednesday, January 9.  They told me that the house already had three offers on it.  I asked if it was too late for us to see and and put an offer in.  They said as long as they had our offer by the end of the day, they'd consider it.  So, we called the realtor we'd worked with last summer when we were looking for our rental.  She was leaving town the next day, but was available to show us the house that afternoon.

We met her after lunch and really loved the house.  Every surface had been redone... new dark hardwood floors, granite counters, stainless steel appliances with tags still on them, beautiful tile, bronze hardware and fixtures; all the colors and finishes we would have chosen if we had been renovating the house ourselves.  I was still pretty skeptical at this point that we could get everything we needed to in order so fast.  JW was pretty convinced we weren't going to find something this perfect again and that we needed to move on it.  So, we talked to our parents, who were all unanimously supportive and encouraging, worked with our realtor and a loan officer who rushed our approval for financing, and put in an aggressive offer about 10:00 that night.  We gave it all up to the Lord, praying that only if this was His will that our offer would be accepted.

We got a call before 9 a.m. on Thursday saying that the sellers had accepted our offer.  Our realtors were on their way out of town.  But, we worked with them long-distance and met with our loan officer, who may be our favorite person in this whole process, and signed the contract Friday afternoon.  By Saturday we were under contract!  Wow. Scary, but exciting!

We had the house inspected the following week, where of course we learned all kinds of things about our 1959 house.  That was overwhelming.  We prioritized the repairs we wanted done and sent our request to the seller.  They agreed to our list, and now we are only 10 days away from our closing!

We'll do a final walk through to inspect the repairs that were made next week.  We are also still working on researching and choosing home insurance and a home warranty and negotiating our way out of our current lease.  But, we're almost there and can hardly wait!

This whole process has been a roller-coaster and a whirlwind.  Sometimes I still can't believe we are doing this.  It has been emotional and draining, but we feel so blessed.  JW and I have learned (and are still learning) to work as a team and to be diligent in challenging things to make sure we continue to make the best decisions possible.  We are also learning to trust.  To trust that God is sovereign and faithful, and that He's got it all under control.

Home ownership, here we come!  Let the adventures begin. :) 

Not Fair

My heart is heavy this afternoon.  I attended a funeral today for a family friend from church- a strong 40 year old Christian man who was a husband and daddy to three precious boys, the oldest of which is 16 years old.  As the slide show of pictures played before the service started, I found myself crying and thinking that this is not fair.  It's not fair that he was in a severe car accident before Christmas that resulted in him having several surgeries in order to save his arm.  It's not fair that his family thought everything was going to be okay, and then on Friday morning he fainted in their closet at home.  It's not fair that he died due to a blood clot relating to his accident they think.  It's not fair that his wife and three boys have to go through loosing a husband and father so young.  It's not fair that his parents outlive their son, and that his three sisters loose their only brother.

There is a great article written about Bryan here.

It is a blessing that in God's perfect timing He allowed Bryan one more Christmas with his family.  It is a testament of the life he lived for God's glory that the sanctuary was full today; full of old teammates he used to play football with and all of the people whose life he touched.  There is hope because even in this, God is sovereign and will use this for His good.

As we begin this new year, I am struck by the truth of my pastor's message on Sunday.  He preached about life being a gift.  We don't deserve and are certainly not guaranteed one more day on this earth.  Life is a gift that God gives us freely.  Pastor Curtis challenged us to pray about what God wants us to do with it.

The last couple months, we have personally been surrounded by a lot of tragedy.  Our pastor in Waco, Mike Toby, passed away from brain cancer after being suddenly diagnosed a few months ago.  A work friend of my dad's passed away this week from health issues.  My college room-mate's husband is battling very aggressive cancer for the second time in his short life of 30 years.  They have a one-year old daughter.  A co-worker's sister was pregnant with a baby boy and due on January 10.  Over the holidays the baby passed away in-utero only a couple of weeks before her due date.  Another one of my co-workers lost twin grandbabies when her daughter went into pre-term labor at 20 weeks yesterday.  And, a third one of my co-workers' brother slipped and fell over the holidays and is in a coma he is not expected to wake up from.

I don't understand it and can't begin to fathom the grief these families are suffering.  But I do know and believe, "that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, and who have been called according to His purpose." - Romans 8:28

My devotional today was about hope.  Hope in the Lord is the only thing that brings light into this kind of darkness. "God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea." - Psalm 46:1

Please join me in praying for these families; that God would fill them with His strength and His peace.

Thankful to be in Houston

Update: Pictures added
When JW was interviewing for jobs with different firms and received an offer from one in Houston, we didn't fully realize the blessing that it would be to live near family.  In fact, after living the first three years of our married lives in a different city than our families, we were a little nervous about the transition.  JW and I are both are the oldest of big families and love them very much.  When we moved back we wanted to remain independent as a couple, but also wanted to be more involved in the small stuff that we missed living three hours away.

As I reflect over the last couple of months, I am so grateful that we are here and that God in His perfect timing has us in Houston.  I have several pictures of everyday stuff I wanted to share with this post, but my google memory is apparently full.  I didn't want to wait on this post though, so I'll have to add those later when I get it figured out.

We have gotten to be a part of little stuff like going to siblings' sporting events and being a part of impromptu shopping trips and dinner visits.  We have also been around for bigger events like a Women's Ministry event my mom was in charge of featuring the Christian comedian, Chonda Pierce.  I got to be there in support of my mom and see her in action.  She really is amazing and it's fun to see God use her for things she never imagined she'd be doing.  I am proud of her.

We are so grateful that we have been close to spend time with loved ones that were sick.  JW's Papa had had a scare with seizures and was in the hospital recently.  We were able to spend the day with JW's family laughing and crying together.  Their family is so close and I really wish I could post some of the pictures I took of Uncle Ricky that day in Papa's hospital room.  He was a great comic relief.  This family has such a fun sense of humor and I am grateful to be a part of it.

My grandmother has been battling diabetes for months, but as her health deteriorated over the last several weeks, I was able to run over there after work with dinner to spend time with her, my dad, and my Aunt Kimmie.  I was able to take off work and spend the day over there when I just wanted to be next to her and to hug my aunt and tell her how strong I think she is.  I got to be there for some of the last moments with my grandma before she met Jesus.  I have sweet memories of sitting next to her bed while she slept, holding her hand and singing worship songs to her.  She loved music, especially hymns.  I have memories of singing with her while she played the keyboard growing up.  Grandma went to be with the Lord last Saturday, November 17th.  We miss her a lot, but can't help but rejoice that she is no longer suffering; that she has met her Maker and is in heaven with her family that is already there; and that she is in heaven looking down on us and waiting to be with us again one day.

Grandma and me playing dress up

We have so much to be grateful for this year.  The Lord has blessed us immensely, but I think among the many things we have to be thankful for, family is at the top of the list.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Legal Oath

Wednesday, JW was sworn in as a Texas attorney.  He took his legal oath in the court room at his firm surrounded by family and colleagues.  It was very special to have an intimate ceremony conducted by a fellow attorney and former member of the Texas House of Representatives, Joe Nixon. 

Following the signing of his legal paperwork, JW had a short speech planned.  I knew he was good at arguing and good with words, but it's not very often that we have an occasion to hear him address a crowd.  My hubs is a great public speaker and had some very sweet things to say as he thanked everyone.  Seeing as the room was filled with some of the most senior and well-respected attorneys at the firm, it was a really neat opportunity.

Of course the kids of the family wanted to try out the judge's seat. :)

We were so thankful to have Nana and Papa there.  We rescheduled the original swearing-in ceremony because Papa was in the hospital last Friday.  He gave us quite the scare, but is doing much better now.  We are so grateful!

Carol, Nana, and Papa

After the ceremony, we took everyone down to see JW's office.  He is getting settled and it is looking good.  I'll have to post pictures another time.  The family was all impressed and excited to see where JW is spending his time making roads for himself as a newly licensed attorney.  Then, we took the gang out to dinner at Maggiano's to celebrate.  It was yummy and everyone had a doggie bag to take home with them as a favor at the end of the night. 

 

Em offices right across the street from Maggiano's and stopped by to congratulate JW on her way home.  We hadn't taken any family pictures yet, so she did the honors.  We are so glad she did!

Joey and his dad

Me and the hubs

The whole family

Yay!  Proud family!

We also videoed the short ceremony of JW taking his oath, but I am having some technical difficulties getting it uploaded.  So, if I'm able to get it to work, I will add that to this post later.  It was a special night of celebration and we are all very proud of JW.

Taking the Plunge

JW and I are a little in the dark ages when it comes to cell phones.  We've never had smartphones or a data cell phone plan.  Well, we have decided to take the plunge...

 A couple of weeks ago we ordered the new iPhone 5.  I don't know anyone who doesn't love their iPhone, so we are joining the club.  Our new phones were not supposed to arrive for another week, but I received an email today saying they had shipped and should be in tomorrow!  We are pretty excited.

You know I already started looking for cases to make mine look stylish.  Here's the one I ordered.

Source

Watch out world... the Hance's are getting tech savvy! :)

Working like a dog

It's been awhile since I published a blog post, and it's been in the back of my mind that I needed to write one, only nothing notable or interesting has happened around here lately.  I asked JW tonight when we were both finally home from work what I should post about, and he said work.  How boring, I thought.  Only he's right... we have both been working a lot lately.  I've always said that I write this blog to document what is going on in our lives, and well, sometimes it's not glamorous.

My Signature Chefs event at work is only a month away and we are all starting to feel the pressure at the office.  I worked some this weekend, started working a little early this morning, and got home late today.  I wake up thinking about my to-do list and have a pretty constant knot between my shoulder blades. I should probably be doing my yoga, but don't feel like waking up early to do it and by the time I get home, I just want to sit on the couch.

I love my job and don't intend to complain.  I usually make an effort to leave work at the office and to not work or be thinking about work while I am home, but there are just some busy seasons, and this is one of them.

JW is in his third week at work and has stayed pretty busy.  He is waking up early to work out before heading to the office.  I know it's been a tiring routine to get used to, so I am proud of him.  JW's firm has had plenty of work to occupy their staff and then some over the last year.  So, they have welcomed the new associates and the opportunity to share the workload.  Late Friday night, JW got an email from an attorney at the firm with a last minute research project he needed help with for a law suit that had to be filed on Monday.  So, JW went to the office on Sunday after church and worked until dinner.  Working on the weekends shouldn't be a usual occurrence, but as Joey said this morning, at least he is staring the week with four billable hours already. :)

Jennifer closed on her new house this week and enlisted JW to help her move on Friday night and Saturday.  They did all the heavy lifting to load the U-Haul, and then I helped JW unload while Jenn ran some other errands.  Needless to say, JW did a lot of the work, but I wish I had a picture of me carrying one end of a couch. One of Jenn's neighbors walking by brought over a dolly after he saw us struggling through the front door. :)

 

In other news, Papaw was in town this week on Wednesday and Thursday night.  JW and I had Community Group with our new church on Wednesday night, so we went over to my parents to see him on Thursday.  Mom had a girls' night out planned, so I brought over some things to cook for dinner.  It was a fun evening. 

JW's Aunt Donna and Uncle Jimmy were in town this weekend too, so we went over to Nana and Papa's to see them on Saturday night.  They live in New Jersey, so it was neat to get to spend time with them.

We have been working a lot around here lately, but life is good.  It's a busy season, but we can't complain. Hopefully I don't go missing here on the blog, but if I do, you'll know why!

Welcome to the Workforce

I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend.  We did, and I'll write more on that later.  We had a nice, relaxing weekend before JW starts his new career as an attorney.  That's right... today is Joey's first day of work! 

It's been four months since JW graduated law school.  There was some studying for the bar exam during that time, but he's enjoyed a good break and is ready to put to use all he has learned and join the workforce.  He was worried about being rusty, but I know once he gets into the swing of things it will all come back to him.  I snapped a picture of him this morning before he left, of course.

Isn't he handsome? :) 

Prayers for a smooth first week are welcome.  Nana and Papa are coming over for dinner tonight to celebrate JW's first day with us.  We haven't had them over to see our new place yet, so we are looking forward to having them.

Happy 1st day of work, hubby!  I love you.

3 Years

Today, JW and I celebrate 3 years of being husband and wife.  We are in a good place.  JW is done with law school and the bar, we have settled in Houston close to family, I have started a new job and JW will be starting his at the beginning of next month, and we have found a new church that we love and are excited to get more involved in.  We feel so blessed.

We feel blessed to have a best friend in each other, to love each other more now than we did three years ago on the day we got married, and blessed to be at a somewhat "settled" time in our lives.  God has provided and taught us much.  We love doing life together and look forward to many years to come and the journey. 

Speaking of journeys... tomorrow we leave for vacation!  Three years to the day after we got on a plane for Puerto Vallarta for our honeymoon, we are headed to Jamaica to celebrate our 3rd anniversary, law school being over, and the upcoming career JW has as an attorney.  We are beyond excited.  So, I'm off to do laundry, pack, run errands, and all the other fun stuff that needs to be done before we leave!  See you in a little over a week!

Added:  Houston's is one of our favorite restaurants, and we hadn't been there since we moved back.  That's where we went for our anniversary dinner.  Yum!

Getting Settled

Ok, fair warning- this is a picture dump post.  I have been taking pictures as we moved in and got settled, but haven't blogged much, so here we go.

 Joey's dad's birthday was during our first weekend in Houston.  They came to see our new place, and we got to go out to dinner to celebrate with the family. We went to Joe's favorite local Italian place close to our house, Antonio's Flying Pizza. 

Macie, Jennifer, and Matthew

Matthew got put in charge of wrapping, and we all especially loved the masculine floral paper. :)

During the tour of our house when we showed Joe our closet we talked about plans to maybe add a lower bar since our closet only had full-length space.  He talked strategy with Joey and offered to come back over the next weekend to help.  These boys don't do anything half-way, so not only did they add a lower bar, they moved the original ones up and planned for room for shoes and belts.  It was pretty great.  Here's a final look before JW spackled and painted, so you can see how they moved the bars and shelves up.

Our closet now fits everything and is very functional.  Thanks, boys!

Momma Hance gave us a hammock as a house-warming gift.  I love it.  It fits perfectly next to our deck underneath our big tree.

Dakota and Harley are enjoying the deck and all the different levels.  We have begun calling the spa "Pride Rock" because we often look out to find one of our dogs perched up there.  They love hunting critters in our new yard and spend a lot of time back there. 

The girls up to their normal antics.

Koda Bear

Our backyard is perfect for entertaining, so we knew we wanted to get a patio set.  We have been researching and pricing them for the last couple months.  Momma Hance is a pharmacist at Kroger and got an email last week saying that Monday this week all Kroger employees would get 50% off all summer items before they were marked down for the public.  We had seen a patio set there at the beginning of the summer that we liked, so we went on the hunt for a store that still had one left.  The store near our house had one on the floor in good condition, so we talked to the manager and put it on hold to come back the next day during the sale to purchase.  Get this... We got a table, six chairs with cushions, the umbrella, and umbrella base all for $250!  Can you believe it?  We saw comparable sets for $1,000...  The lady that rung JW up at the store said we got a steal.  I agree!  And, to top it off, Joe told us that he and Grandma Judy wanted to purchase a patio set for us as a graduation gift for JW.  Happy Graduation to us!  Thanks family!

Last week, Taylor was in town from Lubbock for ten days.  He was here for Father's Day and my birthday, so it was really neat!  After we met for lunch one day, he and my family came over for him to see our house.  After seeing our backyard he asked if JW had climbed our tree yet.  Taylor was dumbfounded he had not, and decided to be the first.

I just love Tay.  I'm ready for him to graduate and move back to Houston too! :)

Ok, and one last highlight for this hodgepodge of a post.  We have enjoyed being able to order Chinese food and have it delivered to our house.  This may not sound monumental to anyone, but we never found a place like this in Waco.  We always wanted to order Chinese food when we came to Sugar Land to visit, and now we can order it anytime we'd like.  No one does Chinese take-out like Houston.  Good stuff!