Simply Sarah's Adventures

HELLO THERE!

We closed on our home and are finally at a point that we can go home and not have a to-do list of projects, we hit this point back in August but man these months are flying by. Our most recent feat was getting the 4 large trees cut down out of our backyard. We hired a guy he cut them down and we saved money by not having him pick up after. We spent about 150 dollars on renting a chipper and had 4 lovely helpers (family) that spent 3 hours chipping all the limbs and branches. For the large logs, I just posted pictures on Craigslist and a guy came and picked them all up! No back breaking work for me and someone else got free wood. The backyard looks amazing now and I can't wait for Spring so I can plant my garden and redo the landscaping. I'm hoping to get a fence and till up all the grass and reseed. It's going to be so much different in just a year of owning it! We have done so much to this house and I'm so proud of it, all the money and sweat equity was so worth it and now we have such a beautiful home.

Many thanks go to my loving parents who spent hours and hours and long nights and all weekends helping us with it. And to Daniel, broseph it would have been terrible without your help and jokes. Props to my love for putting in hours and hours doing manual labor for me to get just what I wanted. I'm amazed we all were able to put up with each other throughout this whole project and work together so well.

I'm proud to say we only hired out select things because of a restraint on time and energy left.

Following are some before, during, and afters!

Dark Drab Room

Taking down the ugly trim

Bringing down the roof

After the cleanup

Dark nasty brown trim gone

Are those walls smoothed out now? I spy canned lights

The banister is her work of art

Clean floors, new trim, and smooth walls

That Banister is a show stopper

Brown on Brown on Brown

Painting and adding some much-needed lights

This odd bathroom nook

The barn door did nothing for privacy

Taking down all the walls

Going through to the next room

Reframed and drywalled

More functional half bathroom

Brown trim brown walls brown carpet Even the ceiling was three different shades of white

White trim

Painted walls and painted trim so much brighter now

Another bedroom more brown

All the brown you can get

Is this even the same bedroom?!?

Third bedroom mostly painted

Fresh and clean

Who puts a ceiling fan in the dining room?

Just another view of the ceiling fan and nasty sconce

We said out with you!

Plaster is a female dog to clean up Thanks Daniel

How is this even the same home, beautiful bullnose entryways now

Didn't get one of this installed but how useless of a kitchen faucet

Picked this bad boy up and man I love it!

And a picture of the ugliest brown paint you'll see in your life.  I think it was on sale so they painted everything this color

If you have any questions about any of these projects comment below and I'll do specific posts for you!

It's been a minute, hasn't it? 

Sorry about the break. I really should be better at this.

It has been FOUR months now since we found out Mat was accepted to medical school.

Let me recount that day for all of you. It was January, not too cold this year but still brisk. I was expecting the letter to come any day now because IU still does it old fashioned and sends SNAIL MAIL, which you hate until the mail comes and it has an acceptance in it. IU says they send out the letters of acceptance the 15th of every month starting in October. Why was I so impatient? Mat had his interview the first day of interviews September 7th, want to know a secret? He had to wear makeup that day, he had been on a Man's hike the weekend before and got wretchedly sick, he was projectile vomiting and had petechiae all around his eyes, so I gave him some coverup and showed him how to use it. Seems they didn't notice he was wearing it but I sure am glad he did cause he looked so sickly and I'm sure he didn't feel better than he looked either. 

He had his interview in September, they didn't start sending out acceptances till the next month but every month the 15th would roll around and I would get all excited and pumped that we would come home that week to an acceptance... no luck in October, no letter in November...but the Cubs won the world series!... maybe they are waiting till right before Christmas because they want it to be his Christmas present... nothing in the mail. Another round of telling relatives and everyone asking that no we still have not been accepted. New Years came and we celebrated but not without the fear of another year of applying. Then one day in January, the 17th to be exact because let's be honest I will never forget this day; my mom calls me and says Mat got something from IU in the mail... immediate tears, immediately I just start bawling all the weight was lifted. I run into my dads' office (thank goodness I work for him) crying I stand in front of him just shocked I manage to get the words out Mat got in, he is ecstatic and I hug him and cry while on the phone with my mom. She says well you don't know that yet he hasn't even opened it to know, but I know cause on the front were those words, "the first four years of a lifetime of healing..." you only get those words if you were accepted. My mom starts worrying she's getting me too excited, well it's a really small packet it's not heavy or anything. I tell her to just open it. Mom open it and tell me what it says I need to know NOW! She opens it and reads it to me Congratulations... yadda yadda yadda, I don't remember what else was said cause all I needed to hear was the congratulations. I run outside still bawling with the happiest tears I've ever had. I get off the phone with her and immediately call Mat, babe you got in! The other end was silent he's not sure if he believes me or if I'm joking. He asks are you sure? Are you serious? Yes yes I manage to get through my hard grin and tears. I was relieved, overjoyed, and thankful.  

It wasn't until the next day that I started worrying about everything else.. all that night Mat would just tell me don't worry just not today you can worry tomorrow. So that was a worry free day. I just got to swoon over Mat and his amazingness. We went to flipping cow to celebrate. Writing about all this still makes my heart and soul incredibly lightweight. He did it and I still am just in awe of how he never once worried because he knew it would happen no matter what. I look up to him and his peace and assurity he has for everything. I wish I had the same cool head but let's not get crazy and think about the impossible. Maybe with time, I will learn to be more like him.

That wasn't even the most memorable day of 2017, we have been busy since we got that coveted piece of paper.

Not even a week later but it was the next day I started looking at where we would be living, without actually knowing where we would live. IU does this crazy thing where you have to put in your campus preference and then they go through a selection and algorithm of if you'll be a good fit for that campus or not. Of course, our first pick was South Bend, Mat loved it the moment he interviewed there, it's close to my family, and I can keep my job. Immediately I went on the apartment hunt. Found some really great options but dang living around Notre Dame is not cheap! 1200 a month for a small one-bedroom apartment is not ideal for a medical school student who's already going to go deep into debt. We went and toured the apartments and although they were just built in 2013 they were already run down and breaking and that was their show apartment. Then we ran into this thing of an apartment complex trying to charge me for a free application they advertised. Boy was that a trip. One day we were sitting down to dinner with my parents and their friends J and B. They own rental properties and found out we would be renting an apartment for the four years we are in medical school. Until that night we thought it would just be best to rent. Quickly J and B spoke up about all the reasons Mat and I should not rent but own. J is a realtor for herself and began to tell us all the reasons renting is a waste. We then realized and came to terms with yes it is such a waste of money and we should really own a home. January 29th we put an offer in on a home I loved, it was run down but we had enough money left over to do some renovations and fix it up to be livable. Thank goodness we didn't get that house because we ended up with a dream. Mind you we still didn't know we would definitely be in South Bend at that campus, IU doesn't release campus assignments until the end of April. What are we thinking? Buying a house before we even know that's where we'll be living... I'm a planner to a fault and a blessing. What happened next, we kept looking, I wanted to be close enough to campus that Mat would be able to walk or bike if he wanted, as close as possible was my goal. We ended up looking at around six homes and ended up buying one that hadn't even been listed yet. The realtor for a seller took us to one of his homes for sale and I said it was just slightly too far from campus and too close to a major road for my liking. She said let me take you to this other home, it's being worked on and isn't for sale yet but I'll show it to you. Immediately we fell in love, it was perfect. Everything we needed. It was less than half a mile from campus and has brand new appliances and a brand new bathroom. We put an offer in on February 9th and the seller accepted our offer the same day, now let me tell you something. Watch HGTV and you'd think after it's accepted you can close immediately, WRONG! It took us two months before we could officially say we owned that house. In those two months, however, the contractor that was putting in the new bathroom we paid him to also put in hookups upstairs for a washer and dryer so we can do laundry upstairs now!

We closed on our home April 14th! Same day as our friends L and P. It was quick and painless. We put a 20 percent down payment so we didn't have to get mortgage insurance and fewer papers to sign! We went to the house looked around a bit took some pictures and started work! We pulled up all the stones bricks and rocks that were around the landscaping and piled them up in the back. Mat dug up the clothesline pole that was right outside the back door. After a full day of work at the house we went out with L and P to get pizza to celebrate our new homes! Our house was built in 1924 so it's a solid foundation for us to grow together in. It will be perfect for Mat and his late night studies and I have all the room I need for my nights alone! I am so excited for all our work to be finished so we can move in and settle down before we start medical school.


On April 21st we flew down to Galveston for our Wadsworth Family Fun Cruise! Thanks to Mat for getting us on our connecting flight, without you we would have had to pay more money... what is it with your bad luck and flying? We got on the boat the 22nd and I got to celebrate my birthday with free drinks and lots of sun! It was absolutely perfect and it was just the right amount of time with everyone in our family. Sad that Brooke and Edward couldn't be there but I know they needed to stay and be healthy for their upcoming baby boy! I am just SOOOO excited for them. We had seven days on the Carnival Freedom and I was ready for more, I so want to settle down someday where it is nice and warm and the sun ALWAYS shines. We stopped at three places throughout the cruise; Montego Bay, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and Cozumel Island, Mexico. Mat was so sweet and set up a small get together for my birthday, we played games with Pamela, Matt and Harry. Eventually, Andy, Brandon, Valorie, and Olive showed up. I guess there was some confusion with where we were all meeting. But that's okay it was an amazing day and I loved getting to spend it with Mat.

At the hotel before the boat!

We all got matching shirts!

Wadsworth Family Fun Cruise!

She was my sleeping heavy radiator during the emergency practice, high temps!

In Jamaica, we rented a van and drove around to all these different shops/craft markets. We were able to get off the boat right onto land. I was able to buy an elephant and a scrapbook to keep all of our postcards in. We stopped at a fruit stand too and it was delicious! I'm a fan of lychees and the mini bananas. Yummy! I even got to go see the Montego Bay Airport which was perfect! The planes landed right over the beach. Magical, all the landing lights were in the ocean. then the runway starts right after sand. I would love to land there! So beautiful sitting in that cockpit. After all of that, we went to lunch at a jerkin chicken place, I love food and all types of food! Our group that day was Pamela, Matt, Valorie, Brandon, Daniel, my Mat, Olive, Matheu, and Darien. When we went to lunch guess who showed up at the same restaurant! Mom, Dad, Harry, Jenifer, Kyle, Kiera, Mariko, Leila, Dallin, Wrigley, and Kent! So fun meeting up with them there. So unexpected. We ate lunch and we took Kiera from them. I held Kiera in our long drive up the mountain and she fell asleep. We went to the top to this outlook that didn't seem to be really well known. We took pictures and had an amazing time there in the warmth.

Kiera asleep again in my arms, so precious.

Our fruit stand stop!

While on Cayman Island we had to take hopper boats from our ship to the island. Pamela, Matt, Mom, and Dad all paid and rented a boat just for us. Jenifer ran into a family she knew and invited them as well. It was breathtakingly beautiful there. Our first stop once on the boat was to stingray city, there we got to hold stingray and swim with them. It was on a sandbar so we were out in the middle of the ocean and able to stand up and walk around. At one point I put my foot down and felt a stingray beneath me, scary moment for me right there. We got loads of amazing pictures from that day. We then went to another area to snorkel and see the fish and coral. I absolutely love snorkeling but holding the snorkel sure does hurt my jaw after a while. I want to go back for a month and live there. On our way back onto land the guys that took us out were cleaning out conch shells and explaining all the different pieces to it. I got to try Conch! It was really tasty and then I got a conch shell for Gma and Andy that was all cleaned out. We had a blast that day. I can't wait to go back again.

I just love him

Also love stingrays!

Cozumel may have been my favorite day. We got to rent Jeeps and drive them around for the day. Mat drove one, Daniel drove another, and then our guide drove the third one. They were red, white, and silver. Mat drove the red one. I rode with Daniel for most of the day in the white one. I only rode with Mat after lunch on our way back to the boat. Our first stop was going to be a reenactment sort of thing. But it was extra and we didn't want to do it and Pamela and Matts credit card wasn't working so we ended up just going to the next stop. Mayan ruins, we had a really fun tour guide there, he was energetic and would not stop talking about many babies and how fertile the structures there made women. I made sure not to touch any of them. After the ruins we drove to lunch, it was a beautiful drive along the west coast of the island, the waves would crash against the rocks on the west side and when we looped around back to the northeastern side it was calm, we ate lunch I had fish tacos and we ate lots of guac and got some amazing daiquiris and pina colada. After lunch, we got to go out on this reserve and snorkel! Yay for more snorkeling. It was incredible Mat and I saw a camouflage fish that looked like a stingray. After that we got back in our Jeeps and headed to the boat, after we parked we walked back to the boat and guess who stopped their van right next to us walking! Valorie and Brandon, Olive, Mom and Dad, Jenifer Kyle and the boys, Wrigley, Dallin, and Kent! We just keep running into them. This was such a fun day.

She was on my hip every chance she could get.

HEAT!

Listening to our guide talk about the sacred ruins.

This was the road they took from one side of the island to the other side beach.

FISHIES!

I got the best catch out there.

Sea days are great also cause we get to relax in the sun and eat any food we want! Mat, Pamela, and I got to participate on the stage for the Hasbro family game show. Apparently, we were pretty good at this game, its called simon flash. It was super fun! We won little travel games too! There are load more pics and I may do more posts later going day by day but for today this is it!

I love vacation! and I love the sun but all week I couldn't stop thinking about Friday, Friday IU was sending out the emails with the campus selection... WHERE WE'D BE LIVING THE NEXT FOUR YEARS, if we'd be living in the home we bought! So Saturday came and it was sad because everyone was leaving and vacation was over. But the minute we got on land I logged into Mat's portal and email and found out we were placed in SOUTH BEND! What a great way to end a vacation. Now the work begins on the house. I will be posting something about this soon because it has been a lot of demo and deconstruction... but it's ours and we get to make it whatever we want.

I understand that you may not care about any of this so do what you will but this is just my little corner where I get to share my thoughts and life happenings.