Homeownership

They say that on your first anniversary you are supposed to give a gift in the form of paper. Matt and I took that challenge and decided to buy a house. Yes that’s right we are homeowners and have been busting our butts ever since!

First we had to find the backyard through all the over grown shrubs and privet hedges. We must have made at least 15 trips to the dump! After that was finished we with the help of friends and family put in a fence for our wonderful four legged children Sassy and Tucker. We ran into some trouble with the back neighbors who said “it was the worst fence in the entire world and that we were ruining the neighborhood!” As far the other neighbors, they were glad we were talking interest in the property and brought us fruit baskets, pound cake, and brownies. After that drama, we with help of some really great friends ripped up the white carpet in the dining room (that wasn’t bad) and tile in the living room (which had brick vinyl under it!) Matt and I then put in hardwood floors (in the living dining, hallway and foyer) and new baseboard and shoe molding down. Which sort of lead us to our next project that was not planned to be this soon. We noticed that there had been some water damage by the bay window in the breakfast area so we decided to put in gutters and gutter guards this past weekend and did some touch ups to make sure the foundation stays in tip top condition. I think that we are done with the house projects for now, fingers crossed. What a blast it has been...we heart homeownership!

We moved in the house mother’s day weekend and I had just enough time to unpack and we had our first house guest for our annual Mayboil. Fun times were had by all! I know I still haven’t put up pictures of the wedding and now I have to put pictures up of the house. I promise I will do those as soon as we get internet in the house. Bellsouth/ATT are crazy and they don’t have enough something to support all the neighborhood with DSL...to technical for me, all I know is that we don’t have internet and thank heavens for iPhones! To be honest I really haven’t missed it much recently because we have been so busy. I’m in my last week of “work” and then we’ll be going down to Tampa for a week of vacation and for my eldest niece’s high school graduation. Then I’m working two weeks in June for extra money…I like to call it living room furniture money or money to fix Matt’s transmission. Yep that’s right in the middle of doing all the work on the backyard Matt’s truck decided that it didn’t want to go in reverse anymore. Thank heavens once again that we have great friends with extra vehicles!

Guess that’s about it for now…Happy Summer Everyone!!!

Time Sure Does Fly By

So it’s been 6 months since our last update and so much has happened, so here is a brief rundown of what we have been up too. We went down to the beach for Matt’s and our friend Joe’s birthdays. Then stayed really busy with football games and even took a trip to Kentucky for the game. We stayed with a wonderful couple that we met on our honeymoon and had a blast. We spent Thanksgiving in Meridian, were for the first time we only had to go to one house and eat once! Christmas was down in Tampa this year where I decided that it would be a great idea to close my hand in the car door! No worries I didn’t break anything, it just hurt really bad for a bit. For New Year’s we stayed in Starkville and went to the Veranda with friends, and also ran into some old/long lost friends, it was Great! Next came my birthday and a three day weekend at that, so we decided to celebrate it all weekend! Now basketball season is in full swing and that keeps us very busy too. Just hoping the Bulldogs can get a few more W’s! We are currently looking to buy a house, so that consumes our “spare time.” I guess that’s about all for now. I promise that I will try to do better. :)

Summertime

Matt and I have been enjoying our new married life together. We’ve been having lots of fun and staying pretty busy this summer. We started it off with our annual Crawfish Boil which was yummy! It seemed as I wrapped up with work and the end of the school year, Matt’s summer softball schedule swung into high gear playing two nights a week. I stayed busy doing odd and end things during the day like cleaning the house, playing with Sassy in her pool, and changing my name…that’s right I’m officially Mrs. Monica Gonzalez Young!

We took are annual trip to Tampa for the 4th of July and had a chance to relax on the beach for a few days. However, I was a “bad wife” and left Matt in Starkville to go down to Tampa about a week before, but I don’t think that he seemed to mind too much. Once we got back we did tons of shopping to take advantage of the wedding registry discounts. We decided that these purchases were well deserved since we had been using the same appliances from our college days. Now school is back in session and we’re just waiting for football season to start! Go Bulldogs!

As soon as I get a chance, we’ll get some pictures from the wedding up on a slide show.

Wedding and Honeymoon

So it’s been awhile since our last update, but rest assured that we are doing great! The days leading up to the wedding were rather stress free due to our long engagement, my OCD tendencies, and the fact that the out-of-towners did not all come on the same day. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and everything that we hoped it would be. The reception was gorgeous; however the ride to the reception was not so great. As most of you knew I was not feeling my best thanks to the limo drivers driving, but things started to look up and we had a blast! We will hopefully have pictures up to share with you all very soon!

As most of you knew we went to Mexico for our honeymoon, what no one knew was that it was going to be at the beginning of the Swine Flu Outbreak! Things were relatively calm at first and where we were staying was hours away from Mexico City so we weren’t too worried. The only Mayan Ruin that we were able to visit was Tulum and it was beautiful! The next day we were supposed to go to Chichen Itza; however, the Mexican government closed all the archeological sites due to the Swine Flu! This is probably a good thing because we would have gone anyways! So what do you do when your trip gets canceled and you are at an all inclusive resort, you go to the pool and pool bar! This is where we met 3 other couples on their honeymoon and another couple who was on their honeymoon plus getting married there! They invited all of us to the wedding and we had a really great time! We also had the chance to go on a zip line and do some local shopping where we got some really great bargains on silver!

All in all we had a fabulous, wonderful, tremendous, etc time! Words cannot express how wonderful April 25, 2009 was for Matthew and me. We are blessed to have found each other and to have such a wonderful family and friends!

March Showers

The month of March has been crazy busy with basketball and of course wedding stuff! We have had two showers this month. The first was our Starkville Kitchen shower which was super fun considering it ended with karaoke! Then I went down for the Meridian shower while Matt went to New Orleans for his bachelor party! I think that we both had a great time in different ways! :) The weekend in Meridian was very productive for me. I stayed with Matt’s mother and she helped me put together all of the wedding favor…whew!

I was finally able to pick up our marriage license this week! When I tried before the printer was broken, thankfully I like to get things done ahead of time or we would have been in some serious trouble! Matt and I have not received our passports for our honeymoon yet, but they should be coming in the mail any day now. Matt and I also picked out the readings, etc for the wedding ceremony just this week! Now I just have to start making the programs…fun!

On a side note…I hate airlines! We were originally going to be flying out of Columbus, then that flight got canceled so we were going to fly out of Tupelo. Three days before our final payment was due, I get a phone call stating that the Tupelo flight had been canceled! So we are now flying out of Memphis for the same price that we were paying to fly out of Tupelo! No refund/reimbursement because of how late the change was. They said that they must go with current booking prices! Why are we suffering when we are not the ones who canceled the flights in the first place! The one thing that has been great with all of this, is that we went through a travel agency who keeps me informed when the airlines change/cancel their flights. If not for them, the airline could have put us on a flight leaving anytime they wanted that day!

All and all things are going really great and no I’m not stressed! We meet with Old Waverly next week to go over the final details for the reception. Also, in 1 week from today, I’ll be going down to New Orleans for my bachelorette party! It’s hard to believe that our wedding is 29 days away! It seems like it was just yesterday when Matt proposed!

Tampa Shower

I flew down to Tampa last weekend for my shower. It turned out really great and everyone had a really nice time. I would also like to add that everyone was on their best behavior, which was a big relief for me! While I was in town, the girls and I were able to pick out their shoes and jewelry, so they are set! I just ordered my shoes today and elected to go for comfort, yeah!

Matt and I have both been very busy getting all the paperwork finished. In less than one week we took our blood test, applied for our marriage license (which we can pick-up Friday), ordered our passports, and met with the priest to go over the ceremony order. We have also started addressing invitations which is a bigger process than I originally thought. I also never understood why everyone suggests getting extra envelopes until now!

As of today, Matt and I are at the 2 month mark/count down! I’m sure these last two months are going to fly by and the big day will be here before we know it!

My Birthday and CEE Weekend

WOW! I don’t even know where to start! Things have been so crazy and busy over the past few weeks. To start, I have turned 30 and love it! I’m a firm believer that you are only as old as you feel and act for that matter, so I think I’m pretty safe for awhile.

As far as wedding stuff goes…we have booked a DJ finally, which is the last of the bookings that we needed to do! We have got our favors in and just have to put them together at some point in time. We purchased the rest of our attendant’s gifts which should be arriving today. We ordered invitations which should be coming in tomorrow depending on the weather! Finally, we picked out tuxes this weekend! What a relief to get all of these things done!

Matt and I had to attend a Catholic Engagement Encounters Weekend as part of our per-marriage counseling. So this past weekend we made the trip down to Jackson and spent the weekend listening, writing, and discussing. The great part is that Matt and I passed with flying colors (so we say) because we had previously discussed 98% of the presented topics. It was nice to revisit the topics and make sure that we were still on the same page!