We are in Oregon right now visiting family. We went camping and to the local Independence Day celebrations. At a nearby fair, Jared volunteered to go in the dunk tank for his 2 nephews (ages 8 and 7) to try to dunk him...come on, what were the odds. Then his fair wife, Krystal, took her chance. Here is the evidence....
Jared is the one on the right...
OK...obviously we are excited about our new house but you can't blame us for our eagerness to continue posting updates on it. Right now, our house consumes all of our free time, which we don't mind. We are so excited about all the changes, whether small or large, we are making or plan to make on our house. So here are some before and after pictures. The Before pictures are when we did the walk-trhu with the realtor, so the "stuff" in those pictures isn't ours.
Livingroom Before................... 
Livingroom After....................
Dining Room Before(Notice the ugly built-in cabinet).................... 
Dining Room After(Ugly cabinet is gone!).....................
Hallway Before.......... 
Hallway After(The difference is the floors and light fixture)..........
Master Bedroom.......It is hard to take a picture that captures the whole space. We have one other window, a night stand, and chair on the other side of the bed. It is a nice size room. (The painting on the wall is one that I did 2 years ago. It cost a total of $30!)
After finishing the hardwood, Jared and I installed new tile in the bathroom because the old tile was falling apart, literally. We found stick-down tile at Home Depot that allows for spacing to apply grout. It looks so good and it was super easy and fairly inexpensive...maybe $30 total. We spent only a few hours.
Before (both floors aren't finished in this photo)..................
During (hardwood sanded and transition removed)..................
After (yep, it's amazing!)...................
Jared took a picture of me when I didn't really want my picture taken...my hair is not fixed but at least you can see how short my hair is now. You can stay tuned to new posts and notice my hair when it is fixed.
My handyman husband installed a fan in our bedroom. Since our house is small, we only considered small fans. What we didn't know was that small fans require smaller-than-normal light bulbs. We purchased the right type of bulb (candleabra) but hoped that the energy efficient bulbs would work...they were too big. So we took them back to Home Depot and bought (again the right type) compact florescent bulbs, which barely fit. The light fixture nearly crushed the bulb...so we took those back and had to buy the inefficient round bulbs because those are the only ones that fit! The love the fan so the bulbs were the compromise.
Before.................
The Handyman in action.............
After....................
Our Open House Party was a success. We had TONS of food, with hardly any leftovers. The party was a blast! We invited our co-workers, neighbors, friends, and people from church. We estimated more than 100 people attended over the 3 hour block. We felt so loved! We definitely have made a place to call home here and we feel like we belong to a community of people who care about us. 
This weekend we did a lot of work in our front yard. Since we don't have enough time this year to create a garden in our backyard, we found the perfect spot in our front yard for a garden.
BEFORE......................
UNDER CONSTRUCTION.............
AFTER.....................
This is a tribute to my wonderful husband! We hit our 4.5 year mark and I can't believe that much time has passed. It feels like we are still newly weds, except for the fact we know each other sooo much better. Who knew that we were so perfect for one another when we first met! Time has passed and I have never felt so blessed in my entire life to be with Jared, who is literally the man of my dreams. I am so lucky...and happy :)
Jared helps me up with his brute strength...
and he helps me (gracefully) down...
I have so much fun with you, Jared. I love you!
I walked in George Mason University's graduation ceremonies but I am not really done with my thesis yet. Anyone who anticipates graduating in 2009 walks in May...I anticipate being done before the end of this year so I walked. I am in the Geographic and Cartographic Science masters program. My thesis is analyzing the effect of foreclosure on neighborhood property values. I am almost done with my proposal and will be presenting it to my committee sometime this summer.
Since I am technically not done yet but I walked, I thought it appropriate to take a picture with my Advisor begging him for mercy...
Yeah, we are so behind on our posts that I am spending this weekend catching up....My parents came to visit the last weekend in March. This was there first visit since we have moved to DC so we gave them the classic tour or DC.
I like this picture of my dad. It is kind of funny...
Of course we had to visit my work.
This is mom pointing at one of my map creations.
With homeownership comes new responsibilities...and allergies :) Jared spent HOURS mowing the lawn for the first time. We have a large lot for this area. It is nearly 1/3 acre. Since we have a small house, that means more yard. The grass was more than knee high by the time we bought our lawn mower. It seemed like the day we bought our house, the rain started pouring and the grass grew like crazy.
This is our backyard. I am standing right behind our house. Our yard is HUGE.
This was after Jared got the lawn under control and then after one week of growing! We have had a lot of rain followed by sunny humid days.
We found some poison ivy or oak (can't remember which one it is) and I attempted to kill it with weed killer. That worked for the most part.
Over a year ago we booked a trip to Florida but it was cancelled due to a hurricane so we booked another for this Spring not knowing we would be buying a house. Initially we thought it was an inconvenient time to take a trip since there was so much work to be done on our new home. However, after sanding the floors until 3:00 AM for a solid week and working full time during the day at our normal jobs, the timing seemed too good. We needed a break! We went to Singer Island, Florida. The island is just off the coast of Palm Beach on the Atlantic side. BEAUTIFUL!!! The weather was ideal, sunny and low 80s with light wind everyday.
We went snorkeling...saw some BIG fish and some other small, very colorful tropical fish...for those of you who know Krystal well, she freaked out and luckily was out of the water by the time Jared saw 2 sting ray.
We rented an ocean kayak and road the waves. That was sooo fun. Jared found a pair of cute Oakley girl sunglasses while snorkeling and they were promptly returned to the ocean when our kayak flipped from some forceful waves :)
Jared jumping over a wave...
Private beach on Hilton Singer Island Resort
View from our ocean view room...
We found a local park and this is Jared getting some air on the swings...
So we closed on our very first home in late-April but we didn't move in until late-May because we were busy refinishing our oak floors. The wood flooring is in every inch of the home except the bathroom and kitchen so we had A LOT of work to do. We spent 1 week sanding and 1 week staining/sealing. We learned everything from YouTube videos and using HomeDepot's tool rental. Like I said, it was a lot of work (really, a lot of work) but in the end, the floors look amazing!!! We have received so many compliments and they are all going to our heads! 
Here are some before and semi-after pictures. We didn't take any pictures of the final flooring yet but from these photos you can see the improvements. 
This one has stain on it but not poly. The 3 coats of poly make the floor look amazing. You can see that all the scratches and dark spots are gone. We will post pictures of our open house soon so you can see the final product.
Since so many people placed handy instructional "how to" videos online, we thought we would take one of our own...not instructional but evidence of the work we did. It took 36 passes with the drum sander in one spot to get through to fresh wood that had no scratches or stains. The machine weights around150lbs.
Well...we went to the National Mall on Inauguration day with all the millions of other people. Jared had to work but I had the day off (holiday pay!). We were concerned that Jared wouldn't be able to take the metro on Tuesday morning to get to work on time and would most likely have difficulties getting home...so we decided to pack an air mattress and sleep on the floor in his office Monday and Tuesday night. However, we got lucky and a room became available at his hotel. Since we were in DC and well rested, we decided to bare the cold and walk down to the mall. We didn't go to see Obama but to people watch...and people are crazy! We walked about 1 mile because of all the road blocks to get to the Washington Monument. We spent 30 minutes there while the prelude music was playing (around 10:30 am) around the monument taking pictures and watching the people being herded in the freezing cold...then we turned around and walked back to the hotel.
The Washington Monument is on the opposite end of the Mall from the Capitol. In between they had huge jumbotrons(sp?) to watch the ceremony. People where sitting everywhere for hours to claim their seat. Crazy...why don't you just watch it inside?! We watched the ceremony at the Capitol Hilton...in the warm. 
I think for every jumbotron on the Mall their was also the same number of police lookouts. We didn't see an funny business to cause any police attention.
There were 65,000 porta-potties in DC. All these people are waiting in line! You are crazy if you think I used one of these...Jared did though.
Some organization was handing out "snacks for change." I have no idea what the org was or what "change" they were desiring. The chips were good though.
This was the free bike parking the city was hosting just outside Jared's hotel. There were thousands! What more, this was not the only bike parking. I couldn't believe how many people road into town in the early morning freezing cold...then walk in the freezing cold...then sit in the freezing cold for hours. Crazy people!
There were so many street vendors selling Obama paraphernalia. Everyone wants to make a buck on "change." 
Jared's boss gave him $20 to buy a suvinior for his kids so we got him one of these hand puppets of Obama. It was the oddest thing they were selling on the street. It made us laugh so we bought one for Jared's boss.
The trash was terrible! I can only image the clean up crew required after this day.
Although the weather has gone from 70 degrees to 18 degrees then back to 78 degrees the entire week we have been in the South, we have enjoyed our visit with Krystal's family. Here are some pictures from Christmas Day...
Jared and Dad are hard at work during the Christmas vacation installing wood flooring in the hallway and bedroom.
Here is Krystal's sister and her husband & kids decorating gingerbread cookies 2 days before Christmas.
This is our niece, Seven, who is very good at squeezing all the frosting out of the tube onto one cookie. She is sooo cute!
