Hooray!

Sorry it's been so long since my last update. Things have been a little nuts around here lately. With it being the Christmas season, our "social calendar" has been a little fuller lately. We had Cameron's command's Christmas party last Thursday. That was INSANE. There were over 2000 people there, I think like 2400 or so, and the command had rented out an entire hotel for the night. All the ball rooms, all the restaurants, and they gave a discounted rate for the rooms if you wanted to stay the night. It was a lot of fun, and we had a great time. I was able to meet some of the people Cameron works with, and it was interesting to see how a larger command treats their sailors. Haha.

The Saturday after that party, in other words, this past Saturday, we had our Christmas party/open house at our new house. More on that later. Then yesterday, Sunday, was our monthly FRG meeting for the command (FRG=family readiness group...the ship's spouse's group, basically), where they were going to do holiday crafts and a cookie exchange-all of which I participated in. Haha. Then this coming Sunday is the officer's spouse's group Christmas party at the CO's house (his wife is hosting it), and the Tuesday after that I've been invited to another holiday party that is command related. Haha. Two days after that party, Cameron is able to start his Christmas leave, and we'll be headed to see family for all kinds of holiday fun. I'm tired just thinking about it all, but it's so much fun.

Cameron has really settled into his new role at this command. He is having a blast. He is also, apparently, making quite a name for himself here. He's been complimented personally by several "higher ups" about his performance, and he's being pushed toward success by his "boss" here. It's been awesome to see. I always knew he was awesome, it's just nice to see him recognized professionally too. ;) Haha.

Things have gone pretty smoothly since my last update, minus the chaos of completely decorating, unpacking, and organizing a new home in 3 weeks. You heard right. Three weeks. We had our open house this past Saturday, exactly 3 weeks and one day after closing on the house. Why are we that nuts? Because of the Navy. Haha. Cameron is underway on another ship working on some qualifications, and will be gone until Christmas leave starts for his ship, so we had to either do it before he left or not do a Christmas party at all, and wait till January for an open house. The ship's schedule is gonna get a little crazy in January, so we thought it would be best to do it before the new year. So...our option was Dec 5. Haha. And that is when we had it. I am going to list everything we did so you can understand the madness...
1. Cleaned the ENTIRE house. When we moved in, the previous tenants left it...well, pretty disgusting, actually. The off-white carpet looked more gray, the kitchen was pretty much covered in a layer of greasy yuck, the bathrooms all had remnants of past dwellers, including used soap. So...we cleaned all the cabinets and countertops, cleaned all the bathrooms, dusted EVERYTHING, got the carpet professionally cleaned, and just made it nice again.
2. Painted every.single.wall in the house. Except the closets. Every.single.wall. They were all stark white. I couldn't leave them that way. Also...cats make painting a slight challenge. Haha. I'll let you figure out why.
3. Replaced or added a light fixture in every room. There were only 3 rooms with light fixtures in them when we moved in-the entry way, the dining room, and the kitchen. Oh, and the hallways. The rest were just those plates where you COULD put one. No overhead lights anywhere, except the rooms mentioned above. So...we added them and replaced the ugly ones that WERE there. The ones that were there were a cheapo looking brass, and we changed them out for a brushed nickel type finish. We also added ceiling fans in the bedrooms, den, and living room. Total: 4 ceiling fans with lights, one dining room chandelier, one entry way chandelier, one overhead light in the office (technically the third bedroom), and one bathroom light fixture. Thanks to Cameron, I can now have overhead lighting and air circulation. And it's not cheapo brass. :)
4. Replaced bathroom fixtures in 2 1/2 bathrooms. The builder of this house, 3 years ago, decided it would be a good idea to put two-toned brass and chrome faucets and fixtures in all the bathrooms. It looked...cheap. Nothing against brass fans, but it's not our style. So we switched out the faucets in the 1/2 bath downstairs, the guest bath upstairs, and our master bath. In our master, the towel racks and toilet paper holder and everything else were two-toned too...so we also changed that out, as well as the two-toned light fixture above the mirror. And the shower head in our master was nasty, so we replaced that too. We also had to add a shower curtain rod in the guest bath.
5. Replaced door fixtures on every door. All the door knobs, door stops, the front door kickplate and deadbolt and handle...everything was brass. Once again, not our style. So...we replaced every door knob in the house, switched out the the kick plate, deadbolt, and handle on the front door, changed the keyed door knob on the back door, changed out all the door stops, to a brushed nickel type finish. It looks SO.MUCH.NICER. It is amazing what that small change can do to a door. However...when you have 24 doors in your house...it's not exactly a "small" change. Haha.
6. Hung blinds on all the windows. Ok, not technically ALL the windows...we didn't put them on the two story high windows in the living room, or the frosted block window in our bathroom. But just about all the windows. It was a lot of blinds. And they're the pretty 2 inch wide faux wood blinds, which I think are very nice looking. :)
7. Hung curtains on all the windows. Same as with the blinds...not technically every single window, but almost. Hanging curtain rods is not a fun job. But they look very pretty. :)
8. Picked out new furniture for three rooms. We needed some new furniture for a couple rooms...moving is not nice to furniture, if you get my drift. Plus, we gained a living space. We have a "formal" living room, and an "informal" family room type deal. So we only had one set of "living room" furniture anyway, and it was not in great shape anymore. So...yeah. We went shopping. Furniture shopping is hard work, man. Finding a style you like in a price range you like is not all that easy. Haha. We also needed a new dining room table. Do you KNOW how many options for dining rooms there are??? Oh my word. Trendy, or traditional? Bar height, or regular height? Dark wood? Light wood? Glass top? Metal? Small with a leaf, large with a leaf, no leaf, one leaf, two leaves...? I'm pretty sure my brain almost exploded. So...all in all...we picked out furniture for two living spaces and a dining room. And had it all delivered. It amazes me we could do that alone in three weeks. Haha.
9. Unpacked about 100 boxes and put everything away. Ok, I don't really know EXACTLY how many boxes there were, but it was a lot. I COULD go look on our inventory sheet and tell you...but that would be overkill, don't you think? Suffice it to say...it was a lot of boxes. And kind of included in that is all the furniture we had to find a place for. Deciding where to put stuff in a new house, while extremely fun, is also somewhat of a challenge. Will that fit there? Can we finagle this here? But we made everything work. :) So yeah...unpacking was some work too.
10. Decorated every room. Once the paint was on the walls, all the furniture was in place, all the curtains were hung...then came the fun part. :) For me, anyway. Cameron just kind of...left me alone for a couple days. haha. Lets just say...throw pillows, picture frames, candles, shelves, decorative wall hangings, colored towels/accessories for bathrooms, etc, all made an appearance. And it was fun. Except for the fact I had about 3 days to do the entire house. :)
11. The garage. This was Cameron's pet project. We have a two car garage, and his truck doesn't fit in it. Haha. It's too long for the length of the garage by about 6-10 inches. If he put his front bumper ON the wall, his back bumper stuck out about 6 inches or so outside the door. It was kind of comical. So...I have "my side" of the garage, where my car goes, and he has "his side" of the garage, where he has a man cave. He put down a two part epoxy floor covering, and put his "new" workbench in there, his weight bench, a tv, and some other "man stuff" in there. I think he's happy. Haha.

I think that's about it. I'm probably forgetting something, but meh, you get the picture. We did A LOT of work in a VERY short amount of time, and we are SO happy with how it turned out. Our open house was a great success. Everyone that came was very complimentary, and it was really fun to be able to show off the house.

If you have made it this far into my BOOK of a blog post, kudos to you. I hope it has satisfied your curiosity for quite some time. Haha. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season, and I'm sure I'll post more soon. :)