Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime

Ben and I love to travel. We were fortunate to have an extended period of time off for 4th of July, so we hopped in the car and drove up to Chicago to see our families. It has been almost a year since we've both been back together.

We went and visited my parents for a few days and Ben worked his magic organizing, decorating, and moving furniture to make the house feel more comfortable. I wish I would have taken before and after pictures, because the end result was spectacular. My mom raves about it every time we talk to her. We also had the most amazing ribs on the BBQ from my brother. He's definitely the grill master of our family. On a different day we headed out to a little Mexican restaurant and had a delicious meal. Believe it or not, Texas has the worst Mexican. It's mainly Tex-Mex and they use chili as sauce and liquid smoke in their beans. Yuck!

After a couple of days, we headed up to my mother in law's new house. It has beautiful views and an in ground pool. There was of course, pictures to be hung and furniture to be moved into place, so we spent the first afternoon getting the house ready. If you haven't guessed by now, my husband is talented at arranging/decorating homes.

Speaking of homes, we have finally made a decision. We are renting our home in Indiana again and building a house in Highland Village, TX! After our last home building experience, I had vowed never to build again, but this time will be much different. Ben and I live in the same state and we have been able to customize things to be the way we'd like them to be. Yesterday, during lunch we met with Peggy (she is basically the liaison between us and the builder/architect). The architect had finished the elevation (Front of the house design), so we had to go and approve it. It will be a craftsman style home with Brick and lots of stone with a cool feature at the front entry way. The house will also have these beautiful cedar shutters. The plans are almost finished and they're working on getting the permits. Hopefully ground will be broken next month.

Saturday, we're headed out to pick out the interior finishings.  This is the fun part of the building process. The things we'll be picking out are the flooring, countertops, cabinets and paint colors. At a later date, we get to go to a lighting store to pick our our fixtures.

The house will be finished the end of January and we're happy to be embarking on this new adventure.