A whole new world

We've been a bit incognito over the past couple of months. Life has taken us on a whole new adventure down in the Texas hill country. We moved in five days before Christmas but, so much has happened, it feels like weeks have gone by. We've had a few surprises, good, bad, and ugly, and if my three year old lets me, I'll share them with you right now.

First of all, The House. We're loving the space and how brightly lit everything is. We're on a corner lot up on a hill and the light just streams in. In fact, I went to Target last night and bought some black-out curtains for Easton and Liam's rooms because it's a little too bright for napping.

The views are amazing. I never dreamed I'd have a house with a view. There's a golf course next to our neighborhood and we get to look down on the green and the course pond. Super cool. My favorite part of the house is that there are walk-in closets in all the bedrooms, and a closet just for games and toys. I'm in organizational heaven.

However...we've had a few unpleasant surprises. I guess that comes in hand with any new home purchase, but, sometimes I want to wring our inspectors neck. First of all... roaches. Just typing the word makes me shiver. Not in our home (thank you, thank you, thank you), but in one of our storage units. Apparently they love cardboard and infested several of our boxes. I had to spray a barrier around our garage and unpack all the boxes out there. Sometimes boxes went flying out the garage door. Those were the ugly ones. Ew, Ew, Ew!

Then there were the fire ant mounds up to our knees. Fire ant killer has already been spread, but not before they got to our dog's food.

Third on the critter list, bats! I knew that Austin had some famous bats but, it didn't occur to me that they might make a home in our attic too. We found a lovely bat skeleton upon opening up the attic storage space. No, Bekah and Matt, in case you were wondering, we didn't keep it.

You're probably grossed out already but still wondering what this has to do with a home inspector. Well, the moment we drove up to our new house, we noticed something very unsettling. It was dripping water. More specifically, the overflow line from the HVAC unit was dripping water. After a house call from a very helpful technician, we discovered that there was a jumper (whatever that is) that was set wrong probably when the house was built two years ago. This caused the AC to turn on whenever the thermostat called for heat. In order to compensate, the Emergency heater would then turn on. So, you'd have the AC and the Em heater running simultaneously. This caused ALOT of condensation and I'm sure a ridiculous energy bill. I can't believe the previously owners never had someone out to fix it!

Upon opening the front door we noticed another despicable sight. There was a piece of carpet that had been cut out and replaced unprofessionally (with duct tape) with another. Our best guess is that something was spilled that couldn't be fixed, so they improvised. The good news is that we have a fairly substantial piece of extra carpet that we're hoping a professional can do a better job with the patch.

Then we walked into the kitchen and noticed a big area of very damaged counter top. It's a charcoal colored laminate counter with beveled edges that if you don't look too closely, looks like corian. However, it doesn't take well to heat and we're pretty sure by the markings that a coffee pot had permanent residence in that damaged area. We have a couple a choices, take up drinking coffee, or replace the counter top. I think for now I'm going to invest in a large butcher block that will sit right there.

The next day, we were ready to do dishes and discovered that the dish washer is dead. Another lovely technician told us it's the motor. Fortunately that one's covered by our home warranty. But, they still haven't fixed it and We've been doing dishes by hand for over a week. Good news is we discovered HEB grocery stores make a great holiday meal. I wasn't about to cook one from scratch with no dishwasher. I know people survived before the invention, but, I'm too spoiled to go back to that.

After the dishwasher discovery, I was wondering if we'd made some horrible mistake. But, things are all getting resolved and as we settle in, it's starting to feel like home.
One of the first things unpacked was our Christmas tree. With Santa coming in a mere days, it was a big priority to the kiddos.
Christmas was great to us. I got a new camera that simply makes me drool. I'm going to have so much fun documenting our adventures with it. The picture quality makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. The photos you see on this post have not been edited at all. I LOVE how bright the colors come out.
I've already made my first purchase at the San Marcus outlets. They are just 20 minutes from my house. Dangerous I know. I found this shelf for a steal. We don't have a fireplace in this house, so this is our new makeshift mantle. Chad hung it Christmas eve for us so we could hang our stockings up. Good thing Santa has a magic key to get in our door (according to Carter)

While we miss all our friends soooo much, this area does offer lots of things to do. We already spent an evening on the river walk among all the Christmas lights. It was stunning! Sorry, no pictures. I hadn't gotten my new camera yet and my old one could never take a quality picture after dark.

Then, yesterday, the boys and I ventured into a little German town called New Braunfels. It's home to the famous Schlitterbahn water park, but we went yesterday for their train museum. It's a little on the small side. Carter said the one in Dallas is better. But, it was free and got us out of the boxes for a while.

Since we were there and had a good parking spot, we continued past the museum to explore downtown. Too cute!


Everything was decorated to the hilt!

It was like we stepped into a different era.

I'm looking forward to tubing down the river this summer!We snagged ourselves a little FHE treat here!
The Bell tower kept the time for us. There's something so comforting to me about hearing bells chime.
The architecture was a little eye candy for me.

Check out that hipped roof!

We're looking forward to many more discoveries and would love to share them with you if you ever come down this way. Hope all your families had a wonderful Christmas too!