Happy Birthday Davis!

Originally written February 21st (this is also late, please forgive me, its been crazy around here)

My sweet little brother Davis turned 15 today, and I got to see him on his birthday! YAY!

We had a Taylor Family Reunion this past weekend, which Ill fill you in on soon. It was perfect timing since Mr. Hunt and I had to leave for Texas next week. It was the perfect time to say "bye" to everyone. We had a great weekend on the beach. On Monday afternoon, I drove Mr. Hunt to the Savannah airport so that he could fly back to Texas for work that week. Then I drove to Bluffton to spend one more night with my family.
Sadly, Davis had to go to school on his birthday today, but I had something up my sleeve! When he came in this morning to tell me goodbye, I acted like I wouldn't see him until he comes to visit me in Texas. Then  around lunch time, I went to his school, called him out of class, and gave him mini snickers bars and a Visa gift card.
I originally was going to bring him something good for lunch, but he told me that Dylan was taking him to lunch after school. I'm glad that came up in a casual conversation or else he would have had two lunches. I think he enjoyed being called out of Science class, I know I would have when I was that age. I think he also enjoys having two older siblings that can take him things to school and drive him to lunch after school. We didn't have that when we were his age.

Anyway, Davis is now 15. My youngest brother is 15! Wow, I still can't wrap my mind around that. He is going to be driving soon! Oh geez!

Dear Davis,
How many letters have I written on this blog about how much I love you and how much you are my best friend (you, Dylan, and Mr. Hunt that is)? A lot right? So you already know that its a lot right? Well good, then Ill just write something else.
You are growing up to be a great person. I can't believe how tall and skinny you are. You are now taller than all of us! Me, Mom, Dad, and Dylan! Are you taller than Mr. Hunt? I think so! You are also so funny. I am always ready for a good laugh when we are together.
Keep being a great person. You have so much to look forward to in your life if you keep on going in the direction you are now. Keep your head up and always remember that I'm here if you need anything. Cant wait for you to come visit me in Texas! I LOVE YOU!

Love,
Your big sister!

Happy Birthday Husband

Originally written February 8th (this is SOOOOOO late, but I still wanted to share)

I told you I would be back with the birthday update, I just couldn't share it until now. Like you all know, we've been keeping this small little secret about the Texas move until we are able to tell Kaki and Boss Hunt. Since we were in Austin for Mr. Hunt's birthday, I really couldn't share any details. Now I can!

I'm here to admit that I wasn't a very good wife on Mr. Hunt's first birthday as a married man. I'm still feeling horrible about it.
I had plans to fly out on this birthday morning to meet him in Texas, but I was terrified. As you know, I had never flown on my own before so this was all that was on my mind. Mr. Hunt called the morning of his birthday while I was on my way to the airport and I was so flustered that his birthday just slipped my mind. I couldn't believe it. I remembered only when I was finally sitting on the plane waiting for take off. Horrible, I know! Go ahead, you can say it....."boooooooo....Worst wife ever." I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me or anything, but this just made it worse. Here I was, terrified about this flight and then realizing that I got the worst wife award for the year. Yeah, not good.
Anyway, so I finally made it to Austin and had a taxi drop me off at his new office. He was so super busy that he couldn't talk so I just sat there. Finally around 1pm we left the office for the day and headed to grab some lunch. I think I may have said "Happy Birthday" about 20 times within an hour trying to make up for it slipping my mind earlier that day.
** I will say that I didn't FORGET the birthday. I knew it was his birthday the night before and even that morning. It was just when he called, I was flustered and forgot.**
After eating, we headed out to look for a house to live. It was fun to imagine our new life somewhere new.
Once we were finished it was already 6pm so we headed out to try to find somewhere to eat for his birthday dinner. He picked a brewery (can't remember the name, I think it was BJs) and I even let him order the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie with Ice Cream. This is a big deal because I don't like Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. You see? I'm doing better now with this whole birthday thing right?
That was it. His birthday slipped away too fast! Here is another shocker, I didn't get him a gift! I had plans too and I thought of a bunch of things, but since finding out we were moving on that Friday before, our life was turned upside down and I didn't have time to pick anything out. Yeah, I'm horrible again, but I'm here to get your faith in me back.
I had a great birthday gift for Mr. Hunt planned out for awhile now. I got two tickets to Mr. Hunt's favorite comedian (thanks to Katie) who was going to be in Raleigh NC and I got a hotel room for the night for after the show. I was going to surprise him and I was so excited. Well, those plans fell through. The show was the same Friday that Mr. Hunt found out about the job, and would be flying back to Charlotte. I didn't know about this trip until after I planned the birthday trip. So it never happened. Boo.
So you see? Mr. Hunt didn't have a great birthday. If you ask him, he will probably say it was good, but I'm feeling horrible. I really am. I need to make it up for him. I am still planning on buying him one of the gifts I had in mind before this craziness happened. Ill just give it to him a little late.
So do I still get the worst wife of the year award? Come on? I have a few excuses right?

Update: I got Mr. Hunt a bunch of cigars for Valentines day which was exactly a week after his birthday. I remembered which cigars he said that he liked and went to get some. I told him it was a joint birthday and Valentine's gift.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to my sweet husband. You are the best thing that has happened to me since my mother gave birth to me. Seriously! You are my best friend and I am so proud to say you are my husband. This 26th year of your life is already starting out crazy, and I have a good feeling its going to be great.

Love,
Your wife!

We Made It!

Sorry Ive been MIA, but Mr. Hunt, River, Hannah, and I are finally in Texas! Wow! I have so much to share. The first one being the horrible experience I had (or am having) with AT&T. I hate to start out on a bad note, but this really ties everything together.
When the owner of the house that we are renting gave us a list of the utilities to get switched into our name, the cable company was AT&T UVerse. Mr. Hunt and I have wanted to try UVerse for awhile now, but it was so new that it wasn't available in our neighborhood in Charlotte. We were excited to switch over to UVerse for our Texas home especially because it comes it its own wireless built in.
So on February 17th, I called AT&T to get that set up. I was on the phone for about an hour with the guy and he told me that they would be at our new Texas home on Monday (28th) to set it up!
So Monday rolls around and nobody shows up or calls. Mr. Hunt and I arrived in Texas late Sunday night so I was pretty busy Monday and by the time I realized that I hadn't heard from anyone, it was pretty late.
Long story short, I was on the phone for 3 hours with them. They said that UVerse wasn't available in my area so they cancelled the order! First of all, nobody ever called me to say that it was cancelled. How rude? Second, I know that it is available because the owner of the home had it. So finally after speaking to the 6th person that day, they said everything was fixed but they couldn't come out to set it up until NEXT Friday (March 9th)! Yeah, that's when I lost it. Normally I wouldn't care if it was just the cable, but its cable and Internet. I have realized in the past few days how much I rely on TV and Internet. Its kind of sad.
Really I'm only missing Bachelor, Dance Moms, and The River on TV which I can eventually watch on the Internet, but the Internet is another thing. I have this blog to do, I have bills to pay, I have things to look up about this new city I'm in, etc. And to top it off, Im not even 100% sure that AT&T will show up on March 9th, they may forget again.
So, right now I'm in the Starbucks parking lot filling y'all in and checking our bank account. I'm in the parking lot because the Starbucks is packed with people.

Update:
We arrived in Austin on Sunday night
Monday I unpacked everything we had in the car, I picked up Mr. Hunt's car from the car movers, went grocery shopping, and drove around finding new things
Tuesday the movers came around noon and unpacked the truck
Today I have tons and tons of boxes to start unpacking

I have so much more to share including the fun 20 hour trip down here and the whole packing experience. I also took a video of our new home and have tons of projects already planned.

Stay tuned!

House Hunt

On Monday night (February 6th) after Mr. Hunt had already flown to Austin, I sat at work (and all day that day) looking for houses to rent.

We don't know the exact length of time we will be in Texas so we dont want to buy a house not knowing how long we will be there. Plus we still own our house here in Charlotte. I will be back with the decisions about what we will do with the house here.
So since I don't know much about Austin, or Texas in general I decided to download the Zillow.com app on my iPhone. It was very helpful because I could tell it how many rooms, how many baths, and my price range. I could also choose what neighborhood, what square footage, or the age of the house, but I didn't want to narrow it down that far.

What we were looking for:

• At least three beds
• At least two baths
• In Cedar Park Texas

I have a good friend named Chris (you might know him as the father of my sweet little flower girls) who is from Austin Texas so the first thing I did was call him so he could tell me some good neighborhoods. That's how we decided on Cedar Park.
So after looking through all 74 houses that came up after I put in all the requirements, I had about 16 saved to my favorites. I then gave Mr. Hunt my user name and password so that he could see them and narrow some down. Sure enough he crossed off a few so we were left with 12 houses on Monday afternoon.
On Zillow each house has an agent that you can email if you are interested in the house so I started with the first three. I didn't want to do them all at once because I knew it would be crazy trying to keep all 12 houses and their agents separate.
As the day went on, some of the agents emailed back to say that the house was already rented out and they just haven't taken it off Zillow. I was starting to get stressed and annoyed because I only had Tuesday (the next day) and Wednesday to look at houses. Plus the fact that I had to somehow coordinate meeting several different agents for each individual house without knowing the area whatsoever or knowing how long it will take me for each house.
That's when a lady names Laurie emailed me. She said that the house that I originally asked her about was already rented out but if I gave her my requirements then she would send me some choices. About an hour later, I had a list of about 50 houses for rent with my requirements. After going through all 50 I was so surprised and super excited to see the other houses that I had on my list on her list. I guess I really didn't have to go through a different agent for each individual house. So I emailed her right back and gave her the 9 that I was still interested in and we set a time to meet the next day (Tuesday) at 3pm.

On Tuesday after I got to Austin and had some (birthday) lunch with Mr. Hunt I got a call from Laurie saying that the houses were going fast. Out of the 9 houses that I gave her the night before, only 3 were left! WHAT? What the heck is going on in Austin. Again, stress sank in, but we had to keep going.
I really wanted to take pictures of the houses that we looked at, but I wasn't allowed. The pictures that are on here are from Zillow.com. Only two were left online when I wrote this post. The other two houses you will hvae to picture in your head!

House #1: BEAUTIFUL HOUSE! Great neighborhood. Nice hardwood floors. Beautiful kitchen. Living, dining, and family room. Smaller bedrooms. Fenced in backyard. Ready to move in. Only problem was that they were on the fence about the fur babies. Usually when you rent there is a pet deposit (between $300-$500) so that they could repair any damage done by the pet. If no damage is done, when you move out you get your deposit back. The pet deposit is given when the house deposit (usually one months rent) is given. Pretty simple. At first the home owner said no dogs, then they said double pet deposit (so instead of $500 he wanted $1000) which we highly considered seeing that the house was very nice. Then out of the blue he changed his mind again. He said he wanted a double the house deposit (so instead of $1800 and $500 or $1000 pet deposit, he wanted $3,600 deposit). And that's when we walked right out of that house. This home owner is stupid! He wasted our time. He just needs to decide if he will allow pets or not and just stick with it.

House #2: Great neighborhood (better than #1), smaller house, cute kitchen, fenced backyard, front loader washer and dryer included, yard maintenance included, two pools. Besides the house just being so cute and homey feeling, Mr. Hunt was sold on the yard maintenance included (we aren't very good at yards yet), and I was sold on the front loaders, but we didn't want that to make our decision. We decided that we liked this house better than #1 anyway, and off to #3 we went.

House #3: Good neighborhood (still #2 was better), horrible yard (weeds everywhere), fenced in backyard, house was not clean so honestly I dont really remember much more about it. Plus there were about 5 cats running around and Mr. Hunt is allergic to cats. I love cats, but these cats were scary looking and following me around. The biggest red flag was that there was a "SOLD" sign in the empty lot next to the house. This means they will be building a house there soon. I didn't want to deal with that. So #2 was still the winner so far and we were off the see #4

House #4: This was a little further away from Mr. Hunt's work than the others, huge house (bigger than our 2,400 square foot home now), awesome backyard with fence and beautiful mature trees and no house behind it, ugly kitchen. This house reminded us alot of our house that we own here in Charlotte. It had a formal living and dining, a family room, a master, three other beds, and a loft. We talked aloud about this house because (besides the kitchen) it was pretty. We decided that the only reason now that we go upstairs in our current house was to go to our bedroom to sleep. We never use the other rooms or the loft. This house had the master downstairs so we thought that they upstairs would never be used. We didn't want to pay for that large of a house if we weren't going to use it.

After seeing the 4th house (the first three I picked and #4 the agent picked), we decided we didn't want to really see anymore that day. It was already 7pm and we wanted to go get something good to eat for Mr. Hunt's birthday. Only problem was that these houses were going so fast and Laurie suggested that we pick that night. Out of all the houses, we loved #2 the best. We decided that we would just go with that one. If we decided a year from now that we didn't like it or we needed more room, than we could move. We are only renting. So we said YES TO #2!!!!!

Now I am in love with the house. Actually, I'm in love with the house that I have in my memory. I get my front loaders and Mr. Hunt gets his yard maintenance. I cant wait to show you the rest of the house, and how I will decorate!


Love,
House Huntin Fool

Flying by Myself

Originally written February 8th

Growing up, my family never had the need to fly. (on a plane..duh) Before college, the only time I ever flew was when I was very young (like 2 years) and I didn't remember it at all.
Then I met Mr. Hunt. We decided to go to Lollapolooza in Chicago so this meant we had to fly. Oh boy. I wasn't really scared to fly, I was just scared since I had never done it before (that I could remember). It ended up not being bad at all.

Since then I have flown more, a lot more, but never by myself. When Mr. Hunt told me two days before I had to fly that I would be by myself, I freaked. I tried not to let him notice that I was scared since I knew that he already had ALOT on his mind. I just told myself I would suck it up and do it.
So the day was finally here. I packed everything up and Rachel picked me up and drove me there. She dropped me off right in front of the door and I went on in.
First up: Checking in. That was very easy
Second: Go through security. Well, that didn't go so well. My bag go searched since I had eye makeup remover in my bag that was more liquid than 3oz. My thought in packing it to begin with was that the bottle was 5oz, but there was a lot of liquid missing. I guess they don't think of that. So that was annoying.
Third: Go to Bank of America ATM to grab cash for the Taxi once I get there
Forth: Find the Gate. Ive been in the Charlotte airport a few times and I have never had to walk as far as I had to this time. It was a good 7 minute walk. That's a long time
Fifth: Board the plane. As soon as I found the gate, they were boarding. This was good because I didn't have time to sit around and think about the flight.
Sixth: Get in my seat, realize I temporarily forgot about Mr. Hunt's birthday, and feel horrible. Turn off my phone and sit for a 2 and a half hour flight.
Seventh: Get of plane and find the Taxi. The Taxi man gets lost and asks me if I know where to go. Ha, Ive never been here, just get me to my husband.
Eighth: Find the office. Run to find my husband and finally feel better.....and wish him a Happy Birthday

So long sort short, it actually went better than I imagined. We will see what happens on the way home since Ill be flying by myself again.

Love,
Grown Up Girl

Telling the Family (MY SIDE)

Originally written February 8th

After getting the text message from Katie and texting with her awhile, I decided that I needed to call my Mom. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell my family in person like Mr. Hunt could since they live in South Carolina. I wasn't going to wait to tell them in person since this whole process was already going very fast.
Once I got the courage to tell my Mom, she was happy and sad, which was exactly what I thought she would be. Happy for Mr. Hunt and I and the growing of our lives, but sad we are going to be so far away. After talking with her for awhile, I told her that she could mention it to my Dad, but I would also call him the next day (Saturday) with details. I also told her not to tell my brothers, I wanted to tell them myself.
Well Saturday got by us too fast. We were at Michael and Rachel's house all day long, but Mr. Hunt was told that he would hear from someone about "the plan" sometime that day. I thought it would be good to call my Dad and brothers after knowing that "plan." Well, nobody ever called so I held off calling anyone.
Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday so while everyone else was eating appetizers, hanging out with friends and family, and relaxing on the couch, Mr. Hunt and I were stir crazy.
Michael and Rachel decided to spend all day with us again knowing that this would soon be rare. They hung out with us at home while we packed and got our lives back together as much as possible. Around lunch time, Mr. Hunt got the call with the plan. He was told he had to fly out to Texas the very next day (Monday). WHAT!??!!
So once we knew everything, the football game was already on. I was so anxious to call my family, but I didn't want to ruin the Super Bowl...so I waited.
During the game Mr. Hunt and I washed clothes and packed. It was a crazy mess in the house. Mr. Hunt wanted to make the best impression that he could.

Literally as soon as the game was over, I called them. Here I was in a predicament again. I couldn't decide whether to call my Dad or Davis first. I knew that my Dad knew I was moving since my Mom told him, and I knew that Davis had NO clue. So I thought that if I called my Dad first, Davis might hear us talking about it and find out, but if I called Davis first, my Dad might feel bad that I didn't tell him first. (Does anyone else go through things like this? Or do I just over think things too much?) So alas, I just called my Dad first and sure enough he left the room so Davis wouldn't hear. See? I didn't even have to worry? After talking to my Dad for awhile, he finally gave Davis the phone. He was the one I was a little more worried about telling. Davis is 10 years younger than me, but we are very close. We never fight and he loves both Mr. Hunt and I very much. Mr. Hunt knows and loves that he is such a good role model to Davis. Once I told him though, it wasn't so bad. He seemed very excited to be able to come to Texas to visit and was happy for Mr. Hunt's promotion. I was trying to tell if he was sad since I just wanted to burst into tears, but I couldn't tell. He did text me after I got off the phone to say that he would miss me. Yeah, that is one of those moments where I just melted. Other than me being a ball of mess, it went well. Davis is already planning to come for his spring break!
Then lastly, I had to call Dylan. Again, I didn't know what was going to happen. Once I told him he said "TEXAS?" Yeah, he was shocked, but after I told him all the details, he started to sound happy and excited. He even said he had to plan a road trip to Texas and was saying he couldn't wait to visit. Again, I was holding back the tears. What is wrong with me?
Most of you are probably reading this wondering why this was such a big deal? Why am I writing about how I told our family about this move? Its just Texas, no big deal. Well you are wrong. This is a HUGE deal. Like I mentioned before, we have never lived this far from home, our family means everything to us, we are very close to our family members, and their opinions and feeling mean everything to us. We don't want them to be sad. We want to reassure them that we are just a few states away and nothing but the distance will change. We promise this!
Another reason I am sharing this is so when I go back to read this (hence the blog and why I write it), I will remember all these emotions....good and bad.

So, we still haven't told Mr. Hunt's parents. I have a feeling this will be hard just like its been for the rest of the family, but this is our life. This is happening. Ill be back with the scoop!


XOXO,
Jen Hunt

Telling the Family (HUNT SIDE)

Originally written on February 8th, 2012


When I got the text message from Mr. Hunt about moving I was frozen. I didn't know what to do. Remember all those questions that were running through my head? Well one was how will I tell family? I felt alone all of the sudden. I had to tell someone, but since all I knew was we were moving, I didn't want to tell many people without the details.
After sitting there for about an hour I got a text message from Katie (sister in law) saying something like "Yay, big adventure coming up, guess you have to go buy some cowboy boots!" I smiled. I knew what she was talking about....she knew. Mr. Hunt had been talking to her about the possibilities of moving for awhile (since she has moved around a lot), so that's probably why he texted her right away. So I texted with her for a little while and I didn't feel alone anymore.
Mr. Hunt wanted to tell the rest of the family in person. We had plans to go to Michael and Rachel's house for dinner that Saturday so we knew we would tell them then. One problem, Mr. Hunts parents were headed to a cruise! Mr. Hunt knew right away that he didn't want to tell them the day that they were getting on the cruise knowing that it would have to be over the phone and that they wouldn't be able to enjoy the trip because they would be thinking about this the whole time, so we waited. Did I say it was a week long cruise? This is a HUGE secret to keep for a LONG TIME!
So it was Saturday and Mr. Hunt couldn't keep the news inside for much longer. We weren't supposed to go over to Michael and Rachel's house until 5pm, but Mr. Hunt was begging to go over there at noon! I knew this was a big deal for him and he couldn't wait much longer to tell his brother so we ended up getting there around 2pm. Since Mr. Hunt was so eager to get there, I knew it wouldn't be long until he told them, but I soon found myself in their house alone with Rachel. As soon as we walked in, Mr. Hunt and Michael went to the the grocery store. I had no clue what to do? I knew Mr. Hunt would most likely tell Michael while they were out, but I didn't know for sure. I didn't know if I should tell Rachel because what if he didn't tell Michael and then Rachel would say something when they got back? So, I kept my mouth shut.
Once they got back I could tell right away that Mr. Hunt told Michael. Michael was sort of in a daze, like staring off into space. Rachel even said "Michael, whats wrong?" at one point. I got Mr. Hunt alone in the kitchen to confirm that he did tell Michael and tell him that I didn't tell Rachel. So while we were all sitting in the den, Mr. Hunt just blurted out "Rachel, we are moving to Texas!" Rachel said "WHAT?!!?!...wait what?" After settling down and answering all their questions, Rachel helped me look for houses on the Internet.
As of today, Kaki and Boss Hunt still don't know. They are supposed to be back on Sunday so we will be sure to tell them right away. Its been very hard to not be able to tell them. We are also waiting to tell everyone else including close friends until they know.
Ill be back to tell you how we told my side of the family and how we told Mr. Hunts parents once they got back from the cruise.


Love,
Jen

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm alone today. Well, when I say alone, I mean that Mr. Hunt isn't with me. He is in Austin working while I am still here in Charlotte "wrapping things up."
But, I'm not too sad because I still have River. He is my other Valentine and Hannah is Mr. Hunt's other Valentine. We will Face Time Mr. Hunt this evening so we all can have a little date.

Its been crazy around our house lately, I cannot wait to get back to "normal."
Mr. Hunt and I celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday. First we had lunch at McAlisters (yum). Then Mr. Hunt let me pick out a "love" movie while we packed his bag for Austin. I picked The Notebook. I cant get enough of that movie, and Mr. Hunt likes it too! Then Mr. Hunt's flight got cancelled so we got to have dinner together. Again, he let me pick. You seriously don't know what I picked? Are you crazy and not paying attention? Duh, Mexican Food. What says Happy Valentines Day more than some queso and chicken enchiladas? NOTHING! Then he wanted to go to Target to find something for work so that was our next stop. He knew that I had been eyeing this white ceramic horse head for about a month now. I even took a picture of it in the stores awhile ago and sometimes stare at the picture on my phone wondering where he will go in the house.
As we walked by I couldn't help but stare at his beauty so Mr. Hunt walked over to him, grabbed him and said "Happy Valentine's Day Babe!" I cant even begin to explain the twinkle he must have seen in my eyes. Between you and me, it might have been tears of joy! I kept telling him that I would wait until it went on sale (even though $25 is still a great price), but it was taking way too long. Every time I went to Target, I was surprised they were still there.
I appropriately named the horse Austin. I think he will fit in great when we move. I love my husband. Poor guy didn't even find what he needed for work, he just walked into the horse head trap on "Valentine's Day."
Even though Mr. Hunt was a little stressed about not getting to work on time on Monday, I think he was secretly as excited as I was that we got more time together.
So in honor of Love Day, here is a list of my loved ones that I will be thinking about all day.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! May everyday be as lovely as this one!

I Love:
God
Mr. Hunt
River and Hannah
My Parents
My Brothers
My Grandparents
My Aunts Uncles and Cousins (both my side and Mr. Hunt's side)
My In-Laws (including my brother and sister in laws)
My Close Friends
(and last, but not least) Austin the Horse Head (seriously)

You all can be my Valentine. Now who wants to buy me some chocolate....or another ceramic animal?

Love,
Jennifer Rayne Hunt

Mr. Hunt got a Promotion!

We have heard from a few people that Mr. Hunt works with that he may be in a position to be promoted soon, but we really didn't think about it too much. We didn't want to get our hopes up, or worry about the location so Mr. Hunt just kept working hard, and we kept doing our normal things.
Once a quarter all the managers and executive sales reps (Mr. Hunt was an executive sales rep) go to Dallas Texas for training. I'm sure you remember me talking about him being out of town, well that's where he was most of the time. This time was a little different. For some reason I had a funny feeling that Mr. Hunt was going to get an interview so I told him to pack something good to wear and to make sure he knew what he wanted to say in the interview. Mind you, I had NO idea this would really happen. It was honestly a 1 out of 100 chance, even Mr. Hunt laughed at me when I said it.
Sure enough he got an interview! Am I psychic? I think so! He had the interview on Thursday night (February 2nd), and was told he got the job on Friday (February 3rd). After the interview on Thursday, Mr. Hunt told me it was a possibility, but again, I didn't want to get his hopes up, so I just mentally got excited and stayed calm for him. On Friday when he found out, I got a text saying "Were moving! I can't talk now, I call later!" So here I am, freaking out, not knowing what to do. Where do I start? When will we move? How will we tell our family? Where will we live?
On Friday night when Mr. Hunt came home, I had a million questions! Come to find out, he didn't know much more than me. All he knew was that he had to fly down there on Monday (February 6th) to start. Yeah, they move fast!

Tomorrow Ill share how we told family members about the move.


Love,
JRH

We're Moving!

Mr. Hunt has been working his little bum off at work, and because of all that he has done, he got a promotion!
I can't be more excited for him (and us), but this means that we now have to move.....to AUSTIN TEXAS!
You can't believe it? Neither can I!

Want to know another shocker? Mr. Hunt found out about this promotion on Friday February 3rd, he flew out there to start on Monday February 6th, and we already have a house there. We are renting there because Austin will not be a permanent place for us, we may only be there for two years at the most. He will be the manager of the Austin office.
So Kelly: Not preggers...yet :) Sorry I kept you waiting so long! You know I wish I were though :)
This has really been a crazy (but good) whirlwind already. To be totally honest, Ive been a ball of emotions. One minute I'm so happy, excited, and anxious, and the next I am crying and feeling sorry for myself.
You see, Mr. Hunt nor I have ever been lived far away from home or family. This is the only thing that is making me somewhat sad, and its going to be the hardest part. If it weren't for the distance, I would be all smiles.
Don't get me wrong, I'm so happy for Mr. Hunt. He really has worked so hard for the past two years to get here and he is so proud, as well as me.
I will be back with the day to day play by play from the last week or so. Get ready, its going to be a crazy ride.
One of the many upsides of this is that now I get to decorate a whole new house and share it all here. This blog will become more important than ever too since we will be so far from our family. Now they can keep up on here.

Love,
Austin Gal

Little Side Project

Before I got this new rug in the living room, the canvas wrapped in blue and brown fabric above the couch looked good. It matched.

I decided to do something different with the canvas since it would be very expensive to try to find something totally different that size. After thinking for awhile I decided to try to paint. Ha, yeah you heard that right.
I decided on a chevron pattern with white and gray to match the wall color and also not clash too much with the new rug.
So I took off the fabric and got all my supplies ready. I thought this would only take an hour or so. I was way wrong. The chevron pattern is very hard to tape out. But after two hours, I had this

Then I started the easy part. Painting. All I had to do was make sure that I didn't paint out of the lines or get any gray paint on the white part.

I had to do about 5 coats of paint before I couldn't see any white underneath. Then while the paint was still wet, I tore off the tape. I was hoping for perfect crisp lines, but that wasn't the case. You can't tell from this picture, but some of the paint seeped through. I blame the chevron shape because I had to retape and tape back pieces more than once and the tape probably wasn't on as good as it could have been.

I think I like it though. I like the imperfection of it. You can only tell up close anyway. I planned on painting the second one the same night, but it ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. I haven't hung it up above the couch either, but I still wanted to share it with you.


What do you think?

Love,
Jennifer

Happy Birthday Mr. Hunt

Yesterday was Mr. Hunt's Birthday! It was also my Brother in Law Michael's birthday...you know, their twins! They are 26 (soon, they won't want me to write how old they are)

Ill be back soon to let you know what we did! Sorry I'm still a little MIA, Ill share why VERY SOON!

Love,
Jennifer

UPDATE

Big plans and news have been happening over at the Hunt household!

Unfortunately I cannot share this news quite yet. I just wanted to let everyone know that I didn't forget about ya!

I don't have the laptop in my possession as of now, so the posts will be minimum for the week, but I have lots to share. Ill be back tomorrow with a little project I did last week and then this weekend is when I will share the NEWS!

Get excited people, this blog is about to get crazy!


Love to all,
little secret holder

Is it a Man Room or a Rodent Room?

This mouse/rodent/bunny/alien in the garage is very sneaky. But before I go into all that, let me pick up where we left off last time.
Last time we put the two traps out in the dirty garage only to find that he had slid the cheese off the traps without them snapping and getting him. Just to double check we made sure the traps still worked, and they did.
So finally this past weekend we checked "clean the garage" off the to do list. We figured that if we cleaned it really well and made sure there wasn't too many things for him to bury inside or hide, then he wouldn't feel "at home" and not want to come in. We also thought that maybe we would find him while cleaning.
Here I am showing my muscles in the messy garage. I needed those muscles for this task.

Look at this mess. For some reason Mr. Hunt wanted me in all the pictures and every angle of the garage. So by that time, I was done smiling.

Too many boxes to handle. I was for sure there was a mouse in one of those boxes playing house.

So we started the music and got cracking. I can't even describe how much more rodent poo we found. It was absolutely discussing and I refrained from taking any more poo pics. I'm sure you can imagine on your own. I did take a picture of the golf tee that I found in the crack of Mr. Hunt's couch that had little bite marks all over it.

After 4 hours of cleaning we were finally done. I'm not sure if I am happy or sad we didn't find a rodent? I'm glad he didn't pop out or run across my feet, but now we still need to get him.

The large pile of broken down boxes to the right of me in the picture is all trash so it won't stay there. It just had to be there until the garbage man comes. The garage looks pretty good right?

Everything else in the garage is either intended to be there or is Mr. Hunt's Man Room stuff. You would think that's all that was in there before, but no. I won't even get started with a list of the random things that ended up in there, but lets just say that my sewing machine was in there. Yeah, that doesn't belong in the garage.
And Mr. Hunt wants me to make sure to say that he did do 50% of the work. Just because Im in the pictures doesn't mean he didn't clean.
Sorry for my very pale/glowing white skin. I was actually sweating after this garage project. It was close to 70 degrees and sunny in January, but my skin hadn't seen sun since last summer so deal with it, I was hot....and delirious as Mr. Hunt captured in the below picture.

The garage was cleaned, but the rodent problem wasn't fixed. We set out three traps this time. Two with American cheese (small enough that he couldn't pull it off this time), and one with brie cheese (a gooey cheese that he would have to lick off). We thought for sure we would get him this time.
The next morning, we woke up and he got both the American cheese off the traps and they didn't go off..again! The Brie cheese was still there. Mr. Hunt joked that he must have good taste because Mr. Hunt doesn't like Brie cheese. I said that's OK, more for me. Well, he was wrong. We got home from work and that little stinker licked the Brie cheese off the trap. It was clean! Nothing left! hmmmmm.....now what?
We decided that we would have to try peanut butter this time. We heard from a few people that peanut butter works (which is why I thought the Brie would since they are the same consistency), but time got the best of us and we forgot to put anything on them.
The next day Mr. Hunt went home for lunch and said that he was going to put the peanut butter on the traps while he was there. That's when I got "the phone call." We caught him! He must have got a little too confident in getting things off the trap without setting it off and assumed that we had put more on there after he finished his previous meal.
Who would have thought we would catch that little stinker with an empty trap! I will say that Mr. Hunt nor I are made out for killing any breathing thing. We both felt horrible. I will refrain from putting the picture of the little tiny dead mouse on here. Yes, you heard that right, it turned out to be a little brown mouse. I had mixed emotions about this too. I wanted it to be a small little cute mouse so that I didn't have to picture an ugly huge rat running around my garage, but when it came to catching (and killing it), I'm sure I would have felt better it it was an ugly big rat, rather than a cute tiny mouse.
Anyway, enough about that. I wheeled him out to the street in the trash can today for the garbage man to take him away, it was kind of like a small funeral, but I didn't say anything, that would have been weird. Now we are jut hoping that it was just one mouse. Who knows? He could have had his family all up in there making themselves at home. We will be on the look for more poo and will probably set the traps out for a little longer just in case.
Long story short, we will be clean garage people from now on out.



XOXO,
rodent hunter

February Goals

What better way its here to get your booty in action than to tell a whole bunch of people (all 25 of you that read this blog) your goals with a deadline. That's what I'm here today to do.
Towards the end of February (the 25th) to be exact, there is going to be a huge party thrown for our grandaddy Hunt's birthday. Mr. Hunt and I are having some people stay at our house, so I want to make sure everything looks great. So, here is a small list of things I would like to get done before that date and I will be back to share everything and also cross everything I ended up finishing off the list at the end of the month. There are some really small things and really big things so obviously some things won't get done, but at least they will be on my mind in case I see any deals.

Family Room
buy two candles for the candle sticks on the mantle
buy one candle for green lantern
get a new TV stand
buy and hang white curtains
finish covering all the pillows on the couch
vamp up the lamp shade
make a wall star and hang

Loft
spray paint frames white
make a frame collage on the wall
frame HHI and Beaufort map from Hunter
find or make pillow for couch
buy and hang curtains
organize all DVDs and games
make another wall star and hang

Living Room
Paint on both canvases for art above the couch
find or make pillows for couch and extra dining chair
buy 4 "fun" door knobs for shoe storage cabinet
hem the curtains

Dining Room
buy centerpiece from Ikea
hem the curtains

Kitchen
Paint two paintings for kitchen
buy an ironing board (laundry room)
paint entry same yellow as kitchen
buy and hang new curtains
hang purse/coat hanger
buy new rug for under kitchen table

Guest Room
Find or make pillow for guest bed
get replacement toilet paper holder for guest bath (dogs ate it)
buy and hang curtains
bath mat from guest bath
buy lamps for guest bedroom

Outside
pick all the weeds in yard
plant new plants (if not too cold)

Master Bedroom
Fix cutains (one pair fell out of the wall, I guess I didnt hang them correctly)
make sunbust mirror and hang about bed
make the other lampshade for Mr. Hunt's side of the bed

*These things for the master bedroom dont need to be done, but it would be nice!

So how many of you think I will get at least 50% of these done? I hope all of you!

Stay tuned,
JRH