welcome to my journal

I know it has been a while since I wrote an episode of The Story of Us, but things have been a little crazy over here! In case you don’t know already, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! In The Story of Us: Episode 4, I was originally going to write about all the places we lived, but instead, I talked all about our favorite trips. I did this intentionally, as I knew we closed on our house that week and wanted to share with you all this wonderful surprise we have been holding onto for almost 2 months now. It was SO hard to not tell everyone.

Davern Park:

This was our first place together. The biggest move in our relationship to date. We finally decided that it was time to take our relationship to the next level. .We spent hours upon hours researching and house hunting and finally found this place. It was nothing special by any means, but it was ours!! It was a place where we would grow with each other and learn the most about each other. After one short year, it was time to move on. But it will always hold a special place in our hearts.

 

 

307 Walnut:

Walnut has always been our favorite place that we have lived in. We found this adorable, historic mansion that was split up into 5 different condos. We found it randomly on Craiglist and I jokingly sent it to AJ thinking that it was way too cheap and that it was a fluke. Turns out it wasn’t!! It belonged to an Army woman who was deployed for the year and needed someone to rent it out while she was away. Can do ma’am! It was in the heart of downtown St Paul. just a block away from the Xcel Center. And of course, that meant that we got to get last-minute cheap Wild tickets and went to as many games as we could! It was perfect for AJ.

Even though it was downtown, it was in a quaint and quiet neighborhood full of historic old homes! And it was right next to the Mississippi River. Honestly, it was the perfect location and the apartment was so perfect. The backyard patio was to die for. With overgrown trees and a barbeque. We couldn’t have asked for a better spot to call home! If we could have, we would have stayed there forever I think!

 

 

Bryant:

Bryant was another steal that we found from our previous landlords. When I first went to go look at it, it was a DUMP!!! I mean, it was SO BAD! But they reassured me that it was going to be updated and completely revamped before we moved in, so I took the risk and signed it on the spot. AJ had never even looked at the place. This place turned out so beautiful! The hardwood floors and original trim. The brand new kitchen. The location!! It was a couple of blocks down from Lake Harriet and in the heart of Uptown. AJ and I have been really lucky to find all these great apartments in the best of locations!

This is the house where we got engaged. Planned our wedding. And had some of the hardest moments together. This place was way more than a home to us. It was the start of our forever. This was another really hard place to say goodbye to when we finally decided to move closer to home and start our lives together back in good old Northfield!

 

Cannon Valley:

Northfield. My Alma Mater. The first place I lived after moving out of my parent’s home. I have loved Northfield for as long as I could remember, and I couldn’t wait to finally be back. For what we hoped was forever. I took a job over in Lonsdale so this was the perfect location for both AJ and I  for our jobs.

In case you didn’t know, Northfield is the absolute worst town to try and find housing! Because there are two colleges and it is such a great place to live, housing goes so fast here. It is almost impossible to find a place. So when I found this apartment available to sublease, I jumped on it. I went to a showing with 8 other people and just submitted my application before I even walked through the door. We were desperate. Thankfully it turned out to be a pretty nice place.

This was our first place together after we got married. It truly was the start of our forever together. It was great living so close to family and our niece. We loved walking downtown and visiting all the shops and restaurants. When we started looking around for houses, we knew we wanted to move to Northfield, but sadly that is just not the way it worked out. We hope that maybe someday we will end up back here, but for now…..we are moving to the smallest town you could ever find on the map. An incorporated town of maybe 50 people. Veseli!!

 

The Corner House!

Here we are!!!! The Corner House! Our first house together!!! Another place that we found on a complete accident! We had been searching for MONTHS! to try and find the perfect place. We honestly started giving up on finding a place because either everything was too expensive, or got swept up before we could say yes. Nothing really seemed to fit our needs or our price point.

Then one day I was randomly looking at my email and this beautiful, old, white house in the middle of absolutely nowhere showed up in my mailbox. WE HAD TO SEE IT!

We got in there that night and fell in love. I could just see myself and AJ starting a family together there. Our kids running around in the backyard. Doing homework in the kitchen. Growing up in the country. And me living 5 minutes away from work. Plus it had a workshop in the back for AJ and me to work on all our projects in. It was serious everything we could have asked for and more! We put in an offer right away and I was STRESSING! I couldn’t let this place slip between my fingers. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait long before our offer was accepted!! We were so relieved. The hardest part was waiting 5 weeks to move in and not being able to share it with the world until we knew it was 100% ours.

Moving in was tricky, to say the least. Due to COVID, we had to move in on our own. It took us all weekend, and honestly, it still isn’t all moved in. This past week of living here has been a whirlwind, to say the least. It feels so nice to finally be here (I’m writing this outside on my new deck in 70-degree weather and I couldn’t be happier). We have a long way to go before we can officially be done, but we are so happy this day is finally here! When we have more pictures of the final product, don’t worry, I will share that with you. But for now, you only get one! We can’t wait to see where the story of us continues from here.

In this house, we will do pizza parties on the couch with a blanket as a table cloth

In this house, we will have dance-offs in the kitchen

In this house, you will sit on “your chair” after work so you don’t get anything else dirty

In this house, we will have late night conversations in bed because we can’t fall asleep

In this house, we will make our dining room our the homework center

In this house, we will talk about our days over ice cream sundaes

In this house, I will leave my stuff like breadcrumbs wherever I go

In this house, we will laugh until we snort

In this house, we will make memories

In this house, we will raise our babies

In this house, we will celebrate wedding anniversaries

In this house, we will learn and grow

This house will be way more than a shelter over our heads. It will be a place to grow and to learn.

In this house, we will love and give love.

 

In case you have missed the other Story us Us episodes, you can find them here:

The Story of Us: Episode 1

The Story of Us: Episode 2

The Story of Us: Episode 3

The Story of Us: Episode 4

 

Stay Tuned for Episode 5 on Monday!! It will be a good one, I promise!