Our New Home!

A lot of new stuff has happened in Justin and I's life so far this year. In April I started a new job at Madison Memorial Hospital here in Rexburg. I work in the Med/Surg department and love it! Because it's a small hospital everything all goes to the one Med/Surg floor. This allows me to work with a wide variety of patients. From pediatrics, to post-op, to orthopedic, to cardiac and so on. I love the variety and the opportunities I have to learn about so many different areas of nursing. Because I had Charge Nurse experience at my last job I work as charge nurse now as well. Luckily at this job a few nurses switch off working as Charge so we all get a break from charging and get to work the floor which I prefer.
My enjoyment of the Rexburg area went up greatly now that I enjoy my job. This sparked Justin and I to seek a slightly more permanent residence here to finish out school. We were hoping for a single family home but after searching we realized we could get a lot more bang for our buck with a townhouse. Finding a place we liked and making an offer all happened really fast but buying it took forever it felt like, although I know it wasn't all that long. We finally closed on May, 31 2012. We didn't move it for about 2 weeks though because we had the entire house repainted. The previous colors in the home were ugly browns and tans which are not Justin and I. And there were a lot of scuffs that we'd have to repair. The carpet was also pretty dirty so we had to get that all deep cleaned. The home was a foreclosure. This made for a great deal on the price but not so great when it came to the cosmetics of the home. Justin and I thought it was worth it to put money into the place right from the beginning so that we could make it more our own not to mention have it look nice! We hired someone to do it for us cause there's no way we had the time or equipment. It was fun at first but then there were some mild nightmares that I won't get it to but that make me leery of hiring someone ever again. I love what we did to our home and it was so fun to see how similar Justin and I's tastes are and then to see what we had to compromise on. I learned new things about Justin as well, such as, Justin is very specifics about the toilets he likes. We ended up getting new toilets installed and a couple ceiling fans.
I have some before and after pictures to share!...

Here's the before shots!...

Justin and I in our dining area with paint choices behind us, the one we chose is the second in from the right.

Our kitchen area

Dining room again

Kitchen area

 Downstairs half bath

Front room area facing front door

 Front room looking at kitchen  

Front room again

 Master bedroom looking at the closet door

 Other half of master bedroom

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Now the Middle Stages

Kitchen in progress

Justin putting together the toilet

Getting rid of the ugly color on the stair wall

 Rachel's children Keely and Edgerrin helping me unpack the kitchen

 The kitchen/dining area

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And now the after photos!!!

The Kitchen! It's hard to tell but it's a light yellow on the two corner walls. Our kitchen colors are yellow and aqua. We're attempting to have a country feel in our home.

Another view of the kitchen

Dining area looking towards the front room

 The frontroom looking towards the kitchen area

Another view of the front room

 More of the front room

 Our downstairs half bath. We had beads board put up in both bathrooms. Having it white on the bottom allowed us to do a brighter fun color up top, we chose an aqua blue.

 Master bedroom. Justin promised me when we were first married that when we bought our first home we could get a kingsize bed. He kept his promise and we love it. I don't know how we ever slept on a smaller bed!

 Another view of bedroom looking toward the closet.

 Master bathroom. We also did aqua with the beads board up here. There's a wash bowl area and then a separate tub room. It's been so nice to have a bigger bathroom with double sinks.

 Tub and toilet room

 Justin wanted me to make sure that I got a photo of his bidet in here. This is Justin's pride and joy. He had to have his tall and elongated toilets along with a bidet. The bar of the bidet swings under the side of the toilet.

 The upstairs hallway area

 Our guest bedroom. We love having people visit and we're so excited to have an actual guest room now instead of people just sleeping on the couch. So anyone wanting to come to Rexburg we have a place for you!

 The office, Justin has claimed this as his room since I've essentially decorated the rest of the home.

We painted a soft grey throughout the house except for the yellow in the kitchen and the aqua and beads board in the bathrooms. All of the trim, doors, and ceilings are white now and we got the carpets cleaned. Although ultimately I'ld like to get new carpet through out the house. We had ceiling fans installed and then of course the infamous toilets and bidet. There's a list of things Justin and I want to get for the house but we got the basics done and that's good enough for now!

In June, Justin had been applying at a company a mission friend of his works for for an internship for next year. They ended up interviewing him and hiring him to start a job there right now. He started in the middle of July. He was working for the forest service this summer again and enjoying that but the opportunity of the new job actually in his field of accounting was too good to turn down, even if it is a pay decrease initially. Justin's been really enjoying the new job and is excited about applying everything he's learned so far in school. There's potential of this job turning into a real accounting position once he graduates and that's also a reason we decided to buy a home because we were aware of this possibility. Arizona is definitely the place we want to settle down but we have a lot of opportunities in Idaho right now so we may be here a few more years then we originally planned. We both graduate at the end of next year and then Justin is getting his Masters at Idaho State University at a campus in Idaho Falls. That program is a year and a half. So we'll be here at least 3 more years. If the job works out for Justin which we're expecting then it may be more like 5 years that we're up here. Just depending on the kind of job opportunities we can find for Justin back in Arizona. It's just not practical to move straight after school if we both have good jobs in our chosen careers up here. Once we find an equally good job back in Arizona then we'll make the move!
We'll enjoy this adventure in our life for now even if it's freezing cold more then half the year here and I miss everyone in Arizona.