The North Shore is Gorgeous!!

We went up the coast for our honeymoon to stay in the Cove Point lodge. It's a fantastic setting right on the lake. The sunrises on the cliffs were spectacular and sunsets by the jacuzzi didn't hurt either. We enjoyed ourselves through hiking and exploring the region. It was fun learning Minnesota history, shipping, mining and 3M. Very cool.

It was fun relaxing and listening to the locals. It was funny hearing them talking about going to "the city" for the weekend and later learn they were talking about Duluth. Robyn can't say she's a "country" girl anymore by their account.

We also stayed at a lighthouse for a few nights. It's a pretty interesting environment with other residents sharing the same lodging and bathroom. Kind of reminds me of Scotland really. The keeper kept us entertained with a fiddle and cooked us "moose porridge" ((Don't ask)).

So we're home again. Back to reality as they say but it's pretty cool still. We will post again soon!!

:)

Wahooo!!

Getting Married Today!!

Wahoo. That's all :)

We're still around-

Nam and I have been quite busy in the last few months with our new house and planning our wedding. I'm sure we'll be posting more frequently soon enough!

Check this out. This is our mini's
Pretty funny

Nam's

Robyn's

Got my hundred!!

Wahoo ran my hundredth mile today!!
Man that was tiring.

Check it out everyone

Ewww Gross!!!

OMG!! So our first real mishap of the house just happened. Our bathtub did not drain and so we decided to plunge it. Well eventually we heard a "pop" and it started draining. Sweet! Canceled the plumber and we were good to go. Of course 10 minutes later, we went to the basement and the bathroom as well as the laundry room was flooded with sewage. Yuck!! It was disgusting "brown stuff" everywhere.

Had to find a plumber to fix our problems immediately of course and when they arrived, they thought it was the huge oak tree in our front yard. It may have been the root structure that broke our main pipes causing the disaster. That would have cost beaucoup $$$ to fix he said. Fortunately, after hours of snaking, it turned out to be huge gobs of hair left by the previous owner. We were almost happy to hear that if not for the "leftovers" and nice bill.

Oh well. Guess we're learning

HAGO

Nam

It's Been Awhile

Since moving into our new home about 6 weeks ago, we've been pretty recluse. We're very quickly learning about the costs and responsibilities associated with being new homeowners. There's been a number of things we've had to take care of since we moved in... learning about electricity and the plumbing are among them. We even installed a new garbage disposal! (With my dad's technical support over the phone of course.) I guess that's the breaks, especially when the house you're buying hasn't been maintained or even lived in for many months. There's still a number of things on the "to-do" list, but we've decided to try and take it slow and enjoy the house while we're making improvements.

One really exciting thing we did was to buy a headboard and dressers. No more plastic drawers for us! And our bed is finally off the floor. We also purchased a big couch for our big basement, and in 4-6 weeks we'll no longer be sharing the small loveseat when watching TV. Couch shopping was really hard. We have a pretty narrow stairwell and the one outside isn't much bigger. We had to look all over to find a sectional sofa that broke up into small enough sections to get it in the basement. I can't wait to get it and have seating for more then the 2 of us in the basement. Now if I could only decide on a paint color...

Nam's dad was over this weekend and did a ton of work on our yard. The planting bed in the front was cleaned out, weeded, and mulched. Dead plants were removed, and others were moved to make room for the shed he's going to build for us. It's amazing how much difference getting that planting bed cleaned up makes.

We're still in the midst of wedding planning too :) It's a busy time, but I think we're adjusting well.

Hope to post more soon,
~Robyn

Honorable Discharge

Nam has been officially discharged from the Air Force! Hooray!

Only in Soap Opera

So the saga continues. We got word from our bank that the house isn't worth what the negotiated price is. Fun fun. Everyone seems to think the pendulum is swinging the other day and the appraisers are undervaluating the houses to make up for lost times. Oh well, here's to hopefully getting this done this year!!

Nam

House Situation, Continued

We had our housing inspection on Thursday. Everything went very well and the inspector was quite positive about the overall condition of the house. Just a few minor things we'll need to take care of once we move in. Because it's a short sale it is an "as is" property, so we can't ask for anything to be repaired. Hopefully we'll be moving soon!

House?

The drama continues... By now most of you know that we heard from the sellers bank (remember, this is a short sale so it requires 3d party approval from the bank that holds the sellers mortgages). Last Wednesday they verbally approved our offer and said they'd send over the written approval later that day. Typical of this sale, yesterday morning our agent had to call over to the sellers agents to see if they'd received the written 3d party approval yet. No, they hadn't, but they assured her they'd be getting it later in the day. We decided that was good enough and our agent has scheduled a home inspection for this week and contacted our mortgage lender. Of course, we still have no closing date, but at least things are moving along...

Join our run!!

The Saga Continues...

So, it's almost become comical. We thought we were so close in getting our new home only to be held back again by their lender. They reported that it will take another 7 to 14 days and told us to stop asking for status checks. It's just funny how a lender like WaMu even stays in business these days. I realize that they are in a heap of trouble with the market; but it's a wonder they haven't sunk further with their "speedy" service. If anyone has equity in their firm, I'd suggest to dump it, even at the already low price. Considering first hand how slow they are, I'd be amazed if they turned their business around in the this decade.....

Sorry had to rant!!

Ryan

Congratulations Ryan on your new job! Nam and I are both really excited for you and can't wait to see how things go. We hope it's everything you wanted it to be!

For anyone who hasn't heard yet, Ryan got a job offer from the St. Louis County Sheriff's department, a job he's been hoping for since he graduated from the Law Enforcement program at Fon-du-Lac. Way to go!

Lightening Up for Spring!

Just giving the ol' blog a face lift...

More on the House Situation

Just a quick update for those of you eager to hear about the struggle we've had trying to purchase our first home. We heard from the sellers bank last week. After a quick back and forth set of counteroffers, the bank was going to send our counteroffer to committee. We believe that this is just a safety mechanism so the asset manager doesn't sell a house for $2. So, we're again waiting to get a final approval from the bank.

Everyone cross your fingers!

(...and toes!)

Scope It Out 5K

Kim and I ran our big 5K today. We were pretty awesome :) By awesome I mean we finished!! It was freezing cold this morning but Peggy and Nam got up early, drove us into the city and watched our run. What great support. Cold or not, we were determined to look good. Check us out in our cool running skirts! We had a blast. More pictures are available on my Shutterfly website - namandrobyn.shutterfly.com.

My New MacBook Air

Nam is so fantastic! He was so excited when he decided what he wanted to get me for my birthday next month that he couldn't wait. So last night I came home to an unexpected early birthday present. It was beyond unexpected! He got me a new laptop, and a MacBook Air to boot. It weighs 3 lbs! It's so tiny. I have no idea how to use it. I've been a Windows user for so long, I have no idea how to function on a Mac. It's going to be such a fun learning experience.

Bev, are you ready to be my tech support??

Easter

Nam and I had a great Easter dinner yesterday. I made a delicious ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole and green beans. As usual, I really need to learn to cook in smaller quantities!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We were thinking of you all :)

Happy 1st Day of Spring!!

It's definitely starting to feel and look like spring out here! The cherry blossoms are bursting out, the leaves are starting to pop up on trees and the grass is green (mostly). Yesterday was high 60's and rainy. Today is a bit cooler (50's) but sunny and blue skies.

I've got spring fever and need to do some spring cleaning :)

The Big 5K

Kim and I run our first 5K next weekend (March 30). Keep your fingers crossed for us. We've been running hard the last 3 months and are excited for the race. Kim will be out here next week, along with Peggy. I can't wait!!

New Home? Not Yet...

I think its been awhile since I've updated most of you on our housing search. In October Nam and I decided it would be a good time for us to start looking for a new place to live where we could split our commute. In searching for a new apartment, we realized that we were at a good point to start looking instead for a place to buy. We've looked at dozens of houses, but one fit the bill. Perfect location for us, a great size, well updated, and in our price range. What's the catch you may ask? It's a foreclosure. From what we understood it would take an additional 3-4 weeks to complete the sale because the bank had to sign off on all the paperwork. Well, here we are over 2 months later and we still don't have our house. The sellers bank has been very irresponsible and has not been communicating with the sellers or their agents. The sellers agents don't respond in a timely fashion to our agent (who is fabulous by the way). As of this week, our title company has been authorized by the sellers to contact their bank and deal directly with them. There was also talk that the sellers would have to retain a lawyer in order to get their bank to act.

Meanwhile Nam and I are just waiting it out. Keep your fingers crossed for us :)

School's Over!

Nam's a college graduate! He's been done with classes for awhile now, but the college finally processed his graduation application.

Hooray!

March 2008

Kim and I have signed up to run our first 5K together at the end of March! How exciting is that!

The Weather

Its going to be 72 degrees today. 72! In JANUARY!