The Leaking House

Our house leaks. I swear everything that could leak, does. We should have known when we first found the leaky bay window that that was not the start. 40 burst pipes later, a leaky shower head, a leaky washing machine and the latest a leaky fridge. The fridge has its own problems. We thought it worked when we plugged it in because it sounded like any other fridge sounds like when it gets cold.  So we go to the store a couple of days ago,buy groceries stick them in the fridge and realized, hm.... pretty sure a fridge is not supposed to be hot. Not quite sure where our brains were, but we thought it would be a good idea for us to keep the milk and sour cream in the fridge for a couple of days until the garbage man comes so it doesn't stink up the house. Not quite sure why we didn't pour the milk out, but just bare with us. :)
So, yesterday morning, I come down the stairs and this AWFUL fishy smell was coming from somewhere in the middle floor. Well, Michael had just sanded drywall and his mother told us it had an awful smell, so we just assumed that was where the smell was coming from. So we leave to go to church, come back and the smell had gone away. Super weird, but we just went with it. Michael then decided to put the sour cream and milk in a garbage bag and left it by the door to be taken out. He lifts up the bag and something has spilled and leaked on our floor, the fishy smell came back for a second. We got that cleaned up and then I go in the kitchen later that night to clean up, and I see a leak under the fridge. Well that is weird because we cleaned under that fridge so that spill wasn't from the people before us. So Michael pulls back the fridge and instantly the fishy smell comes back. We found the source of the ticking!!!! (that quote is for my family ;) Well, Michael opens up the fridge to see if it is coming from in there, and spoiled milk just comes running out. Oh lovely, so we have this awful rotten milk substance all over the kitchen floor. Then we decide we just need to get the fridge out of the house, so Michael drags it to the door  (another one of us not thinking) and liquid just pours out as he drags it. Why didn't we clean it out before? Who knows. So then we have a long streak from the kitchen to the doorway of spoiled milk. Then we realize the fridge can't fit out the back door so there it sits while we clean up this mess frantically so it doesn't get in the cracks of the baseboards or wood floor. We got it all cleaned up with a lot of bleach and a lot of scrubbing so now the kitchen smells like bleach and the lingering smell of rotten fish. :) It was times like those that in the moment we were thinking nothing right has gone on with this house!!! But I look back on it and can't help but just laugh.
We just bought our first big appliance a brand new stainless steel fridge in hopes that that carries us for the rest of the time while living there and for future renters. Oh the joys of being a house owner and for being an adult and dealing with things instead of letting your parents or apartment maintenance guy  handle them. :)
Hope you enjoyed our Sunday happenings
XOXO Sauceda's from Saint Louis!

The Move

Today was the big day for packing up our apartment. It has been full of mixed emotions. This place was the place where Michael and I shared our first year of marriage. This apartment was our home away from home. It served us as a place where we felt safe from the outside world aka drunks and rioting in the streets. This place holds a lot of memories. It has seen a lot of tears but also a lot of laughter. It has only been one year in this place, but it will be sad to say goodbye. 

We move all of our things over to the new house tomorrow, and we will spend one more night in our apartment before we leave to Utah for a month and a half. 

I have always had a hard time throughout my whole life of the thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side. That is something that I have to work at constantly. There were lots of times where I hated this place. I wanted to move closer to friends, or just away from this place. Because whenever you walked on our carpets your feet were black and sticky, we didn't share walls with anyone but the doors were so thin that you could hear every word  from peoples apartment while walking down the hall(hearing many things we didn't want to hear), we had to pay 1.50 per load so $3.00 for a wash and dry of laundry and the list goes on. But, this place was our home. I worried so much about the things I didn't like that it inhibited me from living in the moment and being happy with where I am at. This place was where I did my first year of cooking, it was in this home where I have learned amazing lessons and learned to live away from family and all friends, our living room held many dance parties and movie nights. Someone in their testimony at church today said, if you go looking for something, you will find it. That really stuck out to me, If I keep looking for the negative things in life and look at what others have and wish I had it, I will find the negativity and my life wont be happy.  

So as Michael and I move on to the next phase of our life as new homeowners, I will strive to look at how much greener my side of the grass is. I will look at the quarky things that our house has and find it unique instead of a burden. I challenge everyone reading this post to find ways in your life that maybe you could look for the positive and be content. I know that when I have done it, I have been a lot happier and get more joy out of life.

XOXO Sauceda's from St. Louis! 

OUR FIRST HOME!

As everyone basically knows, we bought a house this last week. We had found a house right around the corner a couple of months ago, but it was gone before we could even look at it. We were very sad about it because the location is perfect, literally perfection. It is about a 5 minute drive from our old apartment, so we will stay in the same ward which we are happy about. Then one day I randomly looked at zillow around the area and I found our baby for super cheap. It was seriously crazy because I never look at zillow. So the second I saw it, I called Michael and we were on our way to go look at it. It had been on zillow for less than 1 day when I saw it. So we lined up Raymond the Realtor and got going. Literally a couple weeks after we found it, we were signing paperwork to put in an offer. The listing price was low because the seller knew that there was a lot of work to do. We knew that we had to have a good offer because there would be people coming in with cash offers and just wanting to flip it and sell it. That was one of the hardest weekends just waiting not knowing if we were going to get it or not.
  Well, clearly we did and we were so excited. The day we closed, we were in the house working. That night we were greeted with two leaks in the bay window, this was only the beginning.

this was the result of the two leaks. 

Michael has a couple of left, but he fixed 30 burst pipes on all three floors. ALL THREE FLOORS. We thought that this was crazy! The people left in the fall didn't winterize it of course and so no one had been in there all winter. This resulted in a lot of drywall and insulation being ripped out as well. Our floors look like they are white because it sticks to your shoes and you track it all over the house. (gets really frustrating after cleaning a floor and then it looks exactly like it used to ;) ) He looked up youtube videos and other tutorials on how to do it and saved us literally thousands of dollars, his fingers still are super sore and hurt so bad. I am so grateful that he learned how to do it and put in the effort to save our little family money :) Michael says that he has touched all the piping in the whole house, his head has been in all parts of the ceilings. I think it is time for him to get a hair cut because his hair is a mop with all of the dust and drywall up in the ceilings so we have had many cleaning out the hair parties. (Don't worry nothing get's left in there like beetles or anything ;) Well now we know we don't have any scary critters living in our walls. :) These are just some of the holes

You have to look close in this one, but under the box there is a huge hole and then a long stretch of open. This was taken before we found mold because they had overflowed the toilet and just let the water drip down, so about 1/4 of our garage ceiling is just taken out :) 

The living room

The living room

The kitchen 

basement
We went and cleaned up the walls so they will be easier to put drywall back in. :) 

Like I said these are just a FEW of the holes. Now just imagine about 3 or 4 bursts in each hole and you have Michael's life these last 3 days.

Well, I think that this will be all for today's blog post. We have to keep you interested and coming back for more :) There is a lot of work we have to do to it still, but we have so many ideas and we are getting so excited to start and have our first home together. :)

 XOXO Sauceda's in St. Louis!

Memorial Day 2015

So as many of you may know, I love holidays. I especially love dressing up for holidays and eating food that color coordinates with it. :) (I know a little weird) So for memorial day, we went and got blue and red Gatorade, hot dogs, chips, watermelon (our second one this summer and it's only May)etc. Typical memorial day food. I seriously get giddy over doing fun stuff like this.

Don't mind my extremely frizzy hair ;) Not quite used to the humidity here.
Like I said, I love dressing up for holidays. Got the shirt for $5, earrings $3 and bracelet free :) 

Friends

Well, I always knew I wasn't the best at continuing things but I made it to day 2 on my friends week. DAY 2!!! Ooopsie....  So I decided to just do a few more. :)
This girl needs her own post. This girl is named Kelsey Norton. She is my best friend and always will be my bestest girl friend EVER.. that is right. EVER!! No one can replace her and no one probably ever will. We get each other, we know each other and we love each other. It isn't some phony kind of love that people just say to each other, it is a genuine love. The love that when bad things happen to her, I cry, I mourn with her. Then when she comes to me for opinion and guidance, I tell her straight up, not lying to say the right things. I do this because I love her. She may not always like it, but I guess being this close of friends you don't want to lie to the other to try and soften it up. I know she would do the same for me. I mean 11 years of friendship will do that to you.
Kelsey is special, Kelsey is kind, Kelsey is smart. Kelsey has had to go through many things that no teenager should have to go through. But Kelsey did it and SHE came out stronger in the end. She is a fighter. She LOVES everyone, literally she hates being mean to people and making them upset so she loves everyone. But if you get on her bad side, you might as well just not try any longer :) :) :) (love you kels) She taught me how to be patient and how to unconditionally love. How to give people multiple chances even when they don't deserve them. She taught me how to be kind and how to always see the best in others. She has taught me how to have fun. We have gone on countless road trips together, many high school dances, girls camps, long car rides to go past the boys that we liked house (come on doesn't every girl do that :) ) We can laugh about anything. Still to do this day a quote from She's the Man "do you like gouda" is our favorite line and anytime someone says it to the other we bust out laughing!! I can imagine her saying it right now. We have the same tastes in a lot of things, one of those being movies. I swear we could watch movies for days and love it.
My parents were big sticklers on no sleepovers but Kelsey's house always seemed to be the house that I could convince them. :) I think I have shared a bed with Kelsey more times than anyone else (well next to Michael) If you guys can't tell I love and miss Kelsey daily.
Moving out to St. Louis has been hard because I miss family and I miss Kelsey. I miss just being able to drive up to her house and just hang out. I miss being able to give her hugs and do have heart to hearts. Phone heart to hearts are just not the same. I miss hearing her stories about boys and her daily tasks. In July, this girl is on the top of the list for me to see. LOVE YOU KELS!!!! Long friendship=a lot of pictures.

A Little Piece of the Future

A couple of weekends ago, we got a little taste of what our future will look like with kids.
 A cute mom came up to Michael and I and asked if we would babysit her 4 children for the weekend while her and her husband celebrated their 10 year anniversary. HECK YES! I was all for this, especially because her kids are WAY good and stinkin cute. So she wanted to leave the day I got done with my last final, so this was a fun way to officially celebrate summer! It hit me that oh wait, we aren't these kids parents, they have actual moms and dads that they can't wait to see in the next day. It is kind of funny how we both just got consumed and loved these kids that we forgot that they aren't ours. It was definitely crazy to go from having no kids and having everything be about us, to having 4 kids to take care of over night. It made really appreciate moms and all that they do. They are COMPLETELY selfless.  I love how these kids absolutely adore Michael. It showed me that we are a good combo on I am the one to crack down on things such as making sure the kids ate their food before they had cake candy, and Michael is the one where they go and wrestle and play with. Seeing him hold the sticky 2 year old covered in ice cream, cleaning her up then buckling in her car seat, it seemed like he was made for this!

Like I said above, these kids are amazing! They are crazy, wild but most importantly loving. I loved just hearing all the giggles and the running around going on. It just makes a home feel like a home. 

The oldest boy loved Michael most of all. Anytime Michael would do something, he would do it. Michael was sitting on the coach with his arms folded and he sat down and looked at Michael then copied him. I asked to sit by Michael during movie night, but he didn't want to leave Michaels side. He was the one to ask when we could go wake up Michael in the morning, then that would lead us into going and jumping on him yelling WAKE UP MICHAEL!  Come play with us!! Michael would be the last person to get a hug at night as well. On Saturday night they wanted french toast with whipped cream and strawberries, so Michael was in charge of making it. David was of course right by his side being the cinnamon and sugar man. I loved to see a bond between the two. 

The weekend consisted of a lot of ice cream, a lot of movies, park time, birthday parties, walks, snuggles, and yummy unhealthy food that they can get cause mommy and daddy weren't here. (Don't worry they had fruit with every meal) 

Michael said everyday, man if I didn't have finals next week I could do this for another week. That is how amazing and fun these kids are.

Michael and I were exhausted by the time 8 o'clock rolled around and the kids were in bed.
I am so happy that the parents asked us to take care of their kids because it was a blast and made me want my own kids ;) (not for a while) Thanks Mary and Joe for letting us take care of them! :)

Went to many parks

I thought this was the cutest thing. I couldn't find Hazel so I went searching and here she was just sitting and listening to music. 

 Had a lot of ice cream

They seriously all loved Michael.

 We had chocolate covered popcorn and I look at the two girls and they are just covered in it. Don't worry we brushed their teeth real well that night. :) 

This is the view from their roof and I thought it was SO cool!