Mega Update!

We are really enjoying married life and have been finding ourselves going out more often, and spending plenty of time with friends and family.  It's also been a rough couple of weeks for some of our friends - it makes me feel guilty about what we have, but I know everyone has their ups and downs.   

P.S. I don't have pictures, but Eric, Brian, and a group of their friends are running a weekly radio show with awesome music courtesy of Brian, and conversation from all of the boys.  So now he's spending Tuesday nights broadcasting, and I'm hanging out with Jen and the kids!  

 Jack and I on the new Sky Ride at the Kansas City Zoo - it goes over the zebras and giraffes.

This giraffe was too short to reach the trees and too tall to reach the grass without aerobics. 

Our friend Moonshine came to visit for the weekend! 

We went barhopping with Alison and Shawn - we had a pitcher of Woodchuck!  We went to The Pool Room, had pizza at Rudy's, then Kristie joined us at Harbor Lights, and we finished the night at Perkins to visit Tera! 

Yea yea YEA!  We've got Eric's car paid off!!! 

He's obviously excited!

 Eric's car is paid off and we've made $578 of progress on the next debt in line.  I wasn't thrilled at the nominal progress over the past 16 months - so I raised the minimum payment on it!  Now we're saving all of our snowball money for Eric's car upgrade and potential future baby money - and we'll get back on the snowball when both of those goals have been realized.

Addy says "Look!  I know how to use an armrest!" 

We've been going through a heat wave recently - this HVAC van advertises by showing the temperature inside the van, and the heat index outside... 70* in their van, and 116* outside!!! 

Leslie and I spent a day together - Deanna Rose, swimming, and then a treat at Smallcakes.  They have a deal where you get a free cupcake the first and tenth time you check in on FourSquare.  I had cookies and cream, and Leslie had lemon. 

 Tonight we went out to dinner at Outback, that means bread!  We had three loaves between us :)

Again - Eric is sooooo thrilled for his steak!

I really AM so thrilled at having crab legs for dinner (and my tiny fork)!

Day 344: Another Busy Sunday

This morning I went to church by myself because Ashley didn't want to get up for the early service, and I didn't want to wake Eric up after our late night.  After the service, I talked to Father Gar about Eric and I leading a Financial Peace University class starting late this summer.  He was on board, so I'll post details as soon as we work it out!

After church, we went to Bo Lings for dim sum with Paul, Deb, Brian, Jen, Shannon, and Pau.  Everything was delicious as usual - I tried a boba drink, but it wasn't as good as I'd expected.  I had boba balls at a frozen yogurt place before - gelatin balls filled with juice.  The boba balls at Bo Lings were solid gelatin balls, a little odd.

Then we did some shopping with Brian and Jen, and went to my family's house to see Mom, Ashley, and Andrew.  It was so good to see that little guys, I can't believe we haven't seen him in a month!

We topped off the evening going to a party at Warren and Mary's house in Belton.  Their house is only a few blocks from my grandparents - Butch & Karen Halbasch, so we walked over to say hi.  They weren't home, but the party was still really fun!  Mary has really great taste in music, everyone brought delicious food, tasty wine and we had some nice conversation.  We would have liked to stay later, but I was completely wiped out.

The willow branches are growing really long!

The tree is still pretty easily swayed by the wind.

Me, Mary, Paul, Warren, Deb, Pau, and Eric behind the camera.

Jen & Brian!

Day 339: Snowballing Eric's Car!

We've been working hard on our budgeting, keeping track of our planned expenses, and focusing on knocking out Eric's car payments.  Every time it storms he hopes for hail damage so he can get a check for damages and apply it toward his loan!  We've been talking about trading his car in for a "Dave Car" so we can get started on our next step, but nothing has panned out yet.

We forgot to color in our debt thermometer last month, so we just colored in

We are just short of 21 inches ($21,000) colored in!

Almost $1,500 paid off in the last 2 months! 

I know we keep saying it, but we are so close to the armrest on the couch!  Next month we will pass it and then some!

And it wouldn't be home without a topless Eric!

Day 288: Awesome Sunday!

I've got to start this off by saying that we had to skip church this morning so we could extend our time with Steven and Leslie, but I fully think it was worth our while today!  We slept until 10, or so, and then woke up at our leisure and had some cereal.  The best decision came when someone suggested we go for a walk.  We took a frisbee down to a clearing and realized that it was far too windy for that to be successful.  Then we headed down the trail and found ourselves at a storm drain, which was at the end of a creek that was about 15 feet wide. 

We decided to explore down the creek a little bit - and each "little bit further" led us on an advendure that lasted over an hour.  There were places in the creek where it wasn't easy to hop over rocks and we either had to climb up to the bank and walk around, or carry stones the size of shoe boxes to make a rock bridge.  It was great exercise and excellent fun!  I was the most adventerous with bridge building and ended up with completely soaked socks and shoes, oops!

By the time we made it back to their apartment, I had decided that ice cream was in order.  We all decided to go to Sheridans and grab some frozen custard.  We had perfect timing and were their second customers of the day.  Within 5 minutes, the line was at least 15 people deep!  All four of us enjoyed a mini sundae with various combinations of toppings.  Leslie was craving hot dogs, so we went to HyVee to buy some SmartDogs, buns, ketchup, and chips.  Paired with Steven's mad grilling skills, we had a delicious lunch!

Next I dropped Eric off at the JCCC gym and went to Mom and Alan's house to unload our garage sale stuff.  While I was there, Alan showed me his pen making shop, and made me a wooden mechanical pencil for my Dave Ramsey envelope system wallet!  Then I picked Eric back up from the gym and we returned to Mom and Alan's house to pick up Eric's (Alan's) motorcycle.

It was Eric's first ride of the season, and after he rode up and down the street once, he picked me up and we rode to Paul and Debs house for dinner!  The ride went great and Shannon was really excited for Eric to give her a ride around the neighborhood.  We made pita pizzas and watched some Scrubs on Netflix before heading home and enjoying the remaining time of our eventful Sunday! 

 The boys skipping rocks.

 Leslie and I on a sunny (humid!) day.

 Eric and I crossed the creek on this fallen tree, while Steven and Leslie found a safer route.

 Mom and Alan escorted Eric and me to Paul and Deb's house, just to make sure we made it safely.

Eric and me, ready to roll out!

 Eric taking Shannon for her first ever motorcycle ride, and Eric's only passenger other me.

The night ended with two major waves of hail.  It only reached quarter size in Eudora, but Olathe was hit with massive amounts of golf-ball sized hail.

Day 285: Late Night Shopping

Today is our day of the week where we get very little time together.  I leave for work before Eric wakes up, then he has to leave for class around the time I get out of school, and I have to go directly from work to KU for my class.  I get home around 7:30 and he gets home closer to 10.  We puttered around the house griping about not having food fod a few minutes before we decided to go shopping. 

We actually made a list and a few meal plans, and stuck to the list so we didn't go nuts!  I've got a school project going on right now where we're tracking minutes of exercise and servings of fruits and vegetables - which has made me conscious of the lack of fruits and veggies in our diet.  Tonight we bought a nice variety of produce and I'm excited to eat it!

And we managed to only spend $35!  I apologized to the cashier because we were fumbling with our envelope systems, trying to work out what came from food, pet, and misc. money.  Then I became giddy with excitement when he said "No problem, I'm a Dave Ramsey nut too!"  I get so excited when other people know what we're doing!

Day 283: Paying Down Eric's Car

We will officially start the "snowball" payments on Eric's car next month, but this is the first month where his car is our lowest balance debt.  Only $5400 to go!  We made his payment on time, but were a few days late getting it colored in on the debt thermometer.  His car hasn't been upside down for quite a few months now - it's worth a little more than $8000 in it's condition!  Today he brought up the idea of potentially selling his car and using the profit to buy himself a "Dave" car for 2-4 grand.  I love the idea!  Without his car payment and saving up for a year, he could have more than $15k for a new (used) car.  We'll keep you posted on any progress in that direction.

We are SO close to the top of the couch arm rest! 

Things are heating up faster around here!

Day 278: Can We Do It? Yes We Can!

Today was a schoolwork day for Eric and a chores day for me.  He had a take home test and a project due in his tax preparation class.  Eric had been working on these last week and while we were in Michigan, but couldn't really focus, so today was crunch time.  While he was crunching numbers, I used my new phone and a checklist app to make my list of chores for the day and set off to work!

Then while he was at class, I went to Dave Ramsey with Papa and Ashley.  Tonights lesson was "From Tuition to Fruition", and it is about saving for college and retirement.  Dave talked about if a 30 year old made 40k per year and put 15% into retirement each year (making 12% interest), that by the time they were 70 they would have over 5.8 million dollars.  Eric and I won't yet be 30 when we start on this baby step, and we may not make 12%, and we might not work until we're 70 - but as Dave says "if I'm half wrong, you're still a millionaire!"  We are VERY excited about this because we really believe that this can be our future!

Aw man, I fell up the stairs!

Checklists and calculators, oh my!  These new phones are great!

Day 265: Only 100 Days Left!

A few days ago Eric was looking at which tags were used the most often, and we came up with this Top 10 list!  I would say that this gives a very accurate view of what is important in our lives!

10. Cooking: 24 tags
8. Andrew & Dave Ramsey: 26 tags
7. Drinking: 28 tags
6. Games: 29 tags
5. School: 40 tags
3. Cats & Food: 41 tags
2. Friends: 48 tags
1. Family: 75 tags

Andrew, food, and cooking!

Dave Ramsey and games!

School!

Cats!

Friends and drinking!

Family!

Day 259: Dave Ramsey LIVE! & "The Leprechaun"

This is a picture heavy post, so I'll let the pictures do the story telling!

We arrived at Kemper Arena around 10:15am, and I jumped with joy when I saw Dave's semi! 

We waited in line with the General Admission people for about 5 minutes before I realized we had a special entrance. 

The "Backstage Experience" tickets got you a nice breakfast spread, a lanyard with your pass on it, a free personally signed book, AND we got to wait inside, out of the cold. 

We sat at a table with a couple a few years older than us, who have paid off all of their debt and are now in the process of buying their first house.  You can sort of see a table between our heads (closer to Eric), that is where Dave was sitting and signing books!  We were so close!

Yea!  We got to shake hands with Dave! 

When the show started, we were on the center aisle and three rows back - less than 15 feet from Dave! 

This hit home for us, because we started with $93,053. 

Dave talking about debt tying you up in chains, and how you finally break when you just can't balance anymore.

Us with our backstage passes! 

Alison's parents, Ashley, Mom and Alan.  I didn't catch a picture of Alison, but she was there too!

C'mon!  Gazelle Intensity!!! 

Of everyone in the arena (who texted in their total current amount of debt) there was $483,247,423 of debt sitting in that auditorium...yikes! 

Where do you fall on that line?  We're a little above that number. 

We had a fantastic time at the show! 

Steven and Leslie made us a delicious vegan meal! 

Then we went to the theatre at Crown Center to see three comedians mock "The Leprechaun", Mystery Science Theatre 3000 style.