Life as Newlyweds

Hey everybody,

As most of you know, we were recently married on June 1st, and it was the perfect day for us! We had friends and family come in from various places throughout the country. The weather threatened to be sketchy, but we were blessed with blue skies, sunshine, and 100+ degree temps.  The ceremony was wonderful, and the reception was a blast! Oh, and the Mexican buffet was delicious!

Many of you have not heard much from us since then, and people have been wondering what's up. We've gotten all kinds of questions from everyone. Where are the photos? What have you guys been up to? Why haven't we heard from you much?

Our life together as newlyweds and new home owners has been good, but rather busy. When we got engaged, we had no idea idea we would end up combining two major life events in the same week. Back in late November, we signed the papers to commit to buying a brand new home in a Gilbert subdivision. What started out as an empty plot of land is now a 2 story, 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath home! At the time, we knew we would be married in June but had no idea when the house would be finished. Most early estimates put completion in mid July.

As May fast approached, we received word that the house was finishing up. Soon after we learned would have the keys just a few days before the wedding. At the same time, the lease on Kaci's apartment was up and we didn't want to pay another $800 to sign a one month extension. We weren't willing to pay that kind of money just to give us time to take our honeymoon before the move. That being said, we made the crazy decision to combine both major life events - the move and the wedding - into the same week. Who knew it would all happen within a few days of each other?!

With help of family and friends, we moved all of our stuff into our brand new home over the course of the week. Once we had settled in, we headed out on our honeymoon. Unfortunately when we got back, Stephen had to return to work immediately while we were faced with a seemingly endless list of things that needed to be done. 

Everything from legal documents, to finances to internet accounts needed to be updated. Kaci had her name changed. So many things needed to be purchased to make our house a home: Appliances, furniture, blinds, landscaping, internet providers, etc. Internet and TV had to be setup. The house needed to be decorated. Things needed to be unpacked. It has taken quite some time to get established since we said "I do".

On top of that, an unmentionable number of issues came up. Administrative errors associated with Kaci's name change and an incorrectly recorded street address confused nearly every company we dealt with. This prompted seemingly endless phone calls to these companies, as well as the 
government. We also faced a number of home warranty issues, fought internet and TV companies for two months, turned away defective deliveries, and reschedule others for one reason or another. 

Don't get us wrong - we don't regret a moment of it. Most of this stuff was a blast! We didn't mind how many hoops we had to jump through to make it happen. We've just been so happy to be homeowners and newlyweds. But doing all this while maintaining a full time job and adjusting to living together for the first time has pretty well kept us occupied.

Thankfully, things are finally settling down for us. We are getting our backyard landscaped, we have all our major appliances, we have all of our major services, and most of our furniture / decor is up. Of course, we need a lot more than we already have to furnish the entire house, but we're getting there!

As for the wedding photos and everything else you've been waiting for, we've actually had them for a while. We originally planned on posting them quite a bit earlier, but the street address issue prevented us from having internet for almost two months. We couldn't really post several gigabytes of photos through a limited smartphone internet connection.

When we did finally post the pictures, we posted them to a SkyDrive account to preserve the quality (Facebook automatically reduces the quality of photos to save space). They've actually been up for a while, but we never got the word out because we wanted to announce them in a post like this. Sadly, time has prevented us from doing so until now. For those who haven't seen them yet, here they are (incidentally, those who kept insisting to seem them found them long before this announcement).
Click here for the wedding photos!

Going forward, we plan on posting regular updates to keep our friends and family across the world informed. This will be our e-newsletter of sorts. Check back soon for some new pics of our newly furnished home and landscaped backyard. We also hear the video of the wedding ceremony will arrive soon, so those of you who couldn't attend can at least see the ceremony. Look for these things and more in the coming weeks.

Love,

Kaci & Stephen