Nashville Challenge

In honor of the Amazing Race starting tonight I thought I would blog about the Nashville Challenge that I participated in a few weeks ago. This scavenger hunt/amazing race type challenge was great fun! A friend of mine, Lindsay Johnson, posted the groupon for the challenge on her facebook status and asked who would be interested. Well since I love this type of challenge I immediately told her I would participate! We were a team, Team Awesome, of 4 girls that were up for the challenge and there to WIN! There were approximately 80 teams taking part in the challenge and it was trivia on downtown Nashville. We received our clues and headed out. Our phones were helpful but many answers were just from the knowledge we had on our city. We covered the downtown from end to the other, approximately 6 miles. We ran probably half the time and walked the other. We finished in 4th, our time was one hour, 8 minutes and 44 seconds, only 10 minutes shy of first place. Darn. For every clue we had to take pictures of our team at the particular location with the requested props/positions. Here are just a few.

Our commute WAS cut in half but...

now the drive is going to be longer. Boo! Gerry House, my favorite radio personality, has announced his show will end on December 15th. I listen to the Gerry House Foundation on the Big 98 every morning. They are full of fun, jokes, news, sports, gossip, contests, and music. I will certainly miss them but wish them all the best. They are always a great start to the morning!

A few of my favorite things

about the new house.

Moving days

We went to the closing with both cars loaded full of boxes. We started moving things that night - why wait, that's what we had been doing for 2 weeks! We had all our boxes there by Thursday when mom and dad came out. When they arrived, first thing on the list was to get the U-haul in Murfreesboro and pack up all the furniture then we would meet Mark's buddies at the new house to help unload. Man, that U-haul was packed to the brim, we're thankful for dad's packing abilities. After only a couple of hours all the furniture was in - now it was time to organize. We had big plans for the weekend, we wanted to landscape and paint while mom and dad were here. Mark and I could unpack our personal items later. We went non-stop the entire weekend - man we were all completely worn out! Thanks mom and dad for ALL your help!


Here are some before and after pictures.



Landscaping




Dining Room



Living Room

Trying to be patient

As many of you know we bought a new home but let me tell you, the process sure did test our patience. We submitted an offer on a house in the middle of June. It was a short-sale and we knew it could be a longer process than normal which we thought was ok since we were still trying to sell our home in Murfreesboro and we really weren't in any hurry. We gave the sellers a week to either accept or decline our offer. As we sat on pins and needles we finally received a call from the realtor telling us they had another offer. So we went all-in and offered the full asking price, I was adamant about not going any higher. If we didn't get it, it wasn't meant to be. Sure enough we lost that house (which looking back was the best thing that could have happened). Oh, we were so devastated! We were pretty much set on this neighborhood and this particular part of town. We had looked at every house available and knew that was it.

Well God had another plan for us. We continued to look, again, at all the houses in the neighborhood, even the ones we really weren't interested in. We came along a brand new home that had been sitting there vacant for over 2 years and was a bit out of our price range. So after viewing the house 3 times we decided to go for it. We low-balled and thought if they go for it, great...... if not, fine. We had already been disappointed once. We submitted the offer on July 3rd and gave the sellers another week to accept or decline. The builder (father) and realtor (son) were on vacation but quickly returned the call to our realtor and verbally accepted our offer. Wow - that was easy! Since that happened so quickly, it really took us a minute to realize they had accepted.

We finally got all the paperwork going that next week, setting our closing date to August 11th. Well the packing began. Mark was so motivated, I occasionally had to slow him down so he wouldn't completely pack our house the first week. I was insistent on being organized and cleaning out the unnecessary items as we went - he was completely on board with that! Thank goodness.

July and August were already getting pretty busy so we continued to pack every spare chance we had. We were ready to go the first week of August but had not heard the final word from the lender that August 11th was still the plan. Well, we continued to harass our loan manager, poor Ashley (who was AWESOME)!! I know she was the middle man but golly we were SO00000 frustrated. We were trying to be patient but there we sat with all our stuff in boxes besides my makeup and hair products. The kitchen was packed, we were eating out, we were still showing our house with only the bare bones, we couldn't even walk through the garage, had the U-haul scheduled, Comcast scheduled, furniture deliveries scheduled, buddies to help unload were booked, time off from work scheduled, etc. Well we rescheduled all that a total of 4 times - UGH!!!

You can only imagine how this girl with a plan was so disturbed!! God definitely tested us and of course it ended up working out perfectly. Mark was definitely my calm in this storm. He was always so patient and calm and there were many days I just wanted him to be mad and yell with me!!! Thank you honey for keeping me in check.

So August 25th came, our official closing date!! We were FINALLY new home owners - bout freakin' time!

We certainly were tested and learned a lot about being patient and relying on God to make it work out perfectly.

Row, row, row your boat...

Of course, I'm behind again! Anyway, in July our "Date Night" friends and Mark and I canoed down the Harpeth River. It was the perfect, warm, sunny day! We packed our coolers and canoes and were on our way. We had a great time but were worn out!!







And we're off.........


We weren't the only ones with this good idea.


Took a break for the rope swing.
I was shakin in my boots, but I did it!



My handsome tour guide and paddler


Group Shots