What's New?

You probably noticed I took a little break from blogging in April.  I guess I didn't feel much like writing.  With my grandpa's decline in health and trying to spend as much time with him and my family it just kind of seemed not as important.  But, I want to post an update on the other happenings this past month in our lives, so here goes:

1. We refinanced with our current lender {U.S. Bank} and closed on Good Friday.  The awesome thing is that the notary came right to our house and we were finished in less than 30 minutes.  We will be saving nearly $250 a month.  When we bought our house we did 100% financing {i.e. no money down} so we had to get a split mortgage called an 80/20.  We refinanced the first mortgage - they wouldn't touch the second.  With our savings on the first, we plan on putting extra toward the second to hopefully pay it down faster.  We also have a plan to make some lump sum payments as we are able to continue to pay it off.  Hopefully in a few years {read: five-ish} we'll be able to sell our house and not take a hit.  It feels good to have a plan {as much as we can in this market}.
2. With tax money this year we were able to pay off three loans {one student loan and two that pertained to our basement project}.  Now we only have two more student loans to get through {our only other "debt" besides our mortgage/monthly bills}.  If I allowed myself to dwell on it, I would loathe my decision to go to a private college 10 hours away from home vs. staying here and going to the U of MN.  But, it is what it is!  
3. We also purchased a new camera.  I was tired of the grainy/unfocused pictures I was getting on our old one.  I am very excited about this purchase, but I haven't had much time to play around with it and figure out how to really use it {other than on automatic}.  I look forward to getting more creative with my picture taking.
4. We finally broke down and joined Verizon and got an unlimited texting plan and new phones.  The texting itself was more of a frivolous purchase...but I am so excited about it.  Neither of us are big into following the crowd and doing the "in" thing, so it took us a long time of discussing it to finally commit.  We don't have smartphones or data plans or anything like that, but that's okay.  One step at a time.  My parents/sister/niece all have Verizon and since I talk to them the most, I will be saving TONS in anytime minutes and now that I can text UNLIMITED I can stay in touch with, you know, everyone in my circle just perfectly.  Oh, and with T-Mobile {and Sprint} we didn't have service in our entire house, let alone our basement.  With Verizon - it's all clear!  Whew.  Worth the extra money we'll be spending!
5. We've all been fighting sickness.  Audrey had a runny nose for two weeks straight {no other symptoms though} and then Doug got a whopper of a cold - then Audrey got it - then me.  Doug and I are almost back to 100%, but Audrey's is lingering.  She's sleeping better this go-round, but it's still so hard to see her miserable.  I am hoping she gets back to her old self within the next couple of days or I am going to take her in to get checked out.  *sigh*  Poor kid.

Well, that's it from our corner of the world.  I have been seriously considering taking a social networking break for awhile.  I feel like it's absorbing too much of my time {and by social networking I mean FACEBOOK}.  I guess admitting it is the first step, right?

Just for fun, I am posting a picture of me and Doug {Doug and I / Doug and me - I can never remember how that is supposed to go...ugh} from Easter.  I was messing around with our new camera.  Enjoy!

The date was incorrect on the camera - oops!