The Leon's: Home Sweet Home!

I can't believe that this time last year we were moving into our very first house! It is amazing how fast time flies. Buying a house was a very quick decision for us. We went home to see Rod's fam and found out that his sister was buying a house and she was all excited about the 8,000 tax credit and low interest rates. I never thought we could do it, especially with Rodney not working, but we crunched the numbers and found that we could buy a house for pretty much what we were paying in rent every month. We came home looked at houses for less than a week and found "THE ONE". We didn't have much time to dwell on the decision since it was such a great deal so we made the decision and never looked back and I am so glad that we did!

So here is what I LOVE about our house and where we live....

We live in a small town with 2250 people...crazy to think that you can find that just 30 miles from downtown.
We have a great community that has a swimming pool and gym (in case I ever felt like working out, I have been once in one year!)
We have become great friends with 2 of our neighbors. It is nice to be able to walk across the street for a BBQ or to hang out with friends.
I absolutely love our house, and feel so blessed that our "starter home" is so NICE! I never dreamed that I would have 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and an office, plus granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances!
We have a Sonic within walking distance (I think Cherise likes that more than I do :)
We can see the stars in our backyard :)

What I DO NOT like about our house and where we live....

We live at least 15 minutes from Shopping, restaurants, movies theaters, and anything fun!
Most of our friends live at least 30- 45 minutes away :(
We are already running out of storage space in the kitchen and we have no hall closet in our house, who builds a 2,000 sq ft house without a hall closet???
Traffic.....grrrrr
Teeny Tiny spare bedrooms (Sorry Cherise and Carroll)
Pretty much all we have is a Sonic :( I stop there frequently so that they will not go out of business!

Even though we have lived here a year, we haven't been able to do too much to the house. Between Rodney not working the first 6 months we lived here and paying for some wedding stuff we haven't been able to afford too much.

Here are a few before and after pics...

Before.....This picture was taken waaaay before we moved in and by the time we bought the house the grass looked awful so Rod laid new sod in certain areas.

After......

Close up of the stone work Rod did around the trees

Rod built a flower bed in the corner because that is where all the water would run when we didn't have gutters, it was a mud pile and nothing would grow there.

Before......