My Brother-In-Law Gets Married: Part 1 - Minneapolis, MN - October 5-9, 2018

My brother-in-law, Brandon (Robbie's brother) was getting married in Minneapolis in early October amidst a giant life change for us. We barely had time to settle into our new home, and we were off for a long weekend! One thing we were really looking forward to was driving there! It was nice to not have to spend the money and energy flying half across the country. Driving also gave us more freedom. As soon as we knew we were moving to Cincinnati, we also knew that we were driving to Minneapolis for the wedding. We were both really looking forward to Brandon's wedding, especially Robbie! He had been waiting for this day practically his whole life. We received Brandon and his fiance Karlynda's invitation nearly a year before the wedding, and Robbie had been working on his Best Man toast ever since then. Robbie and I had Friday-Tuesday off of work, and we were set to go!

I'm creating 2 separate blog posts because on Friday October 5th, we did something pretty awesome on our way to the wedding. "Part 1" will be about that.

Brandon's wedding weekend happened to fall on the first weekend of baseball's post-season. On Monday, October 1st, the Brewers had a Game 163 vs. the Cubs, in Chicago, to crown the Central Division winner. What a thriller it was, but the Brewers came out the absolute victors, and we had home-field advantage throughout the playoffs! The Brewers made it to the NLDS; now they just had to find out who they were playing. Later on Monday, another Game 163 was happening, between the Dodgers and Rockies to determine the winner of the NL West. The Dodgers ended up winning, so the Rockies and Cubs would battle for the Wildcard spot the very next day. The Brewers were either going to be playing the Cubs or the Rockies in the NLDS. The Wildcard game was played at Wrigley Field in Chicago, and we though that there was just no way the Cubs would lose 2 games in a row, at home, for a spot in the post-season. Buuuut, they did! We couldn't believe it! How we, and the Rockies came into Wrigley Field and handed the Cubs 2 consecutive losses for the post-season, was amazing!  2 consecutive celebrations both by the opposing team was almost too good to be true, but it was very real! Just to put it in perspective, the Brewers were down 5 games to the Cubs at the beginning of September. 5 games is REALLY hard to make up, especially at the end of the season with postseason on the line. So, the NLDS was set, and being the Brewers had home-field advantage, Milwaukee got the first 2 games on Thursday and Friday, October 4th and 5th.

Now, Friday was going to be our travel day all along, with wedding festivities starting Saturday. On Wednesday, after we found out the Brewers didn't have to play the Cubs in the NLDS, we decided to get tickets to Friday's Game 2! There were a few reasons as to why we made this decision to go to the game. One being the timing of the game was just right. The game started at 3:15 pm CST. If the game started any earlier we wouldn't have made it. It is a 5.5 hour drive to Milwaukee without traffic, but for us, it was about an hour longer because we hit Chicago traffic, then road construction all the way from the WI/IL border to Milwaukee, plus the time change. We left Cincinnati at 6:30 am just to be there in time, so if the game started any earlier, we wouldn't have gone. If the game started any later, we also wouldn't have gone. If it was a night game, it would've been over at 10:00 pm at the earliest, and we would've had to get a hotel in the Milwaukee area, which would have meant getting up super early to be in Minneapolis by noon the next day for the wedding rehearsal. The second, and more important, reason we decided to get tickets to this game is that it was a birthday present for Robbie. Robbie's birthday fell on the weekend that we moved into our new house, so his birthday got overlooked. We both felt that he needed something bigger, so this was it!

Like I said, we left our house at 6:30 am. It rained practically the whole way from Indianapolis to Chicago, and I'm talking torrential rain! We were going probably an average speed on 35 mph nearly the whole way. Then we hit Chicago traffic around 11 am. It took us probably a half hour to get through downtown. Then we hit road construction from the WI/IL border all the way to Milwaukee on I-94. Not the greatest driving conditions, but we made it! Robbie downloaded a parking pass before we arrived, so we were able to park in one of Miller Park's parking lots. When we have gone to games there before, we would just find free street parking and walk to the stadium. We didn't want to run the risk this time, so we thought better to be safe than sorry.

When we parked, it was instant awesome! When you think of Miller Park you think of tailgating. These fans did not disappoint on that front! There were rows and rows of grills, smoke, the smell of brats and hot dogs, people playing beanbags and catch, and above all that, the excitement and anticipation was over the top! We took all the tailgating in while walking to the stadium. I was sooooo excited to be at this game; I was like a little kid in a candy store! Our first order of business was lunch, including the midwest staple, cheese curds!

We got to our seats just as batting practice was wrapping up. Our seats were great, just behind homeplate in the 2nd tier. I liked these seats because we could see practically the whole field! This was my very first Brewers playoff experience and I wanted to just soak it all in!

Christian Yelich wrote a really great article in The Players Tribune just before the Brewers made the playoffs, and it was titled "Let's Goooooo!" So that has been one of our motto's throughout the post-season!

The 4 times we have been to the Post-season. Hoping to add more to that this year!

Before the game, the jumbotron showed clips of past post-seasons with videos similar to one another in different years. It was really cool to see the videos that I was alive for, most notably Nyjer Morgan's walk-off win in 2011! Also, we had a really cool ceremonial first pitch as well. Cecil Cooper and "Stormin" Gorman Thomas threw out the first pitch to Craig Counsell and Jim Gantner, respectively. Cecil Cooper's granddaughter also sang the National Anthem! Finally, those 2 words were said that gave me chills, especially in this game: PLAY BALL!

Jhoulys Chacin got the nod in this game, after short rest; he started Game 163 on Monday vs. the Cubs. I wasn't sure how he would do on short rest, but I was sure our bullpen would back him up if he struggled! Chacin did very well as he pitched 5 scoreless, giving up only 3 hits! He also had 3 strike-outs as well. In this era of baseball, a pitcher going 5 innings is quite good. It used to be that you would see many pitchers go complete games, but not anymore. Baseball is relying heavily on their bullpen, and I'm pretty sure the Brewers are paving the way in that regard. Heck, in Game 1 of the NLDS, the Brewers manager threw a bullpen game by design. At any rate, the game was scoreless going into the Brewers half of the 4th inning. With 1 out, our mid-season trade acquisition, Mike Moustakas, hit a double, then the very next batter traded places with him on a ground-rule double! Brewers were on the board, 1-0!!

The Seventh Inning Stretch was something I had been looking forward to since our last visit to Miller Park in 2011. Not only do we sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame, but Miller Park has a tradition of singing Roll Out The Barrel too! It was so fun to sing that again with such an electric crowd!

When Chacin left after 5 solid, Knebel came in and pitched a clean 6th, with 2 strikeouts. Then Soria pitched .2 innings, then Hader came on and got out of the inning! Jeffress was next out of the bullpen in the 8th and he had a clean inning. Then the big Brewers bats were up, starting with Yelich, who made a strong push to be MVP this season (still to be announced). Yelich walked, then Braun singled him to 3rd. Aguilar then walked the bases loaded! At this point, the crowd was going absolutely nuts! But to me, this is what I've waited for, an extremely exciting Brewers home playoff game! And I was sure getting it! Next up was Moustakas, and he singled Yelich in, and the wheels were in motion! The very next batter was Eric Kratz, the back up to the back up catcher. Steven Vogt went down with an injury early in the season and he was our original back-up catcher this year. When he got injured, Eric Kratz became the 2nd catcher on our roster. In a 1-1 count to Kratz, he lines a single to left field scoring Braun and Arcia (who replaced Aguilar as a pinch runner)!! This was some exciting stuff that was happening on the field! The next batter was our bullpen pitcher Jeremy Jeffress, who was making his first career plate appearance! I couldn't believe it! What an inning the Brewers had! We were up 4-0 going into the top of the 9th! Just 3 more outs! Jeremy Jeffress went back out there to pitch the 9th inning after the offense padded his lead! After a lead-off single by the Rockies, they went down 1-2-3 after that, and the Brewers won! I was ecstatic!! The crowd was going crazy, and I'm pretty sure the game ball was given to Kratz! What a game to be at! Not only did they win this game, they had also just won their 10th game in a row! The Brewers were so resilient this season, and definitely when they needed it the most! I was so proud of them after this game! We stayed to listen to the post-game interviews on the field, then started to make our way out and back to our car. The environment around the the stadium was still so electric, just as much (and if not, more) than it was when we got to Miller Park earlier in the day! It took a while for that win to sink in!

Surprisingly, it didn't take us long to leave the parking lot. We parked near the outer edge of the lot, so that made it easier to exit. When we decided to go to the Brewers game, we also decided not to confirm a hotel for that night. By the time we got on the road, it was about 8:00 pm. We planned on just driving until we were tired. We originally had Wisconsin Dells as our stopping point for the night, but we pushed a little bit further west on I-94 and made it to Eau Claire. Looking back, it was probably wise of us to just stop in the Dells because by the time we got to Eau Claire, neither of us could keep our eyes open. Robbie was driving at this point, and we were both doing our best to keep us both awake! It was a rough last 10 miles! We were so glad to have gotten to our hotel when we did!

The Brewers NLDS game kicked off our weekrnd of wedding fun, and even though this day was a little longer than expected, it was perfect! Robbie and I have been such Brewers fans the last few years, and to have the opportunity to go to a playoff game was more than I could have ever thought! The Brewers won their first 2 games of this series, and would eventually go into Colorado and break the Rockies' hearts in game 3 with a sweep of the series!! We were moving onto the NLCS and I couldn't be more excited to see what happens!

"But now...it's about how we end it. I have a feeling we haven't seen anything yet." - Christian Yelich in his "Let's Goooooo" article in The Players Tribune

Our Journey To Cincinnati - Part 3: The Purchase of our House - September, 2018

As I mentioned in my "Cincinnati Part 1" post, the weekend after Robbie accepted the job here, we came to check out the city ourselves. During our visit, we had lined up a realtor to show us a bunch of houses that weekend as well. We had picked out a handful of houses on Zillow before we left, and we were excited to see them in person! We had scheduled 2 "house days" while we were here, on Friday and Sunday.

Our realtor met us at our hotel on Friday morning, and off we went. We both soon came to find out that we could get A LOT of house and land for our money in Ohio as opposed to California! The first house we pulled up to was gorgeous and huge, and it was in the running. I remember neither of us liked the backyard though because it was slanted, and it had a drain in the corner for water run-off from other yards just up the hill from it. I do also remember that the first house we saw was #1 on my list! There were actually 2 houses we saw with the same layout, but one was nicer than the other. These were still in the running, yet slightly underwhelming. 

The second house we saw was my second favorite, and it was high up there on Robbie's list as well. This house was even bigger than the first, and what drew me in was the huge picture windows in the living room, overlooking the retreat backyard. We called this the "Christmas House" because we could imagine a 20' Christmas Tree in front of one of the big living room windows. This backyard looked like it came from a magazine. It was landscaped and tiered with a gazebo, a bridge, and a fire-pit area on one of the landings. The inside of the house was empty, but it was still really pretty. This housed jumped to #1 on my list!

Then, we viewed Robbie's #1 house. As soon as we stepped inside, we both got a different feeling! That feeling was "holy crap, we need to put in an offer on this house!" And that feeling was instant. We have always looked for non-cookie-cutter houses, and this one was it, and I hadn't even walked beyond the entryway! The living room was so big, with a floor-to-ceiling fireplace and a 3-season porch. Other features included a rounded staircase with a landing/loft, a newly remodeled kitchen with more cabinet space than one could ever imagine, and a main-level master bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and a closet that could count as the 5th bedroom. Oh yeah, and the master bedroom has a door leading out to the pool! Then, we went down to the basement, and we were met with more surprises. The basement was one room, but on one of the walls was a larger-than-life theater screen, complete with a projector and surround-sound! Yes, we needed this house! Even before we had a chance to pick our jaws up off the floor, our realtor was on the phone with his lender to start our loan process, then he made a call to the seller's realtor to relay our interest in the house! Everything about this house was perfect, and we didn't know why it hadn't been snatched up already. Our realtor said that the sellers listed the price higher than most of the comps in the neighborhood, but we thought the price was still really low for all the house we would be getting, plus a pool!  After our realtor got off the phone with his lender and the sellers realtor, he gave us a list of items the lender would need to start the loan process. Needless to say, we canceled the rest of the house showings that day, and Sunday! We got back to our hotel and started gathering the loan information. While that was happening, our realtor submitted our formal offer, and it was a waiting game after that. We had no idea how long this process would take; this was our first house purchase ever!

This is the seller's stuff.

Not even a few hours later, Robbie gets a call from our realtor telling us that the sellers were already countering with an offer that we thought was still too high, and they didn't include any closing costs, but what they did include is some pool cleaning equipment. So, after some thinking, we decided we would make the sellers sweat and not respond to their counter! We gave them the night to panic, and hopefully that tactic would work. We had to credit this sneaky move to our friend John. Since we've never negotiated on a house before, we didn't know what was reasonable, so he was the one that told us to kill them with silence! Sure enough, the next day, they responded with our offer, plus closing costs, AND the pool equipment! We had them send over the offer they just gave, just so we knew no more shenanigans were going to happen, and they complied! After they sent over the formal offer, we accepted! We couldn't believe it! We were getting the house of our dreams, and now, it was only a matter of time, formalities, and paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork.

Being we cancelled our house showings on Sunday, we had all day to bum around Cincinnati. We rented a car and explored downtown between all our excitement (See my 'Cincinnati Part 1' blog). The rest of our visit was getting some of the loan paperwork together and sent over. We just wanted to do everything as quick as possible to try and make the process go faster. Also, that weekend, we drove by the house 3 or 4 times, not even believing we would live there one day!

When we were still in Cincinnati, we decided on a closing date of October 12th. We picked that date so late because we found out the sellers were going to be in Europe in the middle of September, and when they got back, we would be in Minneapolis for a wedding. We didn't want to set the closing date for any earlier (before the sellers left for Europe) in fear that our belongings wouldn't be in Cincinnati by closing, and we didn't want to be paying for an empty house. We knew it was a long time to wait, but in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing compared to all the years we planned on keeping the house!

In between our time in Cincinnati in August to the time we moved here, there were lots of emails between us, the lender, and our realtor. Luckily, we could sign everything electronically, and whenever the lender asked for a form, we just scanned it and sent it, or just emailed it. Technology today is amazing! E-signing, emailing, and scanning made things go so quick and smooth! About a week before we made the move to Cincinnati, our loan was approved, and it was smooth sailing from there!

Not even 1 day after we arrived in Cincinnati, we got a call from our realtor, who asked if we wanted to close earlier than October 12th. We were excited, but we needed to get ahold of our moving container company to see when that would be arriving. We didn't want to move int to our new house if our stuff wasn't going to be there. We called 1-800-PACKRAT and they said that our container was due to arrive into Cincinnati on September 17th. Perfect! We called our realtor back and relayed this information. He quickly called us back and said we could close anytime the week before, which was only a week away from this moment! Oh man! We were psyched! We re-set our closing date for September 14th!  It was actually a blessing in disguise because this temporary apartment we were staying in had no comforts at all. The couches were hard as a brick, and the beds matched that level as well. 

I immediately texted my mom and brother the great news! I had been updating them throughout this whole process, and they were both so happy for us! The week of September 10th was a blur, but it could not go fast enough! Finally, September 14th came around, and we met our realtor at the sellers realty office, just near our brand new house. We had no idea what to expect during the closing process, except that we pretty much had to sign our life away. When we got to the office, we realized the sellers were there. I didn't think we would ever get to meet them! It turned out they were selling their house because they just had a baby and they were worried about her falling into the pool. It's a legitimate worry, but one that I silently said to myself "thank you very much!" We all signed several documents, they handed over the keys, and that was it! We had our very first house!!! We were both so happy! Our realtor, as a gift for using him, gave us a generous gift card to one of his favorite steak houses in Cincinnati. How nice! When we got done signing everything and our keys were in our hands, we left the building and I just started crying! It was a good cry, one of being so overly joyed, and overwhelmed with happiness! We had the keys to our brand new house! 

At our realtor's suggestion, we went straight to our new house and ordered a pizza! It was the best way to break in our house! That same night of closing, we went to Ashley Furniture and ordered a living room set, a dining room table, and and an oversized recliner couch for our sweet theater set-up in the basement. At this point, we enjoyed that we sold all our furniture in California. This way, we could get brand new furniture for our brand new house/brand new chapter in our lives! The next day, we went to Best Buy and bought a washer/dryer set. I never thought I'd be as excited as I was to make that purchase! After Best Buy, we went to our house to swim in the pool for a good part of the afternoon. It was glorious to know that this pool was all ours. We also got a big floatie duck to put in it, too! Later that evening, Robbie got the projector to work, and we watched part of the Brewers game on our theater screen, and it was larger than life! On Sunday, we went back to the house, just to say hello, and to swim in the pool again! 

That next week, the week of September 17th, was our move-in week! I set up a team of cleaning ladies on Monday to get our house all clean and ready for move-in. While the cleaning ladies were there, our container arrived. I didn't get to see the process of the container being unloaded in Temecula, but I got to see it this time! It was totally cool! It came on a trailer, and when it was put in position, the truck hydraulics slid the container out, a chain lifted the container and set it on our driveway! And, that was all done in the rain! That was all set to go for the movers to unload it on Tuesday morning. 

The movers arrived on Tuesday morning at 8:25 am as a team of 5! They were so fast, efficient, and super friendly. Even after setting up the base of our Sleep Number Bed, they were only at our house for 40 minutes! We will recommend the heck out of that company! 

Then, about a half hour later, Best Buy came to install our washer/dryer. As they were installing it, we ran into a slight hiccup. We thought the washer/dryer combo was going to be too big for the area it was supposed to go in. Luckily it fit after we removed the baseboard and the door frame! Hey, it's our house and we can do whatever we want to it! After we removed those 2 things, the dryer slid right into place! We will put the door frame back after we cut some of it off to fit around the dryer! The Best Buy team of 2 was also super nice and friendly!

Shortly after Best Buy left, Ashley Furniture showed up with our first of 3 deliveries. Some of the items that we ordered weren't in stock, so those items will come at different dates. On this day, we were getting our living room sofa, 6 of our 8 dining room chairs, and one of the two oversized recliners for the basement theater. The couch came first, followed by the 6 dining chairs. Then the recliner came. It was bigger than we thought, and it ended up not fitting down the stairs! Bummer! They had to take it back to the store, and we had to cancel that order. Luckily we were able to send it back at no charge, and get refunded the money that we spent on it! We will be making another trip to Ashley to make a Plan B purchase for sure! We totally didn't even think to measure the door frame for the basement. I'm sure we will find something just as nice!

After Ashley Furniture left, the internet tech came to set up our internet and phone for my virtual office. We initially made an appointment with Spectrum, as we have had them for years and we know what to expect, and most importantly, their products meet the requirements I need to work from home. The Spectrum technician arrived actually on September 15th to set up our internet and phone. He took one look at the house's set up and knew right then and there that he couldn't help us. He said that the lines were cut for any other company but Cincinnati Bell. That really sucked because now we had to start all over, and who knew when the Cincinnati Bell technician could come out and set everything up! The Spectrum tech said that the previous owners had Cincinnati Bell, and apparently when a house is set up for them, they cut the lines to any other service so the owners would HAVE to use them! It put a sour taste in my mouth from the start, but we had no other options! I called Cincinnati Bell, and the whole call was such a mess. The agent I was speaking to barely spoke English and was hard to understand, and for some reason, she could fill my internet order, but she had to transfer me to someone else who could fill my phone order. Super weird, but oh well. Cincinnati Bell was able to meet all my virtual requirements, but the soonest a technician could get out to the house to install was Sept. 21st! I was not excited by that, but at least it was going to get done. As I was finishing up my order, I got a voicemail. After I completed my order, I listened to it, and it was the Cincinnati Bell corporate office telling me that my order hadn't gone through, and it was just a shell of an order! By this time, an hour and a half after starting to speak to Cincinnati Bell, I was livid. I called the lady back, and she almost immediately put my worries to ease. She re-filled my order with my virtual requirements, PLUS, she bumped up my install date to Tuesday Sept. 18th! I was very happy I spoke to her! So, on Tuesday the tech guy came out to install, and right away, we knew he was really good at his job. He knew exactly what he needed to do and how to do it so that not only my work stuff would be set, but also so that we would get the highest speed of internet for all 8 of our devices, plus 3 streaming TV's! He was there for nearly 4 hours, but it was well worth it!

The internet/phone guy was the last of our deliveries that day, and just like that, we were all moved in! The house all of the sudden took on the shape of a home! The first thing we did that day was finish setting up our bed and made sure all the bells and whistles worked! We have an adjustable bed where our head and feet can move, a bed massage, and also a nightlight. We needed to make sure it all was in working order, and it was! I got all the bedding washed and put on our bed by that evening! I got the best night's sleep I had in weeks!

My virtual work station was still set up at the temporary apartment until September 21st, and that was our last day at the temporary place! We were so excited to get it all moved into our new house! That was the last piece to this whole whirlwind of a puzzle! 

We have been sleeping in our new house since move-in day, and we still can't believe we live there! We own every single room in that house, and the land around it, including the pool! It is a big house, but hopefully we will have the rest of our lives to fill it with memories! Being a homeowner is a huge responsibility, but we are finally at a point in our lives where we feel like we can take it on! In the coming weeks, things will start to feel more routine for us, but life will constantly be exciting! We have this huge house with endless possibilities! Come visit!

"A house is a building, a home is a feeling." - Sisters