cheery mornings.

I walk to school. 

see the driveway on the left? that's our place.

see the cars up ahead and the stop sign?

that's the driveway to the elementary school.

i call my mom during the 6 minute walk to work.

it's nice:). 

craigslist praise

Well, my husband and I have been busy busy busy.

Some out of the blue, bizzarre, and fun things have been happening in our lives!

First of all, we've finished the moving process today! We finished cleaning up our old home (tried to leave it nicer than we found it!), and brought the last of our things over.

We're almost pretty much settled and very much thankful for this blessing.

We have been praying throughout this past year, but especially since this past spring, for a place to live above ground, with space to have kids, (and selfishly, i was hoping for a very big living room window, glass storm doors, and a spacious kitchen with maybe an island or a place to sit in...lol, that was just me though:)) 

God answered out prayers in a big way.

How can i share this story with you without taking forever to do it?

Let's give it a try.

Monday, August 1st, I went on craigslist at 11:00 pm.

a lady posted a "2 bedroom, 2 bath, beautiful place to live, etc.." only minutes before.

I replied.

She replied back.

She told me, "the first people that see this house will want it."

I told her we would like to see it.

I was working the next morning and knew I would not be able to see it.

However, I have some sweet people at school (our nurse and principal) that told me I needed to go see it.

So i took an hour off work to meet up with Ryan and head over to the house.

We looked at the house first, before anyone else, shortly after that.

We fell in love.

but we asked if we could think and pray about the house before making a final decision. 

She said yes.

The next day we were in Kansas City, MO and ryan and I had spent time talking and praying together on our anniversary trip.

In the parking lot, on the way into Worlds of Fun, we called the craigslist lad and accepted.

and now, two weeks later after moving and hauling stuff over, we're finally sitting cozy on our couch, enjoying the very last evening of summer vacation.

it has large windows.

and THREE glass storm doors. 

and a kitchen big enough for our family!

lots of sunlight shines through into the house! 

the house is the right size for us:)

it's a sweet little place, just the way i like it. not too big, not too little, juuuust right.

Only because this is the place in the house that is almost finished, i'm going to share some pics with you of our kitchen!

use your imagination.

and imagine this kitchen with kiddos running around in it it.

holding up their plates to the stove i'll be cooking at.

eating in the kitchen.

and all the other goodies that comes with kids.

it's perfect for us.

[the coffee corner, the owls and their new home, and the little sweet corner that i'll work at!]

[the little breakfast nook only has one chair right now. the others died horrible deaths when the kids rocked on them and broke them.]

oh, and another thing we're so excited about

we're pretty thrilled to have a backyard. ryan did lawn work, and we're both excited to have the excuse to go out and work on the lawn!

in the words of Damian, "WOW! your yard!!!! We can play frisbee, and baseball, and football, and everything!!!!" 

yep, we're excited to do all those things with our kids too:)

the pictures don't really do the place justice. 
I think ya'll should just stop on by and have a cup of coffee with us!

Moving break

Ryan and I have been busy moving our stuff from one place to another.

In the midst of all that though, both places have been very much occupied with people.

It's been a nice stress reliever having them over. 

Here's Damian and I during one of our moving breaks:)

FYI, ya'll can't hear the music, but we can in this video! lol.

[ssshhh...don't tell anyone that Damian knows all the lyrics to Justin Beiber's songs...;)]





So much more moving to do...
This is the last night in this apartment! 


Next post I'll tell you the GOD story that brought this move about:)

2nd Anniversary Trip

With all the craziness that has been going on in our lives, I haven't had the chance to update ya'll on the lives of the Brandenbergers.

we celebrated our 2nd anniversary on August 8, 2011! I was all set to blog that morning about our anniversary, but the events of the day, scratch that, the week, prevented me from doing so.

But here we are, at TWO of years of marriage - and I'm more in love with this man than ever! 

Ryan is my best friend, my sweetheart, and my baby:).

As we step into a new part of life (that I will elaborate on soon), I can't help but look forward to the years that God blesses us with together. 

For now, I love our little family of two:). 

Each anniversary we have, our hope is to get away just the two of us for a few days. Last year, we went up to Minneapolis, MN and this year, we hit up Kansas City, MO! 

I'll let the pics show you a glimpse of our time there.

We stayed at a really fun place right near the Kansas City Royals stadium. 

it had a Coco key waterpark attached to it:)

Breakfast is always the highlight of each morning for me:) Cuz it comes with coffee for the day! we spent most of our mornings at IHOP.

We have a plan to hit one major amusement park a year...and Worlds of Fun in Kansas City was the chosen one this year.
To be honest? It didn't really compare to the other amusement parks that we've already hit up-but it had a great waterpark which was soooo convenient on the hot sticky day that we were there!:)
[only brought my cell phone camera into the park. Rebel didn't go with us.]

 My coffee love and I were reunited once again:)

  hotel rooms are wonderful for jumping on the bed...
anyone else do it?

 and hot tubs and pools...
love ending my days there.

 Frozen Yogurt runs are soooo good on summer nights.

 the next day, we hit up the Country Club Plaza downtown...

*sigh* 

I love the shopping life here.

We had our Anniversary dinner here at Brio. 

They had WONDERFUL appetizers and dishes there. 

It made us reminisce back to our dates in Chicago. 

I have a unique love for Bridges. I think it's cuz back home in SC it's a favorite of mine...we always had to cross a couple of them to drive back home:)

Our last day we went down to the Crown Center and checked out the Hallmark factory, Crayola centers, and the sweet shopping center there.

We really enjoyed the Hallmark center...it was incredible how each card is made!!! 

I loved finding the different hallmark Christmas ornaments that I had over the years with my family:)

I even got to meet this old lady!

She was very pleasant!

There ya go, ya'll...a quick peek at our glorious time away from everything and everyone and just the two of us:) 

let's talk COLOR

One of the stops that Ryan and I made on our trip was the Crayola Shop and Diner.

It bursting with color! 

Ryan always said that I'm easily made happy with colors and happy shapes.

I think he may be right...

especially after this visit.

We walked away with a bunch of Crayola goodies.

We're set to color this world!