It's been awhile

For the thousands of people that follow this blog, I apologize that it has taken a year for any updates. While this post will be more of a "year in review" I will try to post pictures in the near future, since I know people love pictures.

We are still really loving our house. In the past few months we actually rearranged everything so I'll be sure to include new pictures of the house in the next post.

As many of you know, Texas and especially Austin have been in a drought for like 12 years (more like 7 months but feels longer). We are also on very tight water restrictions which means our grass is all but dead so no pictures of the outside.

My job is going really well. I got a big promotion a few months ago with more responsibility which is always welcome. I'm super blessed to have a job that I enjoy going to every day.

On the side I am still working on websites and youtube videos. They continue to grow and definitely excited about the potential there.

Erica actually got a new job as a Spanish teacher at a preschool. She is loving it and it's awesome to be on the same work schedule as her.

For those who haven't heard my brother just found out he is having a baby girl which is fantastic news. They already have a son, Jordan so I'm pretty pumped to have a niece.

Hope all the readers out there are doing well. Expect pictures soon.

New House Pictures

We are finally moved into the new house and wanted to share pictures with everyone.

Floors are finally Done!!!

So our biggest project to date is now complete... the floors. Removing and laying floors in your entire house is no small task but thanks to the hard work of my wife, we knocked it out. We still have lots to do but here are some pictures of recent areas completed.

*also keep in mind these are from my phone so quality is not the best

This picture may not look that special but before there was a break where we were going to lay t-molding. We decided to rip up all our hard work in the hall and master and redo the whole thing. The flooring now flows throughout the whole house with zero breaks.

Another pictures of newly done master

View from front bedroom looking into hallway.

View from main hallway.

2nd bedroom

View from master looking down main hallway.

We still have to put up baseboards, paint baseboards, put up trim and move appliances. Expected move in date is end of month.

House Updates

As you can imagine all of our free time has been put into getting our house ready. The biggest project thus far is the floors. Who would have thought that laying flooring would be such a big task (besides everyone)?

We are about 44% done so wanted to share some pictures with everyone.

The living room. There is lots of flooring pieces on top but you can take my word that it's done and awesome underneath everything.

View of dining area.

Our kitchen. We are super happy with how it turned out.

Master bedroom.

Keep in mind this group of pictures was taken from my blackberry so quality is no bueno. More pictures to come as we fill out more of the house with flooring.

Vegas Trip and House Renovations

This past weekend Erica and I took a trip to Vegas. This was Erica's first time so we spent a lot of time looking at all of the hotels. There are quite a few new hotels even since I last went. We don't take tons of pictures when we travel but here are a few that we did take.





We have been doing a lot of work on the house. The biggest projects that have been completed lately are the cabinets in the laundry room and the cabinets in the kitchen. Our floors are going to be a dark brown so we decided to paint the kitchen cabinets white.

Before of the kitchen with doors removed.

Cabinets before we sanded and painted them.

Kitchen finished!!!

Laundry room with cabinets added.

Next big project is the floors. We will post pictures once we get them in and start to install them.

Back in Texas

Well I know that it's been about 6 years since I last updated the blog but have decided that I'm going make an effort to update the blog more frequently. As many of you that are reading this know, Erica and I have moved back to Austin, TX.

South Carolina was good to us and there are definitely things that we will and have missed but it is good to be back in Austin.

I am working at BancVue as a website consultant (or Relationship Manager as they call it). Since I love working on websites, I really am loving my job. Another great thing about my job is that I get to work with my brother. Not many people get an opportunity like that.

Erica is back at Emler Swim school as a manager. She is enjoying being back at the swim school, playing with kids everyday.

One of the biggest things that we have done since we've moved back to Texas is buy a house (2 weeks ago). For those familiar with the Austin area, our house is in Cedar Park. We are super excited about the new home but have a LOT of work to do on the house before we actually move in.

We will be updating the blog with lots of pictures as we progress on the house, since that is what most of our time will be spent doing. Hopefully you enjoy the pics :)

Front of the House

Back of the House

Study

Master Bedroom

Deck view from Kitchen

Kitchen

Entry into living room

We are ripping out all the floors in the house and redoing them as well as painting the entire house so the rest of the pictures will be demo/painting.

Master with floors removed

Living Room

Another view of living room with the fridge obv.

Kitchen with floors removed. If you are asking yourself "Did they rip out hardwood floors?"
You better believe we did, cause we're awesome at life.

Kitchen view with floors removed. Also notice the new light :)

Entry with floors gone.

So we ripped up a lot of carpet.

Master after paint. Dark grey for those that can't see from my 10 year old camera.

Laundry room with paint.

Bathroom partially painted.

We still have a ton of work to do one the house but we've done quite a bit already. If anyone is ever in the Austin area and wants some manual labor we will put you to work immediately.

Yay for blogging again. Yay for being back in Austin, TX. Yay for football season starting up soon.

Much has happened since this summer. Erica has been busy making tons of cupcakes. In October she was able to book a wedding and made over 200 hundred cupcakes. She made four different flavors and they all turned out really well. If you want to take a look at more of her cupcake pictures you can always check out new updates and pictures on her website: www.createdby-e.com




Over Thanksgiving we were able to travel quite a bit which was a good change for us having not really gone anywhere in awhile. We spent some time in Knoxville, TN and Birmingham, AL with my side of the family and then spent a few days in Atlanta by ourselves and explored all the Atlanta has to offer. One of the highlights of Thanksgiving was that we were able to meet our nephew for the first time. Jordan Butler was lots of fun to play with, watch roll over, watch laugh and even watch cry. He's precious and we're glad we got to spend some time with him. Below are some of the pictures from Thanksgiving weekend.

My dad thought it was important to introduce Jordan to some Auburn gear. He seemed a little iffy about it, but seemed much happier once he got some burnt orange him.

Jordan hanging out with his Uncle Kevin.

My grandparents also celebrated their 65 year anniversary over Thanksgiving which was a treat to spend some time with everyone.

It became our mission all weekend to make Jordan smile and by the end of it Erica clearly won the prize for making Jordan smile.

Jordo with his cousin Catherine.

Four generations of Butler men.

Four generations of Butler men's hands.

Me and Papaw

The new parents with their little guy.

Once we got him to smile that's basically all we wanted to do. If you are wondering who he's smiling at, it's Erica. He really liked looking at his Aunt Erica.

Super cute picture of Jordan smiling.

Jordan showing us how he rolls over.

Jordan with his Uncle Kevin

Erica and I got to see a lot of cool things in Atlanta. We explored the coke factory and this is a picture of the different cokes from around the world. There were some that were really good and some that were just really bad. All in all it was really fun.

We also got to check out the aquarium. It was pretty crazy and got to see lots of amazing fish.

We also were able to see Miley Cyrus in concert. We were surrounded by 25,000 screaming little girls. It was definitely an experience.

It is crazy that the Christmas season is already around the corner. We are planning on spending the holiday season in San Diego which should be a lot of fun. Hope everyone has a great Christmas holiday.