When we moved into the temporary apartment in our garage during the fall of 2009, we had an ultimate plan of building a house around 5 years later. We would occasionally discuss what kinds of features we wanted in a house, but didn’t really put much time into planning any details since 5 years was still quite far in the future. In May of 2011, we took a trip down to Tennessee to visit Joe’s sister Kelley and her husband Jon. While staying at their house, we both commented about how we liked the layout, and we started sketching up some potential floor plans for the first time.  While spending some time in Nashville, we also happened to wander in to a Shane Company store where Sara found the wedding ring she wanted.

Even though we were excited to start building a house, it would turn out that any serious house planning would have to wait.  on July 1st, 2011, a major straight line wind storm blew through Burnett County, causing tons of tree damage and power outages, and kept us so busy for nearly a month helping get our customers back online that we had virtually zero extra time to discuss anything to do with the house.  In the end, we did end up with a very nice supply of firewood for at least the next few years!

Once things finally started settling down from the storm, another important event happened:

Wedding planning had become the priority, so the house would have to wait.  The infamous 11/11/11 was a beautiful day with perfect weather for a wedding.  The surprise honeymoon to Colorado was a great trip combined with some well needed rest from a busy year.

While we weren’t much closer to actually building a house, 2011 was a good year, and many of the events throughout the year helped us prepare for the building process which would eventually arrive.  Bring on 2012!