YES WE DID!

November 4th marked two special events... Brian's 25th birthday, and the election of our 44th President of the great US of A-- Barack Obama! Since this is our personal blog I fell no need to censor our feelings..... We could not be more thrilled with the election of our man, Barack! woo hoo! What an amazing day in history! January 20th will officially mark the end of an ERROR and the beginning of great CHANGE to come!

YES WE DID!



We just had an *inkling* this would be an exciting election (not sure if it was a gut feeling, or the fact that Barack was whooping McCain's butt in every single poll! haha), so we invited our friends (and fellow Barack groopies) over to celebrate with a little Election Party/ birthday party for Brian & Ashley (Justin's gf) who happen to share a birthday!

Here are some pictures of our crazy night!


that's right, I made a cake!


a birthday/GObama cake


Brian's calculator jello mold... a nod to The Office


Jennie & Albert


Justin & Ashley... cute


and the winner is...!






Ashley & Lauren-- jello shots to celebrate the victory!


Steph & Lauren


so long, ya Mavericks!


Clayton & Brian


happy birthday Brian & Ashley!


Jen & Scott


Ethan & Erin (the newest couple in the fam!)




Lauren & the birthday boy!


Overall, a successful, eventful, and historic night to remember!

Barack and roll, baby!!

The Halloween Buzzzzzz.....

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, hence the note on our main picture this month. Lauren's mom is a survivor!

We're sorry for not blogging in so long-- especially for those few loyal readers we have! So... this is for you, Grandma Muriel and Henny! ;) haha

As we're getting ready for the next post about our house, we thought we'd post some Halloween pictures! I know, it's not until this Friday, but we already went to our party! Justin's girlfriend Ashley had a big party at her house, so we decided to get into the Halloween spirit :) After trying to decide what we were going to be (I was almost a flapper, but as I am responsible for dressing Brian as well, I just didn't want to buy 2 outfits), I stumbled upon a cute Bee costume, and decided to make Brian "honey" :) I made the shirt myself!

here's us with Justin and Ashley...
Justin's F-word "costume" was a bit inappropriate, so for the sake of our grandmothers I've put a pumpkin over part of it... use your imagination for the rest ;)


the witch & the bee...


he's really drinking! Ashley's excited...


the old married couple


and our other bee friends... Tori Spelling and her son... haha
We started a trend :)


**UPDATE:

Pictures from Lauren's office Halloween party... she went as Sarah Palin! (Even funnier now that there's no chance of that moron heading to the White House!)

oooh, that's a pricy outfit!



I really can see Russia from my house...!


guess who won the costume contest....


that's right - Mrs. Palin!


what a resemblance...


Halloween night! Pumpkin carving in our first house!








our front door


:)


Happy Halloween!

WE'RE IN ESCROW!!

Yes, that's right! We're thrilled to share the news with our family and friends! (Sorry for the cliffhanger earlier in the week! lol) This week we made an offer on a place we loved and saw lots of potential in!

Here's Lauren with the large deposit check we wrote with the original offer... eek!

The sellers counter-offered our low offer, and we countered theirs the same day with an offer we thought they would be happy with. After a lot of waiting anxiously and trying not to get our hopes up, we found out today that they took our offer! :) They signed the papers so we know its for real, and on Monday we will officially be in escrow for our townhouse!!

We're going to be homeowners, and are SO excited!! Here's us right after we found out it was official:

The sellers asked for a 45 day escrow (they're trying to arrange the close of this escrow with the escrow for the place they're hoping to buy), so today we gave 30 days notice in our apartment. Bye-bye Brentwood! We'll be staying with Albert & Sandy after we leave our apartment, and then additionally after the close of escrow while we're sprucing up the place! We plan on scraping all the ceilings (popcorn ceilings = yuck), re-doing all the flooring (pergo + new carpet), painting, and partially remodeling the kitchen cabinets... Lots of work, but we're very excited to make a beautiful home for ourselves... and of course for the little Wests that are in our future ;)

We're going to hold off on showing pictures for now, but will post them as "before" pics when we're ready to post the "after" pics! :) (Though we might show you progress along the way!) So, we are buying a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom townhouse in Tarzana, with a huge living room, great kitchen/dining room space, laundry (woo hoo!!), and a cute patio in front. The complex has a pool and spa and is just really charming. We have carport parking right around the corner from our unit and lots of guest parking - for all of you who we hope will visit! We can't wait to show it off at a housewarming party... but that will probably be sometime in August after its all prettied up :)

Stay tuned for future news and plans!

With Love,
Lauren & Brian
aka future home-owners of Tarzana ;)

(happy kiss!)