Flood Zones

We’re down to just barely a week left until we’re supposed to be closing on the new house. I will admit that I tend to be somewhat of a chronic worrier, and since it feels like everything in my life has been going so great lately I keep waiting for the ball to drop and something to go horribly wrong. I was so sure this was happening the other day when I got an email from the mortgage underwriter telling me that the house had been determined to be in a high-risk flood zone. This left me worried and confused, as we had already talked to the next door neighbors about the area and they said they weren’t considered to be in the flood zone. I started panicking because I had not budgeted for flood insurance and I didn’t know what this new information would do to the value of the house. I took to Google (as I so often do) and saw that flood insurance can range from only a couple hundred dollars a year to a couple thousand a year. I’m pretty sure I must have been having an off day, because I started assuming all the worst case scenarios. We’d have to spend an extra $100 or more a month on flood insurance, which would totally throw off my housing budget. The value of the house would go down by about 50%. The house would end up flooding before we even moved in. My imagination was just running wild, and not in a good way.

As luck would have it, I happen to have the best fiancé in the world! I went to talk to him and he could tell I was on the verge of breaking down from all of my worries. He took control and told me to relax and it would be ok. He then took to Google himself (really, who doesn’t do this often) and first found out how to contest your flood zone mapping. I hadn’t managed to get any quotes for flood insurance yet, so he called an insurance company to see what they could tell him. This turned out to be the most help because they let him know that the property already had a LOMA amendment on it that exempted it from the flood zone. After finding that out he called FEMA to get a copy of the LOMA letter so we could forward that on to the mortgage company to prove the exemption.

It will probably be another day or two before we get any kind of official notice from the mortgage company about whether they are updating our flood zoning, but we’re hoping for good news. The fiancé and I decided that even if we get moved to a low/no-risk flood zone we will probably go ahead and get the insurance. Being in a low/no-risk zone will make our premiums much lower, though, so it won’t break the budget. Always better to hope for the best, but still prepare for the worst.

Here's to hoping everything else is smooth sailing up through closing!

May I Speak to Sir Richard Branson Please

I was in the kitchen at my parent’s house the other day and I noticed a note on the counter. I’m the nosey type, so I had to read what was on it. I’m looking down at the little sticky note and all that is written on it is “Richard Branson?” I found this to be an odd little note, so I asked Mom what it was for. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey Mom, what’s this note on the counter about Richard Branson for?”

Mom: “Oh yeah, I want Sam to call him!” (Sam is my little brother)

Me (while giggling): “Mom, why do you want Sam to call Richard Branson? And just how easy do you think it is to call him?”

Mom: “Well Sam is has such an entrepreneur type of mind and he’s always got these good ideas. Richard Branson is a great entrepreneur so I thought he’d be a good person for Sam to talk to.”

Me (still giggling): “Well I can see why Sam would want to talk to him, but why would Richard Branson want to talk to Sam?”

Mom: “Well why wouldn’t he want to talk to Sam?”

After that question I stopped giggling and just stood there silent. I had nothing to say. She had made a very fair point. Everyone that knows Sam enjoys talking to him, so why wouldn’t Richard Branson also.

So… Sir Richard Branson, if you’re out there somewhere reading this, my mom would really like for you to have a chat with my brother sometime. Thanks!

London Calling

In just a couple months the fiancé and I will be heading out to London for a vacation. This will be his first trip to Europe, actually it’s his first trip out of the country period, but I’ve got family there so I’ve been visiting since before I can even remember. With the Olympics happening there right now and this trip coming up soon, it got me thinking about the last time I went to London and so I thought I would share some of the highlights of that trip with you…

It all began back in October on a flight home from California. One of my best friends and I had been out there for her brother’s wedding (along with our families and many other friends). She was sitting behind me on the plane and we were chatting through the seats about how much fun we had and how we needed to start planning our next adventure. It just so happened that I had recently been offered a job interview in London coming up in November. I had originally planned to just go out alone, but once we started talking about it, we decided it would be much more fun if we extended the trip and both went. The next day I got online and booked our flights and a hotel and about two and a half weeks later we were off!

We took the red eye and arrived in London early enough that we had a full day when we got there. Our first stop was the hotel to drop off our luggage. I say hotel, but really we were in an old townhouse that had been converted to a B&B. The B&B was in a great location, close to Paddington station, and the family that ran it was extremely helpful. Any questions we had they were quick to help with and they also provided us with maps and would mark directions for us. We were on a budget, so these were not luxury accommodations by any means, but they were perfect for our needs. We had even booked a room on the fourth floor because you could get a discount since there were no elevators. I might also mention that the stairs got more and more narrow the farther up the building you went, so it was a rather hilarious sight to see us attempting to pull our giant, overweight suitcase up the stairs. By the time we reached the final flight, I’m pretty sure the stairs were narrower than the suitcase was. It was all just part of the adventure, though.

(our B&B)

We only had three full days there, but you’d be surprised how much we managed to fit into those days (we were there four full days, but nearly a full day was taken up with traveling to and from my interview). We hit as many tourist sites as we could, including: the London Eye, the Tower of London, the London Dungeon, Big Ben and Parliament, London Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, the M&M store, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and the theatre. We knew we wanted to see a show, but we weren’t set on a particular one or day, so we ended up purchasing our tickets the day of the show from one of the half price booths. I would recommend these booths to anyone wanting to see a show (also in NYC), because we ended up getting great seats at Wicked for about half of the regular price.

(outside the theatre before Wicked)



One little added bonus we got was the Winter Wonderland fair going on in Hyde Park while we were there. They had carnival games and many different rides and food booths set up for this event. We didn’t try out any rides, but it was free to get in and walk around the fair, so we did do that one evening. It provided a fun little element of Christmas to our trip. We may not have been in London for very long, but we sure did manage to create some wonderful memories while we were there!

Here are a few more pictures of those memories:

 The London Eye at night

 Big Ben and London Eye

Having fun in the M&M store

More fun at the M&M store

 London Bridge

 View from the London Eye

Big Ben and Parliament

 Winter Wonderland fair in Hyde Park

Winter Wonderland fair in Hyde Park

A House Divided

As I’m sure most of you already know, football is pretty huge here in the South. And being from Alabama means the biggest rivalry around is between Auburn and Alabama. As it happens, I am an Auburn fan and the new fiancé is an Alabama fan. We are a house divided. He is of the belief that he can convert me, but I’m afraid he’s in for a rude awakening. I’m not a diehard fan like some others, but I also don’t see my allegiance changing any time soon. I never actually attended Auburn University, but my little brother did, so there is some family history of attendance. I know, without a doubt, that there is no way the fiancé would ever change his allegiance and I don’t ever intend to try making him. Neither of us in an aggressive or mean fan, so I think being a house divided will end up bringing a little bit of a fun rivalry into the house instead of any discord.

How about you and your family? Does everyone support the same team or are you also a house divided?

The Proposal

I told you about how I recently got engaged to the love of my life, and it was just the sweetest and most romantic proposal ever, so I have to share it with you…

Near the end of June my boyfriend told me to leave July 14^th open because he had a surprise planned for me. Knowing him and the fact that he can’t keep surprises secret for long, I was sure he would end up telling me what it was by the end of the day. He didn’t. I was already surprised. A week went by and still he hadn’t told me. He did give me clues along the way, such as: you’ll need to wear comfortable shoes, no sandals, it’s outdoors, and it’s in a state where we can pick up lottery tickets (I have a slight scratch off lottery addiction, so this was exciting news!). I came up with all kinds of guesses ranging from white water rafting to hiking to driving race cars. He warned me that even if I guessed right, he wasn’t going to tell me. Finally about a week before the surprise he let me know that it was going to be in or near Nashville and that it was very early in the morning so we’d be staying the night up there.

Now, ever since I had told my friends that he had planned a surprise for me, they all started saying he was going to propose. I was 100% completely and totally convinced that this was not the case. We had talked about it and I knew it was coming eventually, but I was sure he still needed a bit more time to save up. I was fully expecting to come home from the surprise and show my friends that I was right and they were wrong. Little did I know…

That Friday night we got a hotel in Brentwood and went into downtown Nashville for the evening. I was allowed to pick where we ate, so I chose Spaghetti Factory (which is amazing in case you haven’t tried it). At dinner he finally had to give in and tell me the surprise. He just couldn’t hold it till the morning. It was going to be a sunrise hot air balloon ride! I was thrilled to bits. I had always wanted to go hot air ballooning and now I was going to go. I don’t know how he managed to keep a straight face at dinner after he told me that part, though, because I then proceeded to go on and on about how I couldn’t wait to rub it in my friends faces that they were wrong about the proposal. He held it together though. After dinner we walked around downtown for a little while and even went to stroll along the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge (apparently he was scouting out a plan b in case the weather ruined our balloon flight). After our stroll it was back to the hotel to get a few hours of sleep before our 4am wake up call.

Saturday morning we were off on our adventure! We met up with the crew in a parking lot nearby and after they had checked the weather and wind patterns we drove off to a local field where we could set up. I was in charge of the video camera while he got to help set up the balloon. I never realized how enormous the balloons actually were until now. It was so fun to watch it all take shape and start to slowly rise into the air. Once the balloon was inflated and in the air over the basket we were told to hop in. It was just the pilot, him and me in the basket. The rest of the crew would be following along in the van to keep an eye on us and be there when it was time to land.

We cruised along for about ten or fifteen minutes, watching the scenery go by. The pilot did something he called “contouring,” so instead of just flying up high and cruising along, we got to follow the land and were brushing the tree tops. It was the most amazing feeling. The sun was just coming up and although it wasn’t raining where we were, we could see rain bands in the distance. At this point, he asked me if I would take a picture of him on his iPhone. I agreed and he handed it over to me. I looked at the screen and there was a picture of him holding a box from Tiffany (I’d recognize that blue box anywhere!). I should mention that I am not a morning person, at all, so even though I was awake and having a blast, I wasn’t firing on all cylinders at this hour of the morning. I just thought to myself “hmm… I wonder why he’s got that picture on here….” I then proceeded to try to figure out how to get to the camera setting (I don’t own an iPhone, so I had no idea what I was looking for). As I’m doing this I look over and notice that he is down in the basket digging through his backpack. I ever so sweetly start to ask him why he’s down there, out of the way, when he had just asked me to take his picture. Why wasn’t he posing yet? As I’m starting to tell him this, he turns around and I see him pulling a Tiffany bag out of the backpack. My first thought was “Oohh!! He got me a present from Tiffany! I wonder what the occasion is… Oh gosh, did I forget some big occasion? I didn’t get him anything!” It only takes a few milliseconds for these thoughts to run through my head before everything finally clicks and I realize what is happening. He takes the box out of the bag and hands it to me so I can untie the ribbon. Once I’ve untied it, he takes it back and opens it to reveal a ring box. I was completely surprised, to say the least. I looked at him and all I could say was “Baby, you did it!” As I stood there, he got down on one knee and told me how very much he loved me and never wanted to be apart from me and asked me if I would marry him. I said yes!

We shared lots of happy hugs and kisses as we finished the rest of the flight. Once we had landed (in a school parking lot of all places), we popped the bottle of champagne provided by the crew and toasted a successful flight. It was a dream come true and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him!

Here's a photo of the balloon as it started to rise

New Beginnings

Hello and welcome! My life is quickly being filled with new beginnings, so I thought I would start writing about my adventures. A couple months ago, I realized that the wonderful man who had become my best friend over the last few years was also the love of my life. I am happy to say that as of the 14^th of July he has also become my fiancé! On top of that, we’d already been doing some house hunting, and last Thursday we had an offer accepted on our favorite house we’d seen. I can’t even begin to describe to you how incredibly lucky I feel these days. I feel like I’m living up on Cloud Nine and I just can’t wait for the next exciting thing to come around the corner. I’ll keep you updated on how everything goes…

~Jess