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MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE BALDWINS!!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Sorry that we didn't take the time to write each of you personally, maybe we will do that next year....

In the meantime, we pray that you will have a blessed year and that you will know the love of Jesus this year in a new and personal way!


Enjoy our Colorado Mountain adventure of cutting down and decorating our very first Christmas Tree!

We found it!  After hours and hours (ok 20 minutes) of searching we found the PERFECT tree!

Sweet Andy let me cut it down.  The trunk was about 3 inches thick so Andy could have knocked it down with his bare hands, but he let me have the glory and the saw!

We did it!  Too bad our friends cut one down, too and we couldn't tell whose tree was whose when we got home- they looked exactly alike!

                                                  10 second self timer works every time!

                                                       Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

2008: The Baldwins Year in Review

For the few of you that will actually visit our blog, we figured we would update you on 2008 for us.  You can read all our old blog posts or just check the cliff notes below.

January 2008: 

We were happily living at Chapel Hills drive- skiing and snowboarding regularly.  Andy working hard as a corporate trainer at Code One and Celina loving life at Compassion International.

February 2008: 

See above

March 2008:

I (Celina) was minding my own business walking with my friend in her downtown neighborhood and I saw the most adorable house.  I commented on how cute it was and noted the phone number for the realtor.  After calling him, I realized that this house was not only adorable, but exactly what we were looking for!  I waited a few days to tell Andy about it because I knew he would go crazy over it!  Here is the house I saw with my friend.  

April 2008:

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!
This is the month we had been waiting for! 

We had been on Dave Ramsey's plan since August  2007 or so just working hard to crush our debt and we did it!!
Then we bought that cute little house I saw downtown....

May 2008: 

Moving & Renovation. We moved out of Briarglen apartments at Chapel Hills  Dr. and started renovating our new house. We rented out the downstairs immediately (its a duplex with totally separate entrances.) See previous posts for pictures of our renovation.  Andy did most of the work with a little help from our friends and family.  His parents came to visit us and for the second time in as many years, his mom helped us pack and move :) We also got to go to Breckenridge for a quick trip with Andy's parent's.  Andy & Charlie attempted a 14er but it was way too snowy to complete.

As a side note, we have stayed debt free except our house and are working on Baby Step 3.

June 2008:

In June, we enjoyed a few great hiking and camping trips with friends and I traveled extensively for Compassion.  I was able to visit my parents in Connecticut and then went to the countries largest Christian festival for work.  Creation East was awesome!  I did actually get to shake Amy Grant's hand and wear Jeremy Camp's sunglasses.  While I was out traveling around the country, my awesome husband was still working hard on projects in our house.  We also had a garage sale, pictured below.

July 2008:

July was eventful.  Some good friends got married, I traveled for work some more.  My brother Jonathan and his fiancee Katie came for a visit.  We all went to Taos for a few days and checked out the art and scenery. A good summer month!

August 2008:

We went to a Rockies game with Andy's coworkers and traveled to DC for a Baldwin family reunion.  Betsy was home for holiday and we got to meet our nephew Derek.  Birthday pedicures for my golden b-day and family photos.  A good trip!

September 2008:

My little brother got married!!!  The pictures I took can be seen here.

October 2008:

Fall is upon us!  A few good hikes to check out the leaves and pumpkin carving with our friends were the main highlights.  We sponsored another child through Compassion and he is adorable! I got to have my picture taken with Dave Ramsey, although I was too stunned to tell him I was debt free, he was on his way to the loo and I didn't want to keep him any longer than I already did :).     

November 2008:
My mom finally made it to Colorado! She is living in Montrose and doing the Quarry with Solid Rock. We are taking care of her dog and preparing for our own puppy. This is what we want.  I have been busy with some photography jobs and loving it! Andy and I traveled to Estes Park for a marriage conference that really blessed us in our marriage! Check it out here. Thanksgiving was spent with the Tabors and Ilas. It was a great day to be with family and friends.  

December 2008:
The month has just begun....
We are anticipating a visit from my step-father, Jon, Christmas in Montrose, and the start of ski and snowboard season. We will be a stop at a progressive dinner with our friends and plan to attend another friends wedding. Other than that we will be loving Jesus and learning more and more to love each other. On December 22 we will celebrate 2 years of marriage! It has been an awesome journey that just keeps getting better!

Would you take a minute to update us on your year? We'd love to hear from you!

God Bless you and thank you for being a part of our lives- your story has woven with ours somehow! Whether it has been on the phone or in person, you have been a part of this year and we are blessed by you!

Our yard...

Andy working hard to pull out dead trees!

Working hard

Our gorgeous flowers

Again

Front view

Special thanks to Donna, Mark, Ajanet, Ben and Keith who provided the Baldwins with the amazing flowers pictured in the garden above!  We will enjoy them for years to come!

523 N. Walnut Street!!

523!

View of the outside- I know the porch still looks a little trailerparkish- we're working on it!

Laundry room

Bathroom Vanity

                              Shower/clawfoot tub (which, I have always wanted one of!)

Kitchen Table (a gift from Andy's boss)

Kitchen

Spare bedroom/office

This is a really nice futon- but notice the cover for it.  If we didn't do that it would soon be made of cat hair! Gross....

Fireplace- we believe there is really nothing else like this, it is made of petrified wood...pretty cool!

Mantle

Couch- complete with Lazy Cat and a view of the street.  House faces west

Living room

View from front door

Seriously, how awesome are the floors?

Master Bedroom (1 1/2 feet bigger than the spare :)

Thanks to our friends & family

As we think about this house and how everything transpired, we just have to publish our thanks and gratitude.

We could not have accomplished all that we did without the amazing people around us.

The list of people that helped is long and I hope I don't forget anyone.   Everything helped. Every act of kindness and selflessness added to the ease of this transition for us.

Thanks to Karen for walking by this house with me one afternoon.

Thanks to Chad Lauber- our realtor- for helping us through this purchase.  We would wholeheartedly recommend you to any one!

Thanks to Joe for helping with the hot water heater

Thanks to Charity for cleaning, helping with paint colors (which everyone loves, including us!)

Thanks to Charlie & Carolyn.  Charlie, we could not have done this without you.  Carolyn, I'm sorry you always come visit when we move- thanks for your grace!

Thanks to Laura for helping me clean.

Craig, thanks for letting us use your tools

Dan- seriously you rock!  You worked just as hard as Andy.  We owe you big!

Paul- thanks for the landscaping advise and helping with the floor

Brian- your humor made working on the floor that much easier.

Thanks to Joel for helping move the hot water heater and being willing to help with the floor- we will need your quality craftsmanship advise in the future :)

To our new tenants- we are glad you are here!  We hope every experience with tenants is as fluid as this first one has been.

For those that helped us move- we owe you!

We just want to say, too that we are so happy here.  We love our little house, it is cozy, clean, and perfect for what we need right now!  I'm pretty sure we could fit a baby in here, too!

Moving Day!!

Leaving Briarglen!
I had forgot to take something out of the washer, so not only was the yard full of stuff that we couldn't fit in our house, I was drying laundry!!

I honestly think the neighbors were scared about who had moved in- it looked like a trailer park.  See Ajanets demonstration above :)
The Bathroom- we barely had room to pee!
This is our utility closet- its getting better, but there's still a lot of stuff in there!
the front porch looked like this for about 3 days- we had it full of stuff, including the fish tank.  All the fish survived!

Thanks again for helping us move to The Hicks, the Tops, The Tschamlers, Jan, Rebecki, Ajanet, and Paul.  You guys made it go so smooth and quick!

During Construction....lots of work and lots of friends to help!

Found this little pile of stuff in the chimney shelf
This house might pay for itself with the jewelry and the money I found in the chimney

This does not begin to picture the amount of leaves and sticks that we raked out of the yard!

Walk at the Broadmoor

Come visit and we will take you to the Broadmoor- not for dinner or anything- just to show you around!

We got about 6 feet from this deer- awesome photo quality, I know....

Happy....

523 North Walnut St-Before

The amazing lot of Birch pre-finished flooring we got at Lumber Liquidators after Valeen destroyed Andy's dream of refinishing the floors
During the re-finishing dream.....

Refinishing practice- this is about when Valeen showed up- Andy had worked about 2 hours on this part!
Paint practice- Living room
When will I give up my idea that yellow paint will work in any room?

Living room view- floors- before
Living room- before- note tile patch in front of fireplace
Sale Pending!

WOOHOO!  Its ours!

Christmas 2007

We decided to take a walk on the sante fe trail on Christmas- it was freezing and snowing!
A great second christmas together!

One Year!

The most special thing about our one year anniversary- besides everything- was that Andy surprised me by having someone bake a cake like the kind we had at our wedding, since we thought it would be gross to save a cake that long. It was delicious! We spent the night in Denver at our favorite hotel and had yummy dinner and breakfast at our favorite place.

A year of Anniversary's

So this is the year that we get to celebrate and live it up!
Here is what we have celebrated this summer...
June 30- The One Year Anniversary of Andy emailing Celina for the first time
July 12- The One Year Anniversary of the day that Celina and Andy MET in person for the first time (technically our first date-which wasn't all that amazing, but nevertheless, we made it past that!)
August 1- The One Year Anniversary of Andy asking Celina to be his girlfriend....(which was amazing!)

As the year goes on we will be celebrating more and more....

On one of our celebrating days Andy surprised me and took me to paint pottery and out to mexican food (our favorite!)
It was a fun date and we are now the proud owners of a spoon rest and a cutting board. Stop by for a look at our masterpieces!

The Trottas & Upstate NY 2007

Here are some pictures from our trip in July to visit my (Celina's) family.
Andy finally got to meet the Trotta's and they hosted a super-fun wedding celebration!
We spent fun time on Seneca Lake with my cousin's Brian & lisa and had an all-around great time!
Enjoy our pictures....

Colorado Springs!

Well- the move is complete!
We moved to the Springs on Memorial Day Weekend- by June 5 I had every picture hung and was ready to really live here.
We are renting an apartment for now- its really nice and quiet and even has a pool! We plan to buy a house next year....

Anyway

we love it here!

Andy is working for CODE ONE, which is a medical billing company, he will be doing corporate training soon, but for now is just learning the business. He is really happy with his job which makes for a happy wife!

I got a great job working for an abstinence education firm in Denver called WAIT Training. You can check out thier website at www.waittraining.com
I get to work from home doing follow-up for trainings that we have hosted and data entry. My office is our spare bedroom! Its very flexible and there is alot of room for moving up!

We have been hiking and camping and we are truly enjoying our suroundings~

If you want to reach us-
Our new phone number is 719-268-6785

we hope you are well and look forward to seeing you soon.
Please note that we are always excited for visitors!

Love
The Baldwins