In The Beginning….

Way back in May 1997, even before Jared and I got married, we bought a house!

We got engaged on December 1st, 1996 (my 20th birthday). On May 1st, 1997 we bought a home. And on July 26, 1997 we were married.

This cute little 2 bedroom, 2 bath 1283 sq. ft. home was where it all began! We scrimped and saved and tracked every penny so we could get a little place of our very own.

We ended up getting this ADORABLE home in Mesa for $82,000. Our mortgage was $600/mo. Boy!!!! I’d love to go back to that kind of house payment! LOL!

Google is pretty awesome and I found some pictures of it online. This is what it looks like today.

They removed the palm trees out front and put in a new gate. They installed grass by the sidewalk. Repainted the front door. And removed the giant hedge that was on the left of the house that acted as a fence between the properties.

The garage is detached and has a separate entrance. You access it through a little walkway between the house and the garage.

We loved this little house. I had character! One of the biggest things we loved was the 70’s stovepipe fire place! <3

When you entered the house this was the 1st thing you saw.

Pretty groovy huh!?!!!

Standing in the living room turning around looking at the front door.

Looking towards the back of the house there was a large sliding glass arcadia door that lead out to a 40 ft. covered patio, a large back yard, and a jacuzzi that was left by the previous owners.

Standing in the living room looking down the hall. On the left was a linen closet that had double accordion doors that doubled as our pantry because the kitchen didn’t have one.

Then next door on the left was the guest bathroom. The 3rd door on the left was the master bedroom.

Walker learning how to walk. Isn’t he the cutest!?!!

The master bedroom was a good size and had a walk-in closet and a bathroom. The arcadia door opened to the backyard and the jacuzzi was right outside on the patio.

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Our sweetest and smartest dog ever…Jessie. She was also Walker’s BFF. Right behind Walker you can kind of see the surround of the jacuzzi. I wish I had better pictures of everything. 😛

Guest Bathroom.

On the right, across from the master bedroom was the 2nd bedroom which we made into a nursery for Walker. And there was a utility closet on the right with accordion doors for the washer/dryer.

Back to the front of the house, standing in the kitchen looking out towards the living room/back yard.

Same point of view. You can see our awesome furniture and how we set up the layout.

Everything in that house was oak! Oak was king in the ’90’s! Hahaha!

Living room looking into the kitchen.

The backyard.

The kitchen is right off of the living room on the right. The kitchen clearly has gone through a renovation since we lived there over 24 years ago. 😛

The cabinets were very dark when we lived there.

This was our dining area.

Hopefully you enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane. It has brought back so many sweet and special memories for me as I looked back on these pictures. We were so young (we were both 20 when we moved in), newlyweds, brought our first baby to this home as we became parents for the 1st time, and just starting out building our lives together. We lived there from May 1997- June 2001. They were 4 wonderful years!

We ended up selling the house to my brother who also lived there 4 years until 2005.

We moved to Gilbert to be closer to my parents and to have a little more space as we wanted to grow our family. So we built our home we currently live in now. We have lived here now 20 years this coming June. Where does the time go???

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I couldn’t find a “normal” picture of the front of the house. LOL! These will have to do. I’ll keep looking though. 😛

Those 4 years felt like a life-time in our first house. Now, after spending 20 years in this house, it really has been a life-time. We don’t know if we’ll ever move, but we aren’t saying no and we are open to the possibility…one day. For now, we are content here and look forward to our future and continuing to raise our family. <3