This is what happens.....

This is what happens when Nathan and I are left alone for 2 days without kids. It has been 4 1/2 years since we have had more than a few hours alone. Most people would be having their "romantic time", which we did, but we also miss working on the house together. Something that is 10 times harder with 2 little kids.

We have hated this wall since the day we looked at the house. The house feels too compartmentalized for us. We love the open floor plans. I am not fond of the kitchen so we decided to change it! This is phase one!

 View from the living room.

My parents took the boys to a local hotel where they went swimming and out to dinner. Today, they went to the Imagination Station, which is like a small children's museum, and swimming again. 

Nathan and I went to dinner last night at Peaceful Greens. It is a new vegetarian restaurant in downtown Lafayette. It was really nice and the food was EXCELLENT! I had an incredible portabella sandwich and Nathan had a burrito.

The wall is coming DOWN!

No more dry wall. I can see out the front window from my kitchen. I love the view...and the light!

Our biggest challenges was going to be matching the hard wood floor. We only needed a little bit, but getting it the same was going to be tricky. To our surprise, the hard wood floor was under the wall. We are not sure why, but who cares. It stops at the kitchen, but we are going to tile the kitchen so it doesn't matter.

Very dirty!

Hurray! We got it done in a matter of an afternoon. It is not done by any means, but it has been started and there is no turning back. I love my husband.

Nathan saw our friends Courtney and Matt's house a few weeks ago. They have an open floor plan, except for the bedrooms and bathrooms. We both love it. The house we thought we were going to buy last year had an open floor plan (we put in a full price offer on a Frank Lloyd Wright style house, that had had no interest for over 60 days. The day we put in an offer, someone else put in one too and they got the house instead of us. Sad, I know. But if we would have gotten our dream house, we never would have met Doug and Lisa, so I guess it has been worth it.) 
Our plans are to knock out the wall between the kitchen and dining room too. We have to move the stove and fridge. The kitchen is my least favorite room in the house, and it is the room I spend the most time in. We are putting in a 9 foot island, tiling the floor and a back splash for the stove. This may take us the next year to be completely finished, but as long as it is functional, I am ok with that.