Board Game Table with Cup Holders

There is actually more to the awesome story of our new dining room furniture that I didn't share last week.  But first a bit of history.  After Joe and I got married, while he was still finishing up his degree and working at IPFW, he became interested in joining a D&D group that met weekly.  Being newlyweds, I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Joe, even though I had no intention of joining the group, so I told Joe to offer for us to host the group at our house.  At first my involvement was just providing snacks (we went through a lot of chips and salsa 😅) and baking treats (they were my gracious guinea pigs as I developed my skills as a baker 😁).  

Over the years, as life progressed and members of the group moved away or got too busy, the D&D sessions stopped, but our weekly get togethers continued with a smaller, core group of friends.  By the time Joe and I bought a house and moved, these weekly get togethers had turned into eating dinner together, playing board games, eating lots of desserts, watching movies, playing games on the Nintendo Switch, or just hanging out.  We do still occasionally have bigger parties and hangout with the others from the original group that still live in town.  It has been so awesome being a part of this group whose original goal was just to play D&D, but over time became friends who do life together.  We've been a part of weddings and helped with many moves.  We've watched the group grow as children were born and new relationships formed.  It's been such a joy and a blessing to us.

Anyways, some of our closest friends bought a house this past summer.  Through the days of painting, moving, and ripping out their kitchen, we've been able to help them plan for upcoming projects, remember some of Joe and my personal horrors as well as joys of being homeowners, and dream about future goals for our homes.  One day as we all sat around our dining room table talking about life, they asked when we were going to get a board game table and chairs.  We told them we had decided to wait, and when they offered to pay for the table, we declined and said we'd get one eventually.  This went on for at least another week.  It was during this time that I became aware of Wayfair's open box chairs for super cheap.  Joe and I decided the chairs were too good of a deal to pass up, so when 4 open boxes became available, we bought them up as fast as we could!  We decided to reconsider our plan on waiting to get a board game table as we felt that we probably could go ahead with it, especially if we could sell the table we had for a few hundred.  But the next day when our friends were over and we told them we snatched up a great deal on new chairs, they again said they would buy the board game table for us, and we finally agreed.  

The timing of making the arrangements to get rid of the old stuff to various people, the delivery of the new stuff on two different days, and then assembling the new stuff when it came happened so fast and yet was literally so smooth and fit perfectly in our busy schedule, which was such a blessing to me as I can't handle mess and extra clutter in my house.  😂  We absolutely LOVE all of our new furniture and feel so blessed to be able to share our home and our lives with such wonderful friends.  💗

Again, these pictures are a month old, but I just had to share how cute the hams look trying out the cup holders we got to go with the board game table.  Fili is still doing well.  I've been seeing more of him this past week, especially as he runs on his wheel.  He definitely doesn't run nearly as fast as he used to, and he doesn't stay running for long before he stops to take a break, but I think he still gets his steps in each day.  Hahaha!  

I love how perfectly Haleth fits in the cup holder!  She was being soooo cute as she looked around.  I couldn't decide which picture I liked the best so you get a bunch even though they are so similar.  Haha!

 

Wayfair Chairs

So these pictures are actually almost a month old.  😐  But I have an awesome story to share about our dining room furniture.  Earlier this past year, Joe and I had decided that we wanted to finally buy a board game table and new chairs which he's been talking about for years.  So we priced out the table with the accessories we wanted and started looking at chairs.  It honestly took a while to agree on chairs we liked and even then, we each had our favorites.  But around that same time, we were planning a vacation to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  Even with doing a shorter, cheaper vacation, we figured that we really shouldn't spend the money to get the chairs and table this year as we had other upcoming expenses to think about.  I knew it was the right decision, but I was disappointed because I knew how long Joe had already waited, and I felt bad putting it off again.

During the process of picking out chairs we liked, I couldn't help but notice how much the price would fluctuate from day to day, specifically on 2 different chairs we liked on Wayfair.  Despite the fact I knew our plan was to wait, my curiosity and my love for a good sale caused me to habitually check Wayfair's website for the price of the two styles of chairs we liked.  At one point, the chairs Joe liked best went the lowest I'd ever seen at about $70 per chair.  (The chairs I liked didn't seem to drop below $120 per chair.  😒)  We briefly talked about buying them, but decided to wait and the price quickly jumped back up.  

Eventually our vacation came and went.  We had a wonderful time and actually spent a little less than we'd thought which was nice.  Another month passed and I was still regularly checking the prices of the chairs.  One morning I saw that they had an open box which was about $55 for the set of 2 chairs instead of the normal price of around $250 for the set.  😮  I told Joe, and we briefly discussed getting it just to see if they would be worth the full price, but he had to get to work and I forgot about it.  A couple of days later, Joe texted me while he was at work saying that Wayfair had 4 open boxes so we could get all 8 chairs for about $250 total.  I quickly said yes, and he placed the order!  

Less than a week later, our new chairs arrived, and we put them together that evening.  We still can't believe how nice they are!  We were also pleasantly surprised that only 1 of the 4 boxes had any evidence of having been opened, and even then, not a single screw or nut was missing.  None of the chairs showed any signs of damage.  We initially felt guilty that we got what seemed like brand new chairs for only $250 instead of the $1,000 we expected.  But then I thought back to the months of checking nearly daily to see if the price had changed to something we felt we could afford.  Our diligence and patience paid off.  We LOVE our new chairs!!

Now onto hamsters.  😊  Fili is still alive doing all his hamster business.  His age has definitely caught up with him.  He is over 2 years and 7 months old now which is just crazy to me.  He is thinning and a bit more wobbly on his feet than he used to be.  But when he's awake, he still runs around his cage, uses his wheel, and generally just seems to be enjoying life.  I'm not sure if I've been busier or if he is sleeping more, but I haven't noticed him getting up during the day as much this last month.  I feel like a broken record at this point, but I can't imagine he has that much time left.  I do enjoy spoiling him in the meantime!

Haleth is so sweet and cute!  I realized that I've been so focused on how ancient Fili is that I haven't considered that Haleth is actually getting quite old herself.  😔  She is almost exactly a year younger than Fili, which means she's only 1 year and 7 months old.  But from my experience, female Syrian hamsters don't make it to 2 years old as often as the males.  So I have been spoiling my pretty lady even more than I had been.  💓