Man down....Man down

We have officially had our first encounter with medical attention needed due to a house project gone bad! It really wasn't that serious but did require a few stitches and an update on the tetanus shot. If you haven't guessed, it wasn't me it was my beloved husband that had to endure this bit of immediate care madness to get his finger sewn up. If you don't know Adam's history, his childhood and even early college years had many trips to the ER and I think getting stitches is second nature to him at this point.

In our married life we only have had one ER run and that was due to a cat bite at the clinic he worked at for awhile. We felt a bit silly going to the ER for a cat bite, mind you it was a small little tiger I think that bit him or a really ticked off male cat, but the ER doc on call said you should always go to the ER for a cat bite due to all the nasty in their saliva. Your hand or arm can swell up huge in a very short time if not treated properly, who knew? Anyway I'm tangenting, you probably would like to know how this little incident occurred.

The story goes as follows, I was having a fun night out with some of my good friends that I grew up with and we were out to dinner. I knew Adam was going to work on removing a door casing for a portion of a door in the current closet so the door could be drywalled closed. That seems easy right? Not so much when your door casings are metal and you have to do a combo of using the reciprocating saw and a pry bar to get it out. So I look at my phone when I'm leaving the restaurant and I have 3 missed calls from Adam on my cell and 5 missed calls on my blackberry, that is usually not a good sign! I call to see what is going on and I get the following "Looks like I'm going to have to get a few stitches, OK got to go they need to check me in and told me to get off my phone." That is not a nice way to leave your wife when all she knows is that you have been using a saw on metal and your getting stitches.

I got a call back a couple minutes later and he said he was removing the last piece of metal casing and was using the pry, his hand slipped and hit the mangled metal and he looked and saw a hand full of blood. He mostly got his left index finger but a bit of his middle finger as well. On his index he hit the vein so he had to apply pressure quickly.

After about 2 hours at immediate care and a trip to CVS to get an antibiotic and some vicodin, if he need it, he made it home with a few stitches and his two fingers wrapped in gauze and other stuff. So needless to say I think his home construction duties might be on hold for a few days since he is left handed and probably shouldn't really be applying a ton of pressure to that area of his hand. It's OK he has finals next week and needs to study for those anyways, now he has no home items to distract him. I think he could find an easier ways of getting out of me nagging him to get something done next time :)

What's been going on?

Holy cow that might be the longest break I have ever taken from blogging! We have been doing stuff, I just keep forgetting to take pictures and work is really busy this time of year so I haven't had my few extra minutes at work or in the evenings to post anything.

Things that have happened in the last 6 weeks:

We got the closet framed in the master bedroom, now just waiting for Adam to start drywalling so we can finish that room.

We knocked out the wall in the 2nd bathroom that we will be moving to make the bathroom bigger and able to handle a stand up shower.

Put in some recessed lighting above the fireplace, we felt like our living room was dark and didn't want floor lamps everywhere. I've decided cutting the hole for this is a skill and Adam definitely was better with his circles this time then last, you live you learn.

We got rid of 2 1/2 tons of trash, I'm not exaggerating, it was literally 2 1/2 tons, you have to pay by the ton when you take it to the junkyard. I finally don't feel like the neighborhood blacksheep since there aren't windows, doors, and a bunch of other random stuff all over the place inside and out. Adam actually moved about 6 tons of trash over a 2 day period, ask if you want the full story. Lets just say junkyards aren't open on Saturday afternoons and Sundays and it is a good thing to find this out before loading a moving truck with 2 1/2 tons of trash when it had to be returned by 5:00 that day.

We were wanting to wait until closer to the end of the year to get a dining room set but ended up finding a sweet deal through World Market and they were having friends and family days this weekend so we ended up getting an additional 25% off. Basically it is a table with 2 leafs so if fully extended it can seat 8 people. We ended up getting the table 8 chairs and an 9 x 6 rug for $400 less than it would have cost to get the table and 6 chairs at the normal price. And to make it even better Adam and I both agreed on the table, it has some contemporary aspects that I like but still has classiness about it so that trendiness doesn't outdated it in a few year.

Here is a pic and it even includes the rug I bought, which I didn't realize until we got home and I was looking at it online:

Our house is starting to look normal

As I promised here are some pictures of the "new" and definitely improved living room with the long awaited carpet installed. It isn't fully decorated yet but you get the idea.

Before:

After:

I don't think I have posted the front door and entry way since it was completed. Below are pictures of the front door with the new trim and the finished slate tile entry.

Before:

After (In the picture at the bottomyou can see some more details of the carpet and tell that it has flecks of darker colors in it. I think this is going to be great with having a pet and potential munchkins down the road, you really can't see anything on this carpet as far as dirt goes):

This is the other room we had the carpet installed in the "3rd Bedroom/Office" it is currently holding some stuff that we moved out of the To-Be-Master Bedroom so that we can start working on that.

Another thing we got done this weekend was installing the first of two windows in the Master Bedroom. Of course the old ones were originally installed completely differently then any of the other we have worked on so this ended up being an all day affair to get the window to fit. At least we know now for the next one.

An exciting thing we were able to do this weekend was meet with a contractor to talk about the closet reconfiguration for the Master Bedroom. I had to run to a Baby Shower, but by the time I got back and talked to Adam they had figured out how to make my side a walk-in closet. These must be two men that know how to make a woman happy :) I was then instructed to figure out any custom shelving/design that I wanted, to make sure it would fit the dimensions they had discussed. I was right on that and I think we got that all figured out yesterday evening. Now we just need to reconnect with the contractor and see when he can start the job.

"So where are the carpet pictures" you say.....

I guess I'm being a bit of a girl about this one. Since this area of the house looks reasonably like a normal house I want it to be "pretty" before I post pictures. So I will take some this weekend after we get stuff arranged and it looks more of what I want to show everyone.

Oh by the way the carpet is absolutely wonderful, I think we came home and just laid on the floor and talked for 2 evening before we got the furniture moved back in to the room.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and enjoys the nice weather!

Preparation

Well the carpet is coming this Friday afternoon, so we are scurrying around trying to make sure everything that we would like to be done prior to carpet is done and then get thing moved and the floors cleaned up. Poor Adam has had the raw end of that deal since my abilities to do some of the projects or move heavy objects isn't all that great. I think one of our guy friends and maybe my brother might come over to help move furniture. Adam and I moving heavy furniture together might end in a spousal spat, so I think the guys coming over to help is a wonderful idea.

Friday should be a pretty crazy day, I am taking a 1/2 day off of work that day because I am in my good friend's Kim's wedding on Saturday, so Friday afternoon we are doing the pedicure thing, decorating and then the rehearsal dinner. So I will hurry home to let the carpet people in, then get the heck out dodge, Adam will be home a few hours later to check on them and perhaps be there when they leave. We both have roles in the wedding, I as a bridesmaid and Adam as an usher so we will go to the rehearsal and dinner that evening. A friend from out of town talked to Adam a few weeks ago and asked if he could sleep on our couch or something this weekend due to the wedding, I'm not sure if that means Friday night or just Saturday. So amongst all the madness we will also have a house guest. If he only knew what he is getting himself into, poor guy. Hey but at least there will be carpet, right!

The Carpet Man is Coming, The Carpet Man is Coming.....

We went this weekend, actually Monday, to look for some carpet. We found something we liked at a good price at McCools Flooring in Avon and I called to set an appointment yesterday for them to come out and measure on Thursday. This particular carpet is in stock so we are hoping we can get it in our house sometime next week, I guess we will find out for sure tomorrow. It is a lighter frisse (sp?) with some flecks in it and it is Mohawk brand. One thing if anyone is looking for carpet, always ask about their in stock items b/c you can usually get at least $1/sq ft off of the normal price. For instance, ours would be a $4 carpet normally but because it is in stock it is a $2.20 carpet, and it is a good quality carpet. Adam and I worked feverishly last night to get the two rooms that need measured to a state of somewhat cleanliness, actually I did the cleanliness thing while Adam continued putting up the trim.

Which leads me to Adam's newest "Man Toy," this weekend while out looking at carpet we also made a trip to Lowes where Adam purchased an air compressor and a nail gun. I only kid when I say a toy this has made the trim go up very quickly and we have a lot more stuff we will need to use the nail gun for such as all the cabinet moldings that still need to go up, the toe kick, the window casings and trim, etc, etc.

This weekend we will work to do all the touch ups that need to be done prior to the carpet coming in, I'm so excited that after 9 months of living in this house we will actually have a room with carpet and trim. Actually, the living room will basically be finished other than decorating.

And just in case you are wondering I don't know if the septic system is fixed yet. While at Lowes we got come of that stuff that is supposed to help get the bacteria back in balance and help if the system is being sluggish. I'm just not worrying about it right now and delighting in the fact that we are getting carpet, and the only thing we can't really use at the moment is the washing machine.

Why do I live in the city and I'm still on a septic system?

Actually I don't know how much this has to do with a recent plumbing problem, but I have always thought it was weird that we have a septic system and well water and live 43 blocks from the middle of a metropolitan city. I know we are scheduled to be converted in the next few years but why did it take 50 years for that to happen? Questions I will probably never know the answer to. Adam was excited that we were on well water because it reminded him of being in the country, I also grew up on well and septic, so I suppose it is fine.

On to the plumbing problem I briefly mentioned. For some reason the water in the drainage line for the south side of the house is not adequately draining or not draining fast enough and causing back-ups, especially when using the washing machine. Adam spent one evening underneath the house ripping out some of the old cast iron and replacing it with PVC and also making sure the drainage was at the proper angle leading out to the septic line, that has been to no avail. He also looked down the septic line with his flashlight and didn't see an clogs or anything and said he could see for a long way, plus there wasn't any extra water in the septic line coming back to the house, so that wasn't it either. He then spoke with a guy at Economy Plumbing (his plumbing store of choice) and they said it sounded like something was clogging one of your plumbing vents so that lack of air release wasn't letting the water flow fast enough and thus the back-up. So last night my husband climbed on top of our house with the shop vac and try to shop vac out anything potentially in the vent, that had to be interesting to our neighbors. He did get an acorn and thought that was the culprit, but we were still getting the back-up. I don't know what the next investigative step is, but I'm thinking perhaps a professional plumber might not be too far down the list.

Needless to say this has delayed our putting up trim, and thus getting the carpet. Hopefully we will get back on track with that soon. Sorry no pictures, but I don't really think you would want to see the garbage disposal food that was trapped in our line then came out and went all over the floor, and the picutre definetly would not have conveyed the smell!!!

A Lady in Waiting....

We have been working on stuff, I just haven't posted in a while because there isn't much in the way of pictures to update. We have the entryway and the fireplace tiled and grouted. We are now working on the mantle and trim around the fireplace and trim around the doors and floors. In my extensive Google research I discovered that getting your trim up before getting carpet makes for more finished look then the other way around. So we were cutting and painting trim this weekend. I think we pretty much have it all ready to go for the living room, hall, and office floors, which is where the carpet is going. Now Adam just has to get it up and we have to get more molding for the doors. We also need to go carpet shopping soon so we can get that lined up. Oh I never knew how happy I would be to have floors coming into my house, and so I am a lady in waiting to have a finished living room and thus something in my house will be done!

On a side note we also did some celebrating this weekend. I helped host a shower for my good friend Kim who is getting married next month and got to make party food. I like this kind of hosting/cooking stuff and made Bruschetta, Spinach Artichoke Dip, and Pasta Salad as well as the punch. We also didn't do the normal bridal shower game, instead we played Cranium but made it a shorter version and made questions that dealt with either weddings in general or with Kim and her fiance Eugene. I think everyone had a lot of fun. Most of our husbands/fiances went golfing while we were being girlie, the golfing lasted much longer than the shower so we capped off the evening by going to see Mama Mia. All I have to say is that Pierce Brosnan does not have a future on Broadway, his looks are much better than his voice!!!

Slate.....My New Best Friend

The last couple of weeks we have been working on getting the entryway and fireplace tiled so that we can get really close to having carpet.

Below is a picture of the fireplace in the living room as it was when we moved in.



Here is the fireplace after we stripped it of anything really resembling a fireplace. First we removed the brass and glass cover. Then we dismantled the mantle and the trim on the sides. Lastly Adam took a hammer and pry and took off all the tile and residual mortar as gently as he could.


Part of our plan was to build out under the actual fireplace to give it a little more presence and also to to help provide additional protection for the soon-to-be carpet that will be installed. I didn't like the idea of just a hearth pad on the floor (this is the few little tiles that sit on or near the floor in front of your fireplace), if we had a gas fireplace that would be one thing but the idea of ashes on new carpet wasn't a pleasant thought. Here (below) Adam just took some 2 x 4's and built what I refer to as "the bench"



We used a brick pattern gobi slate that we found at the Tile Shop. It wasn't the cheapest tile, but luckily this isn't a huge area and we ended up getting just the effect we wanted. Here is Adam putting it up. We just used a normal thinset mortar with a trowel specifically for wall tiling. We also replaced all of the area behind the previous tile with new cement board, as well as put cement board on the "bench".



And after Adam's wonderful work below is the fireplace with all the tile up. It got a little tedious at the end b/c he had to kind of piece the sides of the bench together due to the area not being exactly 12 inches and requiring a partial tile piece. I think it looks great! We still need to seal the tile, since it is slate (a natural stone) you must seal it before grouting or the grout would stick to all the groves and stuff. After that we can grout it and then seal the grout. My participation in this project, other than cleaning excess mortar between the tiles, was to spray paint the brass doors black. I didn't take a picture yet but it looks so much better. Finally we will add the mantle and the trim and have a new beautiful fireplace.



We are also retiling our front door entryway and decided to use slate there also. We used a design consisting of 6 and 12 inch tiles. These we just purchased at Lowes and they weren't anything too special. Here is the tile all laid out we just need to get the mortar adhesive on and then we will finish it the same way we will finish the fireplace with the seal and the grout.

Nothing says "Welcome" like a new front door

After a long arduous struggle we finally got our new front door installed. Like most things around our place a new square front door does not nicely fit into a 50 year old opening, so the whole process took us roughly 17 hours, yes you read that right 17 long hours. We ended up having to rip off some of the flashing and adjust the rough opening. When Adam started ripping things off I was a little concerned but he just said he'd fix it later, I couldn't argue, it is necessary to have a door on the front of your house. So here are a few pictures of our little project:






T: A picture of the door from the inside right after we purchased the house; B: The old front door after we took it off



T: Close-up of the new front door; B: View of new front door with more of the house

As you can see from the close-up for the new door, there needs to be some molding replaced. We had to take the molding in the pre-hung door off for it to fit and after it was so beat up, Adam said he would replace it with the no-mold molding so there isn't a chance of water and rot damage in the future.

Aunt & Uncle once again

Adam and I were blessed to become an Aunt and Uncle again last night when Nolan Isaiah was born to Adam's brother Chris and his wife Kacey. He was about 10 days before his due date and weighed in at a "hefty" 5 lbs 15 oz. As you can tell from the diaper in the picture below he is pretty tiny. We are so happy for Chris and Kacey and can't wait to get to know little Nolan, oh and probably spoil him just a little because that is what good Aunts & Uncles do, right??

Arrrrg???

Do you ever have one of those days that you just want to say Arrrrg and eat a lot of chocolate??? I think today was been one of those. Everything I do at work today seems to have some sort of issue and to my luck it hasn't been anything I have done, I just have the job to fix it, yay for me, huh.

My cell phone suddenly only has a white screen when you flip it open, you can dial and it rings but I can't use my numbers stored in my phone or see who is calling. Oh, and Cingular says I can't get an equipment discount until November. Since there is no way in hades I am paying $200 for a cell phone we just might be making the big switch to Verizon, especially since Adam can get a discount through Lilly.

Oh and this one isn't that big of a deal, but due to the storm last night we again have a large tree limb in our front yard, at this point we just shrug it off and Adam actually probably gets giddy because he can use his manly chainsaw.

It's probably a good thing we have House Church tonight because I need an attitude change. I know none of these are a big deal and they are all little things that just start pushing your buttons at the same time. Ok vent over..... on to Happy Thoughts, especially since I leave work in 15 minutes :)

A little curb appeal..

So this beauty is what we purchased nearly 9 months ago now, I know don't be too jealous of us!! We absolutely adored those aluminum framed single pane windows this winter when our gas bill consistently stayed over $300/mo.

Its pretty weird when you take out a nearly 8 foot window and have a huge gaping hole in the front of your house. We kept being corny about the whole thing and commenting how clear our new set-up was, that it was almost like not having a window at all. Somehow we made minimal mess on this task which was nice for a change. We replaced the dining room window the next day and were literally trying to outrun a storm to get the thing in, we succeeded but seriously by the hair of our chinny chin chin.
So here is the new and improved front of our house. We still need to get in the new door, which should be arriving any day now, and the final window on the front replaced, which is the one on the far left of the picture. We have also, since this picture, replaced the outdoor lighting next to the front door and on the garage. The lights you see in the picture are literally like 3 feet tall on a ranch house, it looks ridiculous, we replaced it with something a bit more to scale.
This isn't technically curb appeal (see below) but is a change and enhancement on the back of our house. This was the sliding patio door that was in the 3rd bedroom when we bought the house. We didn't like that set-up and wanted the patio door in the kitchen and a window in the 3rd bedroom so we had contractors do that work. During the change the contractors commented that the way we wanted it was the original way it was on the house but a previous owner had changed it! Who puts a patio door in a 3rd bedroom (not the largest so probably not the master) and then just a window off the kitchen???
The contractors weren't able to brick in the opening in the fall b/c it was two cold for mortar and it was really expensive to get brick then b/c the builders aren't ordering anything.

This is right after it was done so the mortar residue is kind of smudged on the bricks, it doesn't really look that grey. The bricks aren't an exact match but we think it is close enough that if we do a little "decorating" of the patio around this area, no one will ever know that difference. You can see where we have installed patio door over to the left.

We are all chromed out....

Actually brushed nickel or stainless steel might be better description, but the title didn't sound as good. These pictures are a bit dated as this all occurred around the 1st weekend of June (only a mere month ago), but we were able to move our fridge in from the garage, and place it in its proper spot. What you can't see is that it isn't hooked up yet b/c Adam has to do a little plumbing reconfiguration to get the water and ice hooked up. After that we will get it plugged in and move a lot of our stuff from the old fridge (soon-to-be-garage-fridge) to the new sparkly one.

We also got the extra cabinets put up on the wall by the L-shaped cabinet and bar, which was nice to finally have a place to at least store my nice dinnerware, even if it can't be displayed in a hutch. It also houses all of our Tupperware. Does anyone else think Tupperware is like rabbits, at first you only seem to have a few pieces but it multiplies? That might have something to do with my Mom sending food home with us and then us keeping the Tupperware and forgetting to ever return it to her.
Finally we have almost all of the kitchen pulls on. All of the cabinet doors are done, just a few of the drawers still need them that weren't "regulation" size.

Family Pictures

For a joint Mother's and Father's day gift my brother and I had family pictures taken for my parents. Here is a link if you want to see more of them. They were taken by Loree Sumner of Loree Alayne Photography.

I haven't forgotten

No, I haven't forgotten that I have a blog, and that the blog should be something I update from time to time. Ever since we moved into our house we haven't really had space for an office or wanted computer equipment out amongst all the dust we periodically stir up, so if I update the blog it has to be at work when I have a few minutes, of course I only would do such a thing during my allotted lunch hour :) Anyway we have done some stuff to the house since we have been back from vacation. One of the most noticeable has been the windows, the house seriously looks completely different. And we should have had a new door but Lowe's ordered it with the handle on the wrong side, so that had to be reordered. I will post some pics soon of our changes and then hopefully we will make some serious progress over the holiday weekend coming up.

Thank you blog readers for your faithful readership, that is if any of you still read my abandoned blog!

Leaks and crawlspaces are not friends

So last week prior to the Indiana Flood of 08, Tuesday to be exact, we discovered that we had a leak in our pipes that had left the crawlspace with standing water underneath about 1/2 of the house. The leak occurred in the line that runs to our outside spickets, of course the only plumbing we did not redo prior to moving into the house. The good thing is that we have a turn-off valve for the outside spickets only, meaning we didn't have to turn off the main and could still have access to water inside of the house. Adam and I tag-teamed the mess and he went to pick up a little pump from Sunbelt rentals, while I went to Home Depot and grabbed 2 of the industrial fans (the ones they use to dry carpets and stuff after water damage). The little pump connected to our garden hose and the water got pumped out pretty quickly then we ran the fans all night. We thought we were in pretty good shape but knew we had a lot of rain that night. We looked outside to find this in our front yard the next morning:

We obviously had some drainage issue and the water at its highest point was probably 20 feet into our yard and several inches deep. Well Adam made like a mole and headed back to our crawlspace hoping to find it fairly dry, the look of dismay when he returned inside did not indicate that we had a dry crawlspace. This time it wasn't a leak it was just too much water and not enough drainage to get it away from the house. The drainage in the front of our house obviously runs to our drainage ditch, which was flooded, so it didn't have anywhere to go, I assume we live in a high water table area (close to the river), and it just would not stop raining; thus our crawlspace still had standing water. We used the little rented pump again and then decided this was not something we wanted to have happen anymore so we headed to Lowes to purchase a sump pump. That night as I headed to House Church, Adam sat in our crawlspace with a midget sized shovel and dug a hole about 2 feet deep and about 18 inches wide in the dirt (or mud might be the more appropriate term) and then put in the sump pump. This was making us feel better until our 1st one broke after 5 days and Adam returned it for an upgrade. I think SP #2 is doing ok, but we still need to put in permanent piping to get it out of the crawlspace and into our yard drainage, but the temporary stuff will work for now. We did discover one good thing; there is a drainage pipe in our yard that takes our rainwater across the street and down a hill to a pond. This had gotten covered up due to the house being unoccupied for a time and the storm so we were wondering where the heck our water was supposed to go. Once Adam cleaned it off and pulled some sticks and leaves away the water in our front yard started draining a whole lot faster.

Lessons learned - 1.) When buying an unoccupied 50 year old house replumb the outside spickets even if you might not use them right away. 2.) When buying any home with a crawlspace make sure there is a working sump pump, Indiana is a very wet state.

In the end we were feeling pretty blessed that this is all that happened to us considering that just 3 days later we got a call from Adam's mom that his cousin was being evacuated from his home due to flooding and she couldn't leave her house because none of the roads surrounding them were passable. Our hearts and prayers are with everyone that suffered and are suffering from the flood and especially family and friends in Martinsville.

A little slice of Paradise (Pictures)

As promised I have finally posted some pictures, also here is a link to all of our pics out on Flickr.

Tortola ........

This is one of my favorite pictures. We took a driving tour around Tortola one day and there is a Ridge Road that basically runs along the spine of the island (which is very mountainous), thus you get amazing views such as these!
This little point is called Angel Pointe and was one of 3 areas where we went snorkeling on our day sail. I believe it is a pointe on Norman Island. The snorkeling was great, we saw all kinds of fish and coral. The 4 rocks sticking out of the water are named "The Indians," we also snorkeled here on our day sail and there was this one really tight spot where you felt like you might touch a Sea Urchin, I wasn't a fan of that. I swam all the way around the thing in order to not have to feel like the icky Sea Urchin might get me, Adam in all his tough manhood took the shorter yet scarier route and then informed me that our eyes were deceiving us and we weren't near as close to the black porcupine as we thought we were.
This awesome beach with all the catamarans is White Bay on the island of Jost Van Dyke. Jost is a pretty small island with only a few hundred actual residents. Its beaches are lined with little beach bars and restaurants. Two of the more famous establishments are on this island, Foxy's and Soggy Dollar. Soggy Dollar is actually in this picture you just can't really see it but it got its name b/c the sailboats would come in to the beach, but because there is no dock they would More their boats and then wade to the beach, thus the dollars to pay for their drinks at the bar were soggy. Foxy's which is at Grand Bay on Jost is well known all around the world and hosts a infamous New Years Day party that is supposed to be pretty amazing.
Above is basically our view from the place we stayed in Tortola, Agape Cottages. The bay you see behind us is Cane Garden Bay, it is probably one of the most popular bays in Tortola and has a lot of beach bars and restaurants. We never had to venture very far to get really good food. It also has a really pretty beach that is white sand and relatively flat. The lady in the picture with me is one of the owner of the Agape Cottages, we don't normally take picture of the owners of our vacation lodging but this couple was a really sweet Christian couple and we bonded with them some over our 4 day stay. The cottage that was their home was adjoined to ours.
The blue and white buildings at the top of this picture were the Agape Cottages. As you could see from the previous picture we had a great view but holy moses was that driveway steep to get up there. Lets just say we never walked down to the beach or back up, we were on vacation you know :)

Virgin Gorda.....

So we arrive in Virgin Gorda by ferry from Tortola and we get our rental car. The island isn't too big so we basically just get on this one main road and go until we see a sign for our place. As we round a bend in the road we see this awesome looking resort (picture above) on the pointe of the bay and Adam says lets stop and get a picture, I wanted to see where we were staying and get settled first so I get him to keep on going. We both rave about how great that place is, the location, yada, yada, yada. Shortly there after we both see a sign for Mango Bay Resort and just look at each other, that little piece of paradise we had just oggled at was where we were staying. We knew this place was probably going to be bit more luxury then our last place just on the higher price alone, but we usually stay in someplace that isn't a hostel but definitely not luxury. We felt totally out of our league and just kind of giggled about it like little kids that are used to Walmart and just entered FAO Schwartz.

This our villa at the resort, we are the right hand portion of the building. We had a coverd porch with a grill, a large room that had the living area, dining, and kitchen, an office/hallway, large bathroom, and bedroom. It was pretty spacious and the living area had virtually all glass windows and doors for two for the walls. It was also the place where they didn't give us a key b/c it was so safe.

This final picture is of the famous Baths I think or it might be Spring Bay, they are right next to each other and look very similar. Either way the areas are really cool and there are just these huge boulders everywhere. People that live near here would just have random large boulder formation in their yard. The Baths have caves you can climb through that the boulders have formed. It made for great picture taking.

We were Limin, Mon!

We are back from our awesome vacation. I highly highly recommend visiting the British Virgin Islands. Here is a top 10 on why we liked them so much:

10. The way people talk down there is just fun to listen to
9. We didn't see a McDonalds, Wendy's, Walmart, or Home Depot all week
8. The villas we stayed in at Virgin Gorda didn't even give us a key for our place b/c it is so safe there.
7. No one is in a hurry or seems to have anxiety about much
6. Never really a traffic back-up and fairly patient drivers. And ferries that get you to another island are pretty cheap and only take about 1/2 hour.
5. The yummy drinks, these people know how to make a mixed drink and I don't even drink that much but we had a drink almost every night with dinner
4. Being able to walk 70 feet to the beach and swim another 50 and be snorkeling in beautiful reefs. The snorkeling was amazing!
3. The food - BBQ's, seafood, rotis, jerk seasoning, everything was so good.
2. Amazing views no matter where you looked and to see the way God sprinkled all the islands in the sea. Crystal clear water and white sand beaches, with amazing colors of teal and blues when looking out over the water.
1. Getting to enjoy a week with my husband without any stresses (most anxiety was deciding where we eating and that wasn't even hard due to all the awesome restaurants).

I'll try to remember to bring my pics tomorrow to download and post some. I wish we could have stayed longer!!

Happy Mothers Day.....and Kaboom

So I hope any mothers that read this blog had a lovely day, of course that non-stop rain was not helping the lovely part. We had my parents and my brother over for lunch, I can now do this with very close family members and friends since I have a functional kitchen but know they won't judge Adam and I for the way we live in or remodeling mess :) We had a nice time and after they left Adam and I took some wonderful rainy Sunday afternoon naps.



My parents left around 5:00 and when Adam went in the kitchen a bit before 8:30 to get an after-the-nap-snack he exclaimed "What the heck!" At that little exclamation I of course needed to see what was going on in the kitchen. I thought perhaps our beloved little puppy had left some kind of bodily function gift for us, but nope that wasn't it at all, she was still in her crate taking her Sunday afternoon/night/all day nap too and hadn't awoken yet. He was standing at the back patio door and when I finally got there to look out it brought back some bad memories of a the lovely January storm. The big tree in our backyard had another large portion, probably at least 15 to 20 feet in length, had fallen over. Luckily missing our house once again but this time much closer. I don't know how we didn't hear something when it came down, guess we are hard sleepers. It is still attached, but barely and all the leafy area is now laying on our newly planted and growing grass. Adam turned in disgust as he knew this meant more time outside and more delay on getting things finished inside. He also knew this meant nicely begging one of our neighbors to borrow their chains saw again. Since we are leaving for Vacation on Friday he also knew that Monday and Tuesday were going to be his only chance to get this off our newly planted grass and at least dragged to the back of the yard.



One thing was decided for sure, this tree is now so fugly that it will have to come down at some point in the future. I didn't tell Adam this but I'm kind of glad that he made this decision because I thought it looked ridiculous after the storm when it really was only half a tree and I have ever really liked having that big of tree that close to our house, especially give our luck!

Above is picture from the last storm and the tree on the right is the one that was affected. You can't tell how full of a tree it was in this picture but even with half of it gone it was still pretty big and full. Below is a picture we we first planted the grass in the big dirt circle around the tree, it had just really started to look plush this last week. Hopefully Adam can get the tree out of the way before it ruins a section.

Holy Hostas, Batman!

So now that spring has sprung we are discovering all of the vegetation we have around our place. We had some daffodils that bloomed but have since wilted. We think we have a bunch of day lilies that just haven't bloomed yet. This week we had a bush type thing bloom and I think the flowerings were gardenias. I'm sure there is more to discover that maybe haven't come up or bloomed yet.

We knew when we moved in that there were quite a few hostas, but due to the magnitude of overgrowth everywhere I don't think we knew what exactly we were going to get especially the number of hostas and how big some of them are. The pictures I have posted are actually when they were first starting to come in they are all much bigger now.

All the things that look like tall stalks in the picture above are hostas as well, as I mentioned before they have all opened up and are pretty big.

The picture below is of just a portion of the wood that we cut from our lovely January storm. There is a ton more piled behind this nicely stacked pile and then some over the side that you can't see.