Delayed vacation pics

Sorry it took me so long to get these up! We had so much fun on our cruise. Our favorite parts were snorkeling and just relaxing on the deck getting some sun. :) We enjoyed the food (Ian liked the around the clock pizza buffet) and as promised, I had lobster for thanksgiving instead of turkey, it was really good. Ian had a good steak. They had great entertainment on board, and we did plenty of relaxing and sleeping too. We missed our first port of call due to weather, so we spent an extra day at sea. We still got to Nassau, Freeport and Port Canaveral. We went on an airboat ride in port canaveral and oddly enough it was the same place that my Dad took our family when we were little. We got to see some alligators and a bald eagle! We also went to Cocoa Beach and of course Ron Jon's! By the end we were very relaxed and ready to come home. I had to deal with vertigo for about a week afterward, but neither of us got sick. I would highly recommend it!

If you would like to view all the pictures, you can see it on my facebook album at this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=63291&l=bfb91&id=580356524

Bon Voyage

Hi, just wanted to wish everyone a happy early thanksgiving! Ian and I are leaving tomorrow for our cruise and will be in the bahamas and florida for the next week. Particularly we'll be in Florida on thanksgiving. I think I am going to make a point and NOT eat turkey on thanksgiving, but lobster instead. It won't feel like thanksgiving, but thats ok. I am thankful for time to relax, a wonderful husband and family, and a God who loves me unconditionally. We look forward to spending Christmas with everyone, love you and see you soon! We will post pics of the cruise asap, but will thoroughly enjoy our time there first! :)

The squishy wagon

So here they are! I am really excited and have adjusted well (so far) to driving a station wagon. It has all my requirements and then some! We will test it out when we drive down to South Carolina in two weeks to leave for our cruise! The best part is we paid cash for it and it is in great condition (minus the squish in the front which I can totally deal with). We just think it was meant to be since it is squishy's successor. I was pretty sad after squishy died, but now I feel better because the squishy wagon is really nice. I will admit, when we test drove it that was only the second mercedes I have ever been in and never would have even considered buying it, but we got a great deal and we know it was taken care of very well.

The first pic is Ian's latest project in the garage. He has been wanting to do this for forever. I will admit when he has the lights on it, it is blinding. He tested it out by filming himself and Julia (thanks for helping him paint btw) and it works pretty well! Just wait until he makes his first feature film :).

family visit

I'm about a week behind on updating, I have more pics to come, as some of you have heard we got a new car to replace squishy and it is called the squishy wagon. That's all the hints I will give for now!
Last weekend Julia and Linda came to visit us! We had a lot of fun eating good food and roaming around downtown frederick. Before they left on monday we took them up to cunningham falls state park and saw what seemed to be the peak of the fall colors. They were bright and beautiful and seemed much better than last year. Now we got rain all week and have hardly any colors left, it was good while it lasted!

RIP Squishy

I didn't think I would be saying this so soon, but Squishy has passed on to the great hereafter. She has seen me through 7 years and 120000 miles, several cross country trips and a short stint being wrecked, I mean driven by Ian and back into my loving arms for the last three years. She still loved me after she got her nickname and through many good memories. I admit, as sad of a car as she was, I will miss her. You all think I'm crazy for sure knowing everything that she lacked, but I will tell you, her and I had a special bond. I knew the instant something was going wrong and could tell about two days before the check engine light would come on. Sure she loved oil, but I love starbucks, so what?! I admit when Ian told me she was totally and completely dead I shed a little tear.

Alas, on to bigger and better things. My requirements for a new car:
a horn
a parking break
power windows
ac/heat
a cd player (per Robin's request) she will refuse to ride with me if I have a boom box on the front seat.

thats about it. I know I will love whatever we get, however it will not take the place in my heart that squishy has. I remember for the short stint that I drove the civic we bought and remember liking it but saying its not like squishy....no one will ever be like squishy. She has seen me through snow, rain, ice, too much traffic to think about, and she only ever didn't start once, and then she died.

RIP Squishy. August 2001 adopted by me-November 2008 off to squishy heaven. I'll miss you.

Lacey's wedding

Here are a few of my favorite photos from Lacey's wedding. Ian and I traveled to minneapolis to be there. It was a beautiful wedding with no major problems, and Lacey looked absolutely beautiful! We also got to visit with Brandon and Jen on Sunday which was equally as great. Hope you all are enjoying fall as we are, we are looking forward to our cruise in November and then coming home for the holidays!

More updated house pics!

The orchid is one of the many wonderful housewarming gifts we received, he actually gave us two! Now I really need to work on my green thumb. The bathroom color was originally what we picked out for the living/dining room. We decided it was much too blue, but I love it in the powder room! We ended up putting the bistro set underneath the deck on our patio so we can eat dinner outside. We have used it much more than the deck unfortunately, but I plan on making that into my garden next season, perhaps with a nice lounge chair so I can read out there! :)

New house pics

Hi Everyone, sorry its been so long between posting pictures, we had a housewarming party last week so we were very busy getting ready for that. Here is the after effect. We are pretty happy with the paint colors and are really enjoying having a house!

New bed New bed!

Here is the bed we bought this weekend, I am so excited to finally have a real bed! I've waited over four years and i am really happy with it. It is humorous how I got it home, on top of squishy tied down with some string for a 60 mile trek with my friend Sharon. We kept wondering why we were getting people staring at us until we figured out that the drag on the bed was causing it to lift off the roof! It stayed on though and now it is in our bedroom to stay! We will eventually buy other pieces to the bedroom set, but this was to start and I love it!! Now, what do you all think if we paint the whole room red??

Prelim house pictures

Hi Everyone! Sorry its been so long to get some house pictures up, we finally just got internet this week and got things organized enough to take pictures! I will put some more up soon, we are getting a new bed this weekend and starting to paint downstairs, you can see some of the test color we did on the island in the kitchen. Thanks for all your help and well wishes, we are super happy with how the house turned out and are really enjoying it so far!

Finished house!

Here is the house from last week. We did our walk through on monday and got to see everything really well and have them touch up the paint etc. There wasn't anything really wrong with it, a couple minor things we will go back to see on monday before we go to the closing! I'm so excited to live there! This is probably the most fun move we have had so far.

Vacation

Here are a glimpse at the pictures from our trip back home. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and it was great to see everyone there. We had a good time relaxing at the cottage too! Now we are just waiting to close on the house on monday and move next weekend!

House surprise

Ian and I were surprised and were able to walk through the house today to see the progress. Here are the pictures we took, I am so so excited now. My absolute favorite room in the house is my closet!! :)

30 days to go

Here are the latest pictures of the house and our friend walter the groundhog that lives under the deck. We went by on friday night and the door to the house was open, they were laying all our tile. We peeked in the front door and saw the cabinets up in the kitchen! I am getting really excited, almost enough to make me start packing (I hate moving). Ian has all week off next week since the at&t national golf tournament is at congressional so hopefully he will start to pack some and that will motivate me. We will officially move everything on august 3rd, but after our closing on july 28th we will move a car load or two a night after work and just hopefully have the big stuff to move on sunday. Thats about it for now, I'm excited to come home in 1 1/2 weeks to see everyone!! :)

5 weeks to go!

The countdown has begun! I can hardly wait to be there!! The other pictures are of my favorite flowers. The magnolia we took a picture of in downtown frederick today, and the orchid Ian gave me is doing quite well in the basement so far. We'll see what happens when we go on vacation! We will be home for the wedding in three short weeks!! Can't wait to see everyone and celebrate Brandon and Jen's new life together!!

June house

Here are the newest weekly pictures. They probably won't look much different after today. They won't put the landscaping in until the very end. We got our certified letter saying our closing is July 28th. Last week we got to go to the granite yard and pick out our slab which was fun. I'm starting to get really excited to be there, but not looking forward to the moving process. Thankfully we have a couple of friends that have already volunteered to help.
Right now I'm looking much more forward to coming home for Brandon's wedding and seeing everyone. We can't wait!

anniversary

Sorry we haven't had photos for awhile, we went last monday for our walk through, and Ian's camera didn't have the memory card in it. So it looks a lot different now after two weeks! The inside is all framed in too, its looking great! They told us for now our potential closing date is July 25th. We could get in a lot earlier because ours will be done before the other two in the row since theirs are bigger, but we decided to wait until after our vacation and the wedding to worry about moving.
The other picture is the anniversary gift that Ian bought for me! I've been talking about getting an orchid as a housewarming gift probably for about 6 months now and Ian was very thoughtful and remembered! Now I just have to keep it alive in the basement for a month and we will be good to go!

More house!

Here are the rest of the pictures from yesterday. They are of the master bedroom and bathroom. The tile color I think is close to the one that we picked out, I don't remember exactly. We are going to have our pre drywall walk through on June 2nd and they are hoping to have the siding and stone front up by then!