Chapin

Gary and I were able to get away for a few days, so we headed down to South Carolina where we got to spend some time with both of our families.  We only had a few days, but we stayed a couple at Gary's house where we spent some much needed time soaking in the rays by the pool. We had a very relaxing time, laid back with no official plans. Hailey and Peyton, our niece and nephew kept us on our toes, we had so much fun with them! They are so sweet and loving! We went to the indoor shooting range with Gary's dad and shot off some hand gun rounds.... they did a little better than I.

We spent the last couple days at my house. Christina and Tom were in town with Landrie, my new niece who I have not blogged about before... she must have been born during one of my many blog dry spells. They are very happy and Landrie is much bigger than I remember her being only a few months ago when I first saw her in Colorado. Before you know it she will be heading off the Clemson to live in Lever!! :) We also got to see many close family friends as well as my Aunt Mary and cousin Lauren from Indianapolis. At my house we had a lot of rain, but on our last day we were able to go on the lake before heading home.

I know it is a lot of pictures, but pictures says 1,000 words... and I just don't have that much time. Love to all who read my blog!

Well, after the long line of books I have recently discussed, I have taken a break from reading. It seems my time is required elsewhere. Lately Gary and I have been working on some more household projects. And for this we head to the great outdoors!! The trim on our house has been quite dull since we first purchased it, so a fresh coat of bright white paint was just the facelift the house needed!! It is still a work in progress, but we are working our way up! We have also added black paint to the sidelights around our front door, we think it makes for quite the entry (or a budget friendly one in any case). We intend to continue with the same color for the shutters as well. It will take us a few weeks to finish this project, since I am only off every other weekend. But with the progress we have already made we hope to complete the project soon.

Despite our hard work, we were able to get to the river this weekend for fishing, kayaking and sunburns!! We had a great time, there is nothing like being near the water!

I've also been doing a little knitting, but that I cannot show you!!

busy busy...

So a lot of things have been going on lately....

After the earthquake, we went to a wedding in Charleston, had a hurricane while we were gone, came home to a flooded basement, cleaned it up, got back to work, Gary started grad school, we planted some grass, knitted, knitted, and knitted, threw a baby shower, and that brings us to present day.

Naturally, we are thankful for surviving two natural disasters :) and the flooded basement kinda pushed us back into housework mode. After the initial purchase and work on the house we kind of tired out and have only been making small progress. Once we cleaned up the basement we decided there is still much to be done and started working on the house again. We've finished changing the outlets/switches in the kitchen, cleaned our junk from the formal living/dining rooms and steam cleaned the carpets. Those front two rooms have never looked better!

Continuing repair plans also include:
painting the front door and shutters
fixing the dangling gutter
painting the trim outside the house
spraying the basement to prevent mold (from the flood)
and finishing the master bedroom/bathroom. (side tables, lamps, dressers, hang pictures, full length mirror


We also took a trip to SC for the marriage of Spencer Lovelace and Brittany Long, no of course Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Lovelace! It was a beautiful wedding with all the best of southern style! And I can't forget our visit with the Charleston Langhorne crew: Jason, Kim, Ella, and Ty guy!! Love them!! And we stayed with the McNeillie's of the ghetto!! We got to see many people on this trip!! Oh, and we can't forget the 19 hours of car ride with sweet Bentley! (only one throw up incident)

In the mean time Clemson has won all three of their games, big wins against Auburn and FSU!

Next, Emily and I threw a baby shower for Cassie and baby Lexi! We had all the hospital folk out for a great time! The night before the party I was knitting like crazy because I still hadn't finished the gift I had been knitting for a while. You may remember the baby cocoon I knit for my nephew Peyton, well I made another for baby Lexi and Cassie got a matching scarf and hat! Emily and I prepared food before hand and had a good time planning.  We even made little baby feet sugar cookies!

Well life in MD continues...

coming soon: trip to Clemson for my 25th birthday and the Boston College game, and trip to Chapin to see Nick for a whole week!!

Beating the Heat...

Today our new air conditioning unit was installed. Although not my first choice of things to do today, I suppose it was well worth it to devote 5 hrs of my day off to have it installed. Our old unit had seen better days and was performing very poorly. We have had many extremely hot days lately,  and our air conditioner was super struggling. We changed the setting higher to help it out, cut back the bushes around the unit for better air circulation, installed a new ceiling fan in our bedroom and got a fan for Bentley, but in the end it just wasn't enough. It had begun to make strange noises when it shut off and despite the higher temperature setting it was still getting warmer inside than the setting should have allowed. Needless to say our power bill the past few months has been monstrous and Gary hasn't allowed me a cuddle in the same amount of time. Double negative which does not make a positive. And let me tell you, the extra days I have put in "at the office" for some extra money were not supposed to be for a new AC unit! But, as I hear it, that is one of the beauties of owning a home....

We purchased our new unit through Sears and two men came to the house to install it. If anyone is in the same boat we are this summer, we were pretty satisfied with them in terms of price, timeliness, and customer service. The technicians arrived when they were scheduled to, completed their work, and were courteous. The new unit was up and running before I knew it. They showed me the changes, I signed some papers, and off they went.

That is pretty much the whole of my day...

 bright, shiny and new!!!

on call...

I was supposed to work today, but I got a surprise call this morning and it was the hospital requesting that I take call! Basically I got to stay home today, get paid a nominal hourly rate with the possibility of having to go in at any second. Usually taking call is not anything I would want to do because, yeah, you get the day "off" but at any minute the hospital could call needing you to come in.

Luckily, I never got that call. I was able to stay home all day with Gary and Bentley! The day wasn't a complete waste though, waiting around to be called in. Gary and I work on our bedroom closets. When we moved in, Gary's closet didn't have any hanging racks for his clothes, so he has been using the guest bedroom closet. Well people, no worries, he can now dress in our own room!! My closet was slightly more "move in" ready, but it needed some work too. Now both of our closets can hold all our clothes without the risk of the racks falling off the wall at any second!!

Anyway, I know that is not exactly the most interesting story to tell, but that was our day!!

p.s. --- Bentley continues to do well after his castration. He has one of those cones for his head, but it is really really huge for him. He can barely walk around with it on, so we don't make him wear it. Well the first night we put it on him overnight since we wouldn't be able to watch him and when we came downstairs the next morning it was just laying in his crate. Somehow he had gotten it off. So since then he hasn't had to wear it. He doesn't really pay much attention to that area though. He is still mainly worried about how to best chew off my arm. So much for the neuter fixing his love of chewing me!

p.s.s.--- Countdown to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, July 15!! Already have my tickets!!

fun in the yard...

When we first bought our house, we knew there was a lot of work to be done on the yard. You could tell it had not been taken care of in years, to call it a yard would be an over-statement because in fact, the grass is more like weeds, and all the bushes/shrubs/trees are over grown. But since we didn't buy and move into our house until the fall and the inside was just as desperate we put off any yard work until the spring.

WELL YESTERDAY WAS THE DAY! We had some good weather, so we took the opportunity and set out for Lowes, got some yard work tools, some flowers, and some weed killer. The grass had a lot of dead debris, so we raked out the whole front yard. Also the small bushes in the front yard we wiry and out of control, they got a hair cut. We used to have this big yellow bush right in the middle of the yard... it was horrible, well I trimmed that down to a nub and then Gary and I dug up the stump. Yes, parents, we dug it up instead of lighting it on fire and ordering a pizza... I know that is tradition but we decided to break out. haha! Also we have really large hedges that line the sides of our house, they probably haven't been pruned in years! We didn't get to both sides yesterday, but we did finish up the pruning on one side, they look so much better!! And of course pretty much everything got a layer of weed killer, we have a dandelion farm!

I didn't plant the flowers yet because we still have some weed killing work to do, but the transformation has begun and as the warm weather continues to stay we will be out in the yard a lot more!! We have decided we are done with the inside for a while, so most of our upcoming house updates will be yard updates!

On a side note, this morning I feel like a train hit me. I am so sore. Also, Bentley went DOWN the porch steps for the first time yesterday. He is a pro at going up but to get him down to the yard we usually have to carry him. Since he is already getting so big, we spent some time yesterday bribing and encouraging him to come down the stairs. After about 20 minutes he started to make his way down and finally made it to the bottom!! There were lots of treats involved, and I don't think we will have a repeat performance any time soon, but he DID do it!