TEXAS Trip!

We had such a great time seeing everyone in Texas!  From having a "mini wedding" with my Grandparents, to seeing the JFK Museum, to dinner with my Dad, to sailing on Lake Ray Hubbard, to enduring the HEAT...we had a busy 5 days!

My mom's friend Cindy picked us up at the airport and greeted Dan with some Texas shaped tortilla chips and salsa...YUM!

That night, my mom got us a sailing trip on Lake Ray Hubbard!  We were staying in Rockwall for the week so this was a nice relaxing treat!!

We walked around by the harbor and listened to a live band the first night.  Such a fun little area!

The next day, we stopped by my Grandparents house so Dan could meet them!  Then we went to the JFK museum.  I hadn't been there since maybe the middle school days so it was really cool!  Dan really enjoyed it!

Above: Me and Dan with Grandaddy

This is me standing on the X where JFK was shot:

Then we had a mini wedding with my Grandparents and some of the neighbors!  We hand delivered their wedding invitation, ate wedding cookies and took pictures! 

Dan and my mom had to get a pic in my Grandparent's front yard.  Dan actually doesn't look that hot!

Then we went to dinner with my Daddy and Linda and my cousin Brett and his new wife Julie!  We went to Gloria's for some authentic Tex Mex!

And then the next day, we got to meet my stepsister, Taryn's, new twin boys!

Busy but fun trip to Texas!! :)

And They're Off!!

After all the days and hours of preparation, the wedding invitations have been sent!  Thank you to all the girls who helped on Crafts Night, thank you to Caroline who helped assemble for almost 5 hours, thank you to Roger and my mom for their help stuffing, licking and taping and thank you to Deb for putting postage stamps on all of them and helping me hand cancel them at the post office!  Also, thank you to Dan for being the manager of the spreadsheet, also being a "stuffer" and helping to track down everyone's addresses! YAY!!  Thank you!!

This time we hand cancelled and mailed all of them in Lake Elmo since we were headed to a bridal shower for one of Dan's cousins in Hudson and also needed to stop in Stillwater to pick up one more dress!  Thank you to Diane at the Lake Elmo post office for letting us do this and for making sure they were all perfectly safe! :)

We can't wait to get our first RSVP cards!!  :)

Our 4th of July Project

While others were boating, swimming, drinking and grilling, Dan and I decided to landscape our front lawn!  I mean, what a great idea!  It'll just be a quick project...plant a few things...done!  Right?!  NO.  This was a 2 full day project and we are feelin' the pain right now for the second night in a row.  Let me take you on a little journey...

Above is what our front path looked like before we attacked!  As you can see, well, there's nothing to see except stupid old weeds!  There were 3 lily plants there, which was good!  But it definitely needed something!  I can't tell you how much I've learned since starting this but gardening can be really fun! 

The story: So, of course, I didn't know what to plant or how to do it.  I asked my co-workers, friends, mom, and 3 Home Depot nursery people.  I wanted to plant Hostas because my online research told me these were good "beginner plants".  Key word is totally: "Beginner" and that is totally me!  After looking around at Home Depot and analyzing how much sun our front yard actually got in one day, I decided Hostas would be good.  I measured out the bed along the path and it was 33 feet long.  I figured the plants should be planted every 2-3 feet so we would need 11-12 Hostas. We were just about to plan on buying all the plants in time for the weekend, when our next door neighbor posted a "Plant Sale".  Lo and behold, sitting on her lawn were 12 Hostas for sale.  Dan had met these neighbors briefly while mowing the lawn but I had never met them!  So, Saturday morning we went over there and rang the doorbell.  Jan and Dave were so thrilled to meet us and Jan is a HUGE gardener (which you can definitely tell by her yard!).  We asked if we could buy the rest of her plants and she gave us the "Good Neighbor" discount!  (now we really have to prove that we're good neighbors!)  BUT!  Not only did they sell us the plants, Jan could tell I had no idea what I was doing and took me under her gardening wing!  She came up to the house, looked at the situation and approved that Hostas were a good choice.  She told me what top soil to get and what kind of mulch.  She asked me "So, do you have a shovel?"  I said, "No."  She said, "Do you have gloves?"  I said, "No."  She said, "Do you have a wheel barrow?"  I said, "No."  I told her, we didn't own anything but a 2 gallon yellow bucket!!  I explained that we have a wedding registry and were trying to hold out!  She took me back to her house and gave me ALL of her supplies and more!  I couldn't believe it!  I couldn't thank her enough!  So, we started.  Below is a picture of what I accomplished on Day One.  (while Dan was golfing, I might add :)

I think I filled a whole wheel barrow with rocks!  And this is when my sunburn started...

The next day, we kept workin' and started digging holes:

We were exhausted!!!!!!!!!

Finally, they were all planted!  Dan put in new mulch!

As if the Hostas weren't enough, we I decided to plant some annuals in the garden bed below the picture window by the big lily plants.  We planted 62 flowers!!!!!!!!!

(and did new mulch AGAIN)

So, it's finished!  And we even added solar lights!  So far, the plants and flowers are staying alive so let's hope it stays that way!!  And the lily plants bloomed!  It was almost like they were just happier with their water and new mulch and pretty flowers around them :)

 



You'll be in my hearth...

Thank you Phil Collins for that song dedicated to our fireplace, how thoughtful of you!  So you might say I'm obsessed with white...after all the posts about painting on this blog, you're probably wondering how many cans of white paint we've gone through since moving in.  I can tell you- ALOT.  So this week I started the project of painting the fireplace hearth white and despite my intense urge to jackhammer the entire thing instead, I'd say it went pretty well!


There were, of course, lots of holes and crevises to cover so my wrist is sore from smashing my paint brush into all the nooks and crannies!  After 2 coats of white paint plus primer, I finished with Minwax Water-Based Polycrylic Protect Finish in Clear Gloss.  This will seal the deal and make the hearth more durable, you know, since we're doing a lot of tap dancing on it and a lot of wear and tear caused by waiting for Santa to come down the chimney :)

And after painting the hearth, we started cleaning out the fireplace.  I was like "Oh ya!  I'll just start this on a Wednesday night after dinner...say around 8:30 and then I should be done in like an hour!"  NO.  Let me tell you...this was our nemesis.  We're convinced the firebox had not been cleaned since the 1950's.  After a WEEK of cleaning almost every day, we finally had to, literally, throw the towel in.  I mean, I was scrubbing with sponges, brushes, towels and it was continuously pure black soot.  Dan would fill up a bucket of soapy water each time the water turned black (which was after about 3 complete scrub downs of the whole thing) and then I'd clean it out again!  Eventually, I think we got most of it.  Definitely a lot cleaner! 

Next...yes, can you believe the saga continues??  After cleaning the firebox FOREVER, now it was time to paint.  I know, I know, you're probably thinking this is a bad idea.  The thing is, we don't plan on using the fireplace for actual fires that often.  But just in case we want to some day, I talked to several Home Depot employees to pick out the right "high heat" paint.  It withstands 1200 degrees!  With a painted inside, we were sure the fireplace would look much better!  And if you take anything away from this post at all, let it be that High Heat paint is like...TAR!!  I thought I was going to pass out, it smelt so strong!! 

 

Hey...nice sunburnt back and pink 80's hair clip :)  Well, after one coat, the firebox was all black and looked great.   Here is the final finished product:

I'm going to walk away from this now and focus on other things in life!  Haha!

That Was Then, This Is Now, THURSDAY! - Photo Gallery

By far my favorite project we've done so far!  Don't you just love hanging things on the wall?  You've gotta watch me because I've been known to put lots of holes in walls :)  We started this project with a "newspaper draft", if you will, to make sure we were hanging everything correctly:

PS-Did you notice the perfect console table we FINALLY found for this wall!?  I'd been searching for a long time and stumbled upon this beauty at Pier 1.  Dan and I just stopped by quick to look around (actually to look for a floor vase) but buried deep in the rubble of home decor was this table!  I quickly retrieved my measuring tape from my purse and I heard the angels sing their heavenly tune-it was, in fact, 32" tall and 54" inches wide!  No way.  I was only able to find tables that were 30" high and 48" wide and I thought that size would look dinky on this wide wall.  Luckily, the sales clerk noticed Dan and I looking closely at the surface of the table.  When she asked if we had questions, we turned on our bargaining skills and explained that we saw a few minor scratches (nothing major whatesoever but hey!).  So...25% off and a gift card from Jon later-we got a deal!

So, I apologize.  I got sidetracked.  We had this cluster laying on our living room floor for hmm...3 weeks?  We picked it up for the girls craft night party and put it all back down the next day, haha.

After sweaty palms and hesitation, we finally put a hole in our precious wall and started hanging.  Dan did a great job measuring and actually had a lot of insight as to how these were to be arranged!  The end result, a beautiful gallery of random things!

Featuring our favorite engagement photos, family & friend photos, our favorite fortune cookie sayings, the back of our wedding invitation, a fun quote, photo booth strips, patterned paper, etc.  YAY!