We're making progress!

Jason's parents came up this weekend, and we put them to work! Jason and his dad got to work on the handrail, while his mom and I ripped up carpet in the three bedrooms and basement. I will be so glad when I have my house back!

So here's a before, if you've forgotten what it looked like...

...and here's the finished product!

There's still more where this came from...

Here's our desk...in the bathroom...

Camping Fun

Just got back from a 4-day camping trip with Laurin and Lucas. We went to Starved Rock State Park and had tons of fun. Here's how our trip began...

We really wanted to take one vehicle to save money on gas, and since Jason and I have cars, we had to take Laurin's Jeep. Problem was we still didn't have enough room. Jason and Lucas rigged up a "package" made from our tarp and tied it down to the top. Luckily, Laurin's Jeep was made for things like that.

First things first...had to get the tents set up.

Oh Lucas and his clip-on aviator sunglasses...he ended up losing them after the first or second day. Laurin wasn't too upset about it and Lucas of course thinks she did something with them.

We played cards quite a bit since it was so hot in the afternoons...upwards of 90 degrees with no air...

On Friday morning, we went hiking in Starved Rock State Park. The views were amazing.

On Saturday morning, we went to Matthiessen State Park which was just a few miles from Starved Rock. The canyons and waterfalls were definitely the main attraction in this state park.

I thought this rock looked like a monster/devil/demon...look for the eye sockets, nose, and mouth...

Laurin found this popcorn called Jiffy Pop at Walmart that we cooked over the fire. It's a good thing we cooked it when we did because we got rained out on Saturday night.

The park rangers came around and told everyone that a storm with 60 mph winds was coming. We packed up shop pretty fast and ended up sitting in the car for a good 2 hours. To waste time, we went into Oglesby to fill up the car with gas and saw this beautiful view of the sky.

Since we got rained out and couldn't have our nightly s'mores, we ate them for breakfast this morning. Not very nutritious, but we had to have our s'mores! A great way to end the weekend...even though we did get rained on.

Fireplace Facelift

Between all this house remodel business, I had a birthday. Jason and I made a birthday cake...German chocolate. And I even had a candle disguised as a "flame thrower" aka lighter.

I used my birthday money to give the fireplace a little facelift. Unfortunately I don't have any before pictures, but it wasn't anything too spectacular. I really wanted to get some sort of mantel, but I couldn't find anything that I really liked and thought that it might just clutter everything up anyway, so I settled for a picture. Fortunately, we found this picture at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and the vases at Gordman's. It was all exactly what we were looking for. Jason even liked it too!

Remodel Update

Jason and I have been busy again this week. I painted half of the downstairs while he worked on our new banister for the stairs. We just had wrought iron before (painted an attractive color of blue with parts of the black starting to show through) and we're going to put in oak. It's slowly coming along...

Here's a before...

We removed the old banister and also painted the wooden board (called a stringer) on the outside of the stairs. Look back at the previous picture to see what I'm talking about. I've still got to put a couple more coats of paint on the stringer, but you get the idea. I think it looks a lot better now that it blends in with the wall. What do you guys think?

Here are the new end posts. I'm not sure what they're called. Pretty simple and contemporary. I wanted to stay away from anything "country" looking. :)

We haven't attached anything yet because knowing us, we'll end up doing something wrong. That's where Tim comes in. He's coming up to help us put it all together in a week.

Well, that's it for now. Stay tuned for more house updates. I'll be glad when this is all over!

It's been a long week...

My life this week has been immersed in paint. As some of you know, we are going to get new carpet in the whole house sometime this summer. Yikes! So what better time to take on other projects as well?? I've been wanting to paint the walls since we moved in and saw how dingy they looked but neither one of us were very motivated to do it. Well, if we repainted now, there's no need to worry about spills on the current carpet since we're ripping it up. So that's what we did. Jason convinced me that the spare bedroom should get a coat because it had some of the yuckiest walls. I started in there so that I could practice my painting techniques.

Here's a before picture...yellow walls but I had already started to trim in the new color...
...and here's an after. There's probably a lighting difference because the room looks darker in person than in the picture.
So after I finished painting the bedroom, I wasn't all that keen on the color. Like I said, it looks much darker and shinier in person, but I kept going and started painting the upstairs hallway. Got it painted and hated it! When the lights were on the walls looked orange and it was just way too shiny and dark for my liking. Here's the bad part: we bought 5 gallons of paint from Lowe's in this awful color and only used one in the bedroom and half in the hallway. Jason being the supportive husband called Lowe's and asked what our options were since the label on the cans say non-refundable. Someone was definitely on our side because the guy told us we could bring it back and he'd mix a new color. We were shocked, and Jason definitely got the name of this guy. We go into Lowe's the next day and lucky for us, that same guy was working. We returned 3 gallons of non-refundable paint. We were counting our lucky stars. I got a different color that I love so much better.

Here's a before of the hallway (it was just white)...
And here's the after...again, the color is not very representative...
After the hallway, I tackled the upstairs living room. Here's a before...again just white...
And here's an after...same color as the hallway but looks totally different...
This is probably the best representation of the color...
Only one more room to go...the down stairs living room/office. I'm really not looking forward to that. It will have to wait until next week because in a few hours we're off to Olney for Mason's birthday party. Can't wait!

Happy Anniversary!

It's been three years already...hard to believe. Happy anniversary!

First time Jason was at my house...a couple weeks after we started dating back in 2002...don't we look young??

Woohoo...The swing is back!

...better than ever!

Jason and I had a surprise visit over the Memorial Day weekend. We knew that my parents were coming, but they brought along four extra passengers. :) We gladly accepted them and had a great weekend. One of the highlights on Sunday was installing a new rope swing. We were so sad that the old one broke, so Dad, Dustin, and Jason fixed us up with a new one.

They had to cut down a few tree limbs first, and Mason thought he needed to help. Check out Grandma's Cookie Jar for more great pictures from the weekend.

I think I might have mentioned this before...

I HATE BARKING DOGS!! Ok...it's bad enough when I have to listen to it at home from the neighbors dogs, but now there's a barking dog in a subdivision across the street from school. Now that it's getting warm outside, I have to keep the windows open. For the last two days, that dog has barked non-stop. How annoying?!? To make things worse...this morning there was a freakin' bird chirping right outside my window. Alright...I'm done with my rant. Thanks for reading. Hope everyone had a great day. :)

We can't be swingers anymore...

...no not that kind of swingers. ;)

Jason fell on his ass tonight...hard...and we both laughed hysterically for at least a minute. For those of you who don't know...that rope used to be hanging from a tree in our backyard. I watched in slow-mo as he crashed to the ground. Luckily he wasn't up too high, and luckily I wasn't the one on the swing.

New Template

What do you think of the new template? I thought it was time for a change. Jason and I also rearranged all the crap on our kitchen counters. Looks totally different but I like it and will get used to it. Have a great week!

Thumbs

Okay, so if you know me well enough, you know that my thumbs are bit a weird...short and stubby. Also if you know my thumbs, you'd know that I have a terrible time finding gloves that actually fit my thumbs correctly. Usually, I have about a 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch remaining in the end of each thumb hole of every pair of gloves I own. Today must have been my lucky day. I bought a pair of gardening gloves, and when I got home, I tried them on. Guess what?!?! Thumbs fit!! Woohoo! No extra room at the end! I was super excited. :)

Sad face :(

I have to go back to work tomorrow :( ...10 days just wasn't long enough

Jason has taught me well

Laurin and I went to Peoria today to pick up a few things, and luckily we both had coupons that we obviously had to put to good use. So we went in to Lowe's because I wanted one more ceiling fan to replace the gold one in the kitchen. Laurin had a $10 off of $50 coupon, and she said I could have it. Unfortunately the fan was only $49.97. I knew that the silly people at the registers wouldn't give it to us because we've tried it before. Laurin suggested that we look for a pack of gum or something like that. Well, I didn't want to have to spend 2 or 3 bucks in order to get $10 off because that just seemes like a waste. I was like surely they sell individual nuts, bolts, or screws around here...and what do you know...they do! We found something for 33 cents, but I knew we could do better. I then spotted some nuts for like 6 cents, but that was the contractor price, so we kept looking. Ends up that lock washers are only 16 cents a piece (in case you need to know)...so I bought a single lock washer and spent over $50 (barely) and was able to use the coupon. Hooray! Jason was so proud. :)

It's egg-cellent!

Since we won't be around for Easter weekend, we decided to get together with Laurin and Lucas last night to color some Easter eggs. Fun times!

The one on the left is Jason's handiwork...can you tell what it's supposed to be??

It's a winter wonderland...

...in March! We woke up to this surprise this morning. Thank goodness it's almost melted.

No potato peeler...really?

Okay, so my grandma sent me this video about how to peel potatoes without using a potato peeler. If you haven't seen it, watch it now. It's not very long.



So...being novice cooks, Jason and I are usually up for anything. We decided to try this method of peeling potatoes tonight. Did it work, you ask? Well...yes and no. The actual method definitely works, and there's a lot less waste of the actual potato. But...was our time well spent...not really. It takes Jason about 5 minutes to peel potatoes (which he loves to do!) plus about 10-15 to boil, and it probably took us at least 30-35 minutes for this silly process. Not to mention I had to cut the potatoes and then throw them back in the water after we "peeled" them because they weren't cooked all the way through. Needless to say, we probably won't be using this method anymore. I'd also hate to deprive Jason of his one love in the kitchen...peeling potatoes, carrots...you name it, he'll peel it. What a weirdo! :)

MJ's in da house!!

Jason, Matt, and I went to the 4A State Basketball Championship games last night in Peoria, and guess who was there?!? Michael Jordan!! His son Marcus is a senior at Whitney Young in Chicago and they were playing for the title, so MJ had to come out and support his son. Although we didn't get very close, we were still in his presence. :)

Here's a picture of what we saw of him...I circled him in red...

...and here's proof (courtesy of the PJStar) that he really was there...

Marcus's team ended up winning the championship game, and afterward, you should have seen all the media surrounding Michael trying to get his reaction. There were honestly more cameras around Michael than there were around the winning team. However, I will give the media and the Civic Center props for not making a huge deal about MJ being there. He kept a pretty low profile, and I never once saw anyone ask for an autograph...probably because of the six or seven huge security guards surrounding the area at all times...

Busy, busy, busy!

Alright, so it's been an extremely long time since my last post. Jason and I have been immersed in our jobs and our grad classes. We are still thankful that Jason has a job, but we're probably not out of the water yet. CAT is still making indefinite layoffs and moving people around trying to consolidate positions. Right now, he has to take four mandatory unpaid weeks off plus his two weeks of vacation and the week between Christmas and New Years. If you're interested, he's taking off the following weeks during the summer: May 11-15, June 8-12, June 22-26, July 20-24, and Aug 10-14. We welcome visitors! :) We're going to try and plan a couple camping trips during those weeks, but we'll have to wait and see what our summer course load is like first.

On another note, we finally got our new lawnmower! It's definitely been a long time coming. Jason can't wait to get out there and use it, but trust me...the yard doesn't need mowed yet.

Since my parents are coming up next weekend, I started compiling a list of little jobs that Jason and my dad could do together. So far, I've come up with a new ceiling fan in the living room upstairs (which we bought yesterday at Lowes), a new outlet in the upstairs hallway, a repair to an outlet in the downstairs living room, and a new light in the hallway downstairs. Jason can handle the new light in the hallway by himself, so we went to Menard's this afternoon and bought one. Lucky for us, they still have the same ceiling lights like the ones we got last year, so we ended up getting a pack of two for $15. Score! So now I've added another project to the list...another light in the hallway upstairs...if it's not too much trouble. Think you'll get all this stuff done, Dad?? :)

Anyways, here are some pictures of Jason's mini project for today.

He also wanted me to let you guys know that he didn't need the step-ladder to reach the ceiling, so here's one to prove it.

Cola!!...Tubby!!...

Let me just start by laughing hysterically and saying that I hate our neighbor's dogs. If I had a B.B. gun, I would be putting it to good use.

Okay, so let me give you a little background...our neighbors started out with one dog, Grizzley--a quiet, non-barking, old dog. This dog was okay in my mind. But then they bought a mutt, Cola, from a carny at a carnival dubbed "Dirty Derby Days." So from the start we knew that this new dog was going to be trouble. It freakin' barked non-stop, and I hated it from the start. Well, then the two dogs got busy and had a litter of 10 puppies. Joy! The kiddie-poo neighbors decided they just couldn't part with all the puppies, so they kept one named Tubby. Now Tubby is just as big as Cola, and is a freakin' barker too. I hate this dog as well. Keep this in mind, the neighbors now have 3 full grown dogs (indoors) and 4 children (also indoors...ha!). I would hate to go inside that house. I would never subject myself to that...ever! Also keep in mind that these dogs are not played with and are usually chained up when they are outside.

So this is where the story get hilarious. Last September, Cola got loose one morning. The neighbors had no idea, so she was running rampant around the golf course harrassing golfers all day long. Jason and I got home from work, and all of a sudden we hear the neighbor boy yelling "Cola!...Cola!" in a very distressed voice. Jason and I laughed. We're terrible! We secretly wished that Cola would have run away, but mostly we were laughing at the boy who seemed incredibly upset that the dog ran away even though the dog doesn't get played with. Unfortantely...umm...I mean fortunately Cola came running back. Dang...

So this evening guess who gets loose again?? Cola AND Tubby! They were barking, causing a ruckus, but in general I was laughing hysterically. So the deadbeat dad and his son have to go chase after the two dogs. At one point, the boy was trying to "sneak-attack" Tubby, but he sensed it and ran away. Hilarious! Then the boy would start running after the dogs and they would run faster. Hilarious! I'm not sure how long it took the dad and son to finally catch the two dogs, but again, unfortunately they did. This is where my story ends, but if you'd like to help the neighborhood out, you can let us borrow a gun...just kidding...well...maybe not...I really hate those dogs...

Dishes

So it's always been my job to load the dishwasher, add soap, and then start it. Jason will occasionally add dishes, but his main job is to "pre-wash" the dishes since our dishwasher doesn't always clean the stuck on stuff. Needless to say, he claims that the dishes are pretty much clean before I even put them in the dishwasher. Last night, it was business as usual. I loaded the dishes, added the soap, and pushed start.

Well, we're a big bowl-user family and all twelve of our bowls were in the dishwasher this morning, so Jason grabs a couple bowls out, looks them over since we've had dishes come out still dirty, and comments to me..."I even looked them over to make sure they were clean." He poured cereal in the bowls, and we ate breakfast like any other day.

This evening as I was cooking supper, I needed a measuring cup. Both of them were still in the dishwasher because we didn't have time to unload it this morning. Well, I guess it's a good thing that we didn't have time because I opened up the dishwasher...and I'm sure you know where this is going...there sat the soap that I poured in last night.

...so turns out those bowls this morning really weren't clean. Leave it to Jason to feed us out of dirty bowls. I have a conniption fit if I see the tiniest speck of dirt on a dish. I guess they always say what you don't know won't kill ya!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Wow! It's been awhile since my last post, and I just wanted to wish my hubby happy birthday...so...Happy Birthday! He's been wanting to try this restaurant for a really long time, and we tried to go there last year, but they're closed on Monday's and that's when his birthday was. The place is called Grumpy Pete's and the outside doesn't really look the best, so I was pretty leery of eating there. However, I was pleasantly surprised when we walked in. The place is really respectable (and clean!), and the food was shockingly superb! Jason ordered the most expensive thing on the menu...a full rack of ribs, and he said they were finger-lickin' good.

Ta-ta for now!

Dinner cooked with love

Lucas, Laurin, Jason, and I rang in the new year last night with an evening filled with fun...and lots of drinking by the men. I forgot my camera though, so no pictures.

But...Laurin and I decided that it was finally time to have that long awaited dinner owed to us from the Euchre bet. The guys met up at our house around 4:30 to start preparing. First, they baked a funfetti cake, and of course while it was baking, they had to play a little PlayStation. I guess that's ok... So once that was finished, they went shopping for the goods. We had a three course meal: a salad, baked mostaccioli, and cake. We had a nice candle-lit dinner, and the guys were the chefs, servers, and busboys. Part of the bet was they had to dress up as well, so that was kinda fun too.

A great evening topped off with a couple games of Euchre. The guys are calling for a rematch, but...the girls won both games played tonight. I don't think they can overcome us. We're just toooo good for them. :)