Lucy the Labradoodle

So before I start recapping our past month's adventures, I thought I would showcase our sweet, awesome, and quite spoiled dog Lucy. Her birthday was a couple weeks ago and she is now two. She keeps me company when Paul is gone and has quite the personality. We always joke she is cheaper than a kid, we can leave her at home or in the car for long periods of time, and she doesn't whine like "some" kids. All I know is that if I take this many pictures of our dog, I can't imagine how many of our real kids (NO, THIS IS NOT A HINT) we will have.

PS. Did I mention she sheds as much as I do? Pretty awesome!!

Book Review!

In the last couple months I have helped start a book club with Paul's regiment. We meet monthly at Barnes and Nobles to discuss our books and catch up with one another. So far, we have read The Help by Kathryn Sockett, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skoot, and Year of Wonder's by Geraldine Brooks.

I am also reading, with my wonderful friend from Utah Annie, some books. We have read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and we are currently reading the Left Behind Series.

I also have read some books on my own (not being in a club) that are noteworthy. The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo by Steig Larsson and A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard.

How do I read so much in a few months you ask? Well, books on CD and my Nook. I listen to a book whenever I drive (which is a lot), in the house, and then I read my Nook. It really helps listening to books while driving as really it is a waste of time anyways.

My review is 1 - 5 with 5 being the highest score. Enjoy!

The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo by Steig Larsson - 1 - I HATED this book! It had language that was awful and vulgar and the plot was not interesting at all. I DO NOT recommend this book to anyone.

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard. - 4 - This book is hard to listen to as Jaycee actually reads it. Just hearing her voice describe her situation and life in captivity was creepy. There is some language and descriptions that make your stomach turn, however, I think her story needed to be told. There are creeps out there that you would never suspect that may have innocent children in their captivity. We need to be on the lookout for strange things.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens - 2.5 - Yawn! This book took me FOREVER to get
through but I was going to finish it! It did pick up towards the end, but it just wasn't intriguing to me.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - 5 - I LOVED these books! There were captivating and were such a quick read. I would recommend these to anyone that is older than 15 as the entire premise behind the books is not for little kids. I could vividly see all the descriptions in the book as it was written so well. They are making this trilogy into a movie so read the books before the movies come out!!

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - 3.5 - This book was quite interesting as it was written a very long time ago. It is one of those books you just wonder why they don't "do something" about it as you know everything as the reader when the characters don't know the entire story. Some good truths and applicable to today as well.

The Help by Kathryn Sockett - 5 - This book gave a fun look at life in the 1950s in Mississippi. There are three main characters that are developed really well and that you can relate to in small ways. So many tones in this book that relate to all people. Recommend this one to any woman.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skoot - 4 - This book is a true story about Henrietta Lacks, a black woman in the 50s that had her cells taken from her body without her knowledge. They became the most replicated cells in the world. This book discusses the history with the family and researchers. It goes in depth to cancer cells and describes cell biology really well. However, I feel like the researcher who wrote the book did almost too good of a job! There are so many facts!!

Year of Wonder's by Geraldine Brooks - 3 - This one looks like it has promise and then the last fifty pages ruins the entire book for me. It tells about human nature during a time of turmoil, the Black Plague, in England. I was disappointed how the Pastor reacted when his wife died and really went off the deep end - as did the main character. Very depressing the last fifty pages.

Well, that's what I have been reading the last few months!!

"Lots" of Irene

We made it through Irene!! It was my first hurricane and now I know what to expect.

During the hurricane there was lots of wind, lots of rain, lots of looking at the clock all night, lots of praying for our house to hold up, and lots of tornado warnings.

After the hurricane there was lots of days without power, lots of sweating, lots of candles, lots of board games, lots of branches, lots of bent fence boards, and lots of thanks for only being a Category 1 storm when it hit.

Thanks to everyone who were thinking and praying for us!

She's Coming!

First it was the Tornados in the spring.

Then it was the forest fires this summer.Now it is her... Hurricane Irene.

Internet!

So we have officially been wired for internet out in our subdivision! It took almost three months for a provider to reach us, but we finally were successful.

So, hopefully a more regular blog will appear.

NC Update

Hello!

Here is the short version of the housing update:

1. Internet: We still don't have internet as there are currently no providers for our area. Thus our options are, a). Satellite Internet b). Drive twenty minutes for internet cafe c). Wait for Time Warner Cable to install hopefully in the next three months.

2. Remodel: I know, we bought a brand new house, what could there possibly be to remodel? Well, we (Paul mostly) put bead-boarding up in the Master Bedroom. It looks so nice with the chair rail molding he made from scratch (went to Wood shop and took bare wood and came back with wonderful molding). We also put up crown molding. We then painted the downstairs bath, upstairs master, and study. We also are putting the bead-board and crown molding in the downstairs bath. I have some projects I am working on refinishing to put around the house and hopefully will blog about that one of these days. The shelves in the study have been a total nightmare. The paint we bought was a bad batch and of course we didn't find that out until we had completely sanded, painted, resanded, and then repainted the shelves. Fortunately we figured out that after two weeks of not drying...something was wrong and we didn't put our books on them. Next big projects...tile the backsplash of the kitchen, fence for the backyard, build a firepit, and construct the patio trellis. New homes are still a lot of work...don't be fooled... :)

3. Life: We joined Coastline Baptist Church about a month ago and absolutely love it! Paul is singing in the choir, I am helping with the kids choir, and we are trying to be available for whatever is needed. It is so nice to be back in a church where we have the opportunity to get involved (the last year in VA was so busy for Paul it was not even possible).
Tornadoes are not fun - we found that out these past couple weeks. We are so blessed that the tornado did not hit our home or even cause damage as there were many around our area that had homes destroyed. Paul had Officer of the Day duty the right after the tornadoes hit so his phone was ringing off the hook (as the tornado hit base housing).

4. School: I just finished another semester of Grad School! Yayayaya (shouts for joy)!! I start back up this June for summer classes and hopefully only have two more semesters left.

5. Work: Paul's work is going well. He has great hours and his very own office area now! Actually, the reason I can blog right now is because he had an all expense paid work trip to Tampa for a class. So, with only the cost of airfare, I decided to come along! The weather is amazing and the sights aren't too bad either. Will post pictures (hopefully) soon. Thanks to our neighbor for watching Lucy!! I am starting to look for a job now that the summer is almost upon us. I will let you know what happens with that...
I forgot to mention that we found out Paul deploys in January for a 13 month deployment. For awhile we thought it was going to be this fall so we are excited for the little bit of extra time.

I think that is about it for now!

House Update

1. March 10 Closing pushed back to March 22 due to lack of Realtor communication to other Realtor.
2. Our cars look like Gypsies live in them.
3. We are REALLY going to like getting into our house on Tuesday night!


Can I just say that my problems are very in significant with what is going on right now? This hit me hard this past Thursday as I looked beyond my own problems and started to count my blessings. Japan just saw people die and are now facing nuclear fallout. Libya is not looking too good. Men are deploying to countries far away from families for extended periods of time. I had a student die in a car accident last week and a family that is suddenly without a son and brother. So our little 12 day hotel bill and inconvenience is NOTHING compared to what others have.

And now, pictures of our house as of this past Tuesday. I will post more as we go!

Oh wait! How did this get in here... :) Enjoying a walk along the river today.

Standing in Master Bedroom looking towards Master Bath.

Paul standing in Living Room while I am in Dining Room.

Another Living Room shot. Off to the left is the hallway to the entryway.

Kitchen that I LOVE!! The hardwood floors and appliances were in today and it looked so good! Can't wait to finally get in there!

More to come!

Big News!

WE PURCHASED OUR FIRST HOME!!

That is it... more details to follow!

Day 18 - My Wedding

I know, it has been awhile. I have to admit that I knew this was going to be a long post so I kept ignoring my blog on purpose. Then it hit me, it doesn't have to be long! Just say what needs to be said and you are done and can move on...

We got married August 14, 2007 in the church I grew up in (Treasure Valley Baptist). It was special because our pastor's anniversary is also the day that he officiated our ceremony so we will never forget their own anniversary! :)

To be honest, the day went by really quickly and it is even hard for me to remember everything that happened before the ceremony (I know, awful isn't it?). It was pretty relax, other than the photographer who I wanted (still want) to strangle... I felt like a princess who was marrying her prince. The church looked gorgeous (I thought) and we had quite a few people show up even though it was on a Tuesday night. We didn't want to ruin anyone's weekend with a wedding and it gave us a few more days before the school semester started down in Utah. It worked out well!

These are the highlights:

• I remember my friend Jaysa spent the night at my parents house with me, we woke and decorated the church some more.
  
• I got my hair done at a salon, arrived at the church to find my "girls" getting their hair and make up done.
  
• While I was pressing the bridesmaids dresses, still in my casual attire, and looking up to see the photographer standing there over an hour early! She informed me she was ready to start taking pictures. So... we hustled and took photos before the wedding started.
• Seeing Paul see me for the first time in my wedding dress.
• Walking down the aisle with my Dad
• Paul giving his testimony to the crowd and scanning all the faces who were so nice to come.
• Praying together for the first time.
  
• Walking back down the aisle thinking "and its over, all that planning for a few minutes" & "I can't believe we are married!"
• Cutting the cake and almost knocking over the top tier.
  
• Greeting everyone during the reception when the photographer comes up and announces she is leaving an hour early.
  
• Jumping in the getaway car to find it won't start (thanks Dave!).
  

The photos I do have our scanned into the computer and aren't very good. My photographer gave us 4x6s of some of the better pictures but I do not have the digitals of them. Enjoy!

My wedding party

Just pronounced Man and Wife

Lighting the Unite Candle

My cupcake dress that needed no alterations! :) After watching TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" I think $400 was a good buy...

Day 17 - A Piece of art

I know... it has been forever!! The holidays were really good though...

This picture is Woman with a Parasol by Claude Monet. It was painted in 1875. He is one of my favorite painters because of his use of muted colors. So beautiful. This is a picture of the painting that I took while visiting the Smithsonian Art Museum here in Washington, D.C. this summer.

Of course I had to throw some funny pictures in here of my parent's visit to the art museum with us. Dad, being a artist himself, could spend all day in there looking at the sculptures. This one makes me laugh every time I see it.

Sadly, this is supposed to be George Washington and was intended to be a gigantic statue in DC to commemorate him. He looks far to Roman-god like in my opinion... Paul looks good though! :)

Nice, Paul!