Vacation......yea, right

This week both Dan and I are on vacation.  Instead of going somewhere and doing fun things, we are at our new house working our tushies off. We start around 9 am and finish around 4 pm.

 Dans working on the walls.  He had to pull off the dated paneling, knock down walls and closets, and get all the wiring out from the rooms.  It's very stressful and hard work and is taking him all week to get it finished.  I would help but I just get in the way.

My jobs are to mow the lawn, water our new garden we put in last week with the help of my parents, and take down the back splash in the kitchen.  Now that sucks.  I have to use a crowbar and hammer at weird angles and chip off the small tiles.  My arms and hands are so sore.

We are slowly fixing the house.  We still have a long way to get it how we want it.  My parents are putting a lot pressure on us to get stuff done, but the things we are doing are long, hard, and time consuming.  We can only exhaust ourselves for so long.  It's not like we are sitting around doing nothing..........

Bon voyage Jenny

Today me sister left for England! She will be gone for 2 weeks and I don't know what I am going to do without her.  

My sister lives in an apartment at school with a roommate who is from England.  Since it's summer, her roommate, Louise, went back home to visit her family.  Loise invited Jenny to visit her in England and offered for her to stay at her parents house.  How could she pass that up?  What a great experience!  

I am going to miss her so much.  She is my best friend and I am so glad I have her as my sister.  She is a great listener and knows when to offer advice and when to just let me vent.  We call each other at least 2 times a week, just to catch up.  She is great with Jake and loves to be with him.  

         

                 Helping Aunt Jenny pack

Oh the things you can do with babies!

I love this face!!

First time homeowners!

We finally have a house! After 3 months of looking we found our forever home.

  It is in a great location for both of us.  10 minute drive to get to work for me and a 20 minute drive for Dan.  It's in a paved lane, with neighbors that are close, but not on top of us.  It has about an acre and a giant pull barn.  It has 3 beds ( which we plan on taking one out and making the other 2 bigger) and one bath.  Just enough space for the 3 of us, but it also has room to expand if need be.  

The problem, ( you knew there was going to be one ;)) is that the house needs lots of work and we won't be able to move in until it's all finished.

We need:

A new septic field

A new well

Furnace 

Water heater 

Flooring in the whole house

Windows

A new electrical system

Many branches cut down

Walls taken down and put up in different places

Plus all the small appliances- dishwasher, washer, dryer, stove, fridge, microwave.....

You might be thinking, why did we buy it then? Because we wanted a house to fix up and make our own and have it perfect for us.  Plus the price was amazing.

We have a lot of work to do, but in the end it will be worth it!

Holiday weekend part 3

Today was a busy busy day.  In the morning we met Ben and Beth and their kids at our new house so they could see it.  After checking everything out, we went to a local parks farm center.  Everyone had lots of fun looking and petting the animals.

      Cute baby goats

  

      Huge cows

  

Fuzzy sheep

   A silly looking chicken

    Jake chillin

When we finished looking at all the animals we we to to a huge playground so the kids could run around.  Dan took Jake down the slide and he wasn't to sure until he saw me.

Then we put him in the swing and he loved it.  He was a smiley laughing boy.

When the kids had worn down, we went to lunch at Red Robin.  By the time we finished eating it was time to head over to the grandparents house for a big family dinner.  Before we could eat though, we wanted to take family photos.  It was a disaster because all the men didn't want to and kept yelling at the kids, which made them cry and ruined some of the pictures. 

We also took individual family photos.  

We managed to get all the photos done, then had dinner of BBQ chicken, salad, jello, rice a roni, and brussel sprouts.  After dinner we all went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather.  By 8:00 both Jake and I were falling asleep, so we said our goodbyes to Ben and Beth.  I am sad that they are leaving.  We never get to spend enough time together, next year we plan to drive to Georgia and visit them for a week.  Thanks for visiting us!

Holiday weekend part 2

Friday with the help of my family, we cleaned up some stuff at our new house (more on that later).  The girls raked up sticks, branches and leaves, while the men ripped up the carpet in the entire house!  It took about 2 hours to get that all finished.  It's looking good!  

When we were done we came home to shower and change, then went right back out to my parents house to celebrate my sisters birthday.  We had BBQ chicken, potato salad, and corn on the cob.  It was the perfect meal on such a beautiful day.  

Birthday girl and her favorite nephew 

After dinner Jenny opened her presents.  She got a cute jewelry box, popcorn jelly bellys (her favorite flavor) and a cute Pride and Predijuce book from us, a photo collage from Jake, money and skinny pop from my brother, and money from my parents.  I hope Jen had a good birthday even though she had to help us do yard work at the house.  Hopefully next year will be better!

She got 2 cakes! First was an angel food cake with custard, strawberries, blueberries, and cool whip

Trying to blow out trick candles

2nd cake was a Reese's ice cream cake from Dairy Queen

Holiday weekend part 1

My sister in law, her husband, and their 4 kids took a vacation to Michigan this week to see the rest of the family.  Most of their vacations to Michigan involve staying at our parents house for a week.  It gets pretty boring just sitting at the house all day, so this year Beth decided to have a girls day.  I was totally on board! She wanted to get mani's and pedi's, since she has never had them before.

On Thursday we went to a small salon and were able to get our pedi's done at the same time. We sat in these super comfy massaging chairs while the ladies made our feet look beautiful.   

We totally forgot to take pictures because we were having fun so these are when we go home

Beth's on top are gold and mine are bubblegum pink!

Afterwards we had to take turns getting our mani's because they were booked.  The lady who did them was either tired or lazy because she did not do a good job.  Most of the polish on my nails didn't even go to the edges.  We were both very unhappy with them.

Beth's fingers on the left are light blue and mine are a sea green.

When we finally finished 2 hours later we ate lunch, then did some shopping!!!  At 3 we were finally done for the day.  We picked up Jake from my moms house and then came back to gossip!  I had a ton of fun having a girls day.  It was much needed!!!!!  Great idea Beth :)