Finals Week!!!

Four more days of finals! I have one tonight, one tomorrow night, and then a Paper due on Friday!

I can't tell you how glad I am to have the semester over. I have absolutely loved it, but there is just something extremely refreshing about having a good break. I plan to do as many fun activities as possible over this winter! I don't have to go back to school until January 25, so until then, life should be another adventure!

In the meantime, I created a video with my buddy Peter Ivey for our Outdoor Leadership Class. I'd love for you all to take the time to watch it, we had lots of fun making it!
(let it load a little before it starts to play, and put it in full screen)



Hope you all enjoyed it!

Our New Home!!!!

Our New Home!!!!

Here are a few pics of the new place. Below you see our bedroom. Yes, the inset is BLACK. I took a chance and we love it!
To the right, you are looking from the breakfast room through the living room and into the dining room. Front door is to the right corner.














Above you are looking from laundry room through the kitchen, breakfast room and the setting room.





Here you are looking from the dining room into the living room, (kitchen to right) and though to the setting room. If you notice, at the back windows we have shutter blinds which are throughout the entire house. We love them because you can open the tops or bottoms independently. Privacy is so nice but able to let light in the tops in the morning.

Just loving it here and can't wait for you guys to visit. So far the Dane B & B has been just as busy as the last location. We were here 4 days and one of Britt's friends' came through headed to Boston. Grant, Emily (Parker's girlfriend), Emily's best friend, Parker, my family from NY, Parker's friend from Lee, Ryan (Gizmo's sitter) have already broken in the guest room. Parker texted today and another friend of his needs a place to stay this weekend, too. HA! Greg's niece, Shelly, has reservations for Nov and Dec, already. So the guest room is being used quite frequently. So please come and see us but make a reservation. HA!

Personalized Mattes

I think this is a great way to personalize a picture in a frame. Robyn set up a table at her reception to place pictures of her deceased grandparents. She had me write something personal about them at the top and the bottom of the matte. I've also done calligraphy on a matte of an engagement picture where the bride and groom wrote a thank you note to their parents. It was really cool. There are all sorts of things you can do with this idea!

Sorry Family! This was supposed to be on my calligraphy blog! Oh well! I guess you all know what I'm doing these days!!!)

Summer Fun in Kentucky

Back in the summer months, all the cousins went to Uncle Carl's to go fishing. It's always fun. Uncle Carl was sweet to get us s0me worms, and he had the yard looking amazing!

It's always a huge treat to eat Grandaddy's hamburgers! They are so juicy and thick!



Good job Grandaddy!


Okay, so I had this grand idea that we (along with all the kids) would try our hand at geocaching while in Kentucky. For those of you who may not know what this is...well, it's like an online treasure hunt where people hide "treasures" in places all over the world. Then they try to find these "treasures" or chaches using their GPS and the coordinates found online.

It sounded like fun. I wondered if there would even be anything close to Clinton. When I looked them up online, I was AMAZED to see TWO in a twenty mile radius from mom and Dad's house. One was in Arlington and the other was on PEERY ROAD!!! How wild is that? There were some clues that we had to unscramble. The boys figured out that it said something about a tree farm. Kris knew exactly where it was. So although we didn't have the right cord to hook the our GPS to the computer to get the coordinates in, we thought we would at least try to find it since Kris knew the cache would be at the tree farm.

We got there and looked around forever - but to no avail. Even the owner of the house on the property (who knew Dad, by the way - and was on his way to Luke's Restaurant in Arlington - hee!), tried to tell us where it was but the weeds were too high for us to find the cache. We did, however, find something - chiggers. (We learned that later in the week!) The owner told us that a man placed the cache there in honor of his sister who got married in Arlington. Geocachers were told to place happy anniversary wishes inside. He would later present the cards to the happy couple! Although we didn't find the treasure, the hunt - even with the chiggers - was fun!

Update on the Villa

This last week we got really excited because we started seeing some real construction completed.

The ceramic tile was put onto the fireplace. (haven't grouted it, in this pic)
The tile had been laid in the bathrooms along with the cabinets.

We decided to change the paint color to this beautiful gold. It has a hint of green to it in the chip but on the wall you don't see it. Which is just fine with us. We like the gold look. This is the master bedroom (left), in the tray part we are painting it black. I think it will really set off the room. Either we will love it or hate it, time will tell. HA!




I absolutely LOVE my cabinets. Cherry cabinets have always been my favorite.

This week we are told that they will be installing the lighting and granite. We are praying that the wood floors will be added as well.

Just got the call that we will close on August 21st. Yey! So we are going according to plan.

This week we are at our friends, Pam & Eddie Fuqua's. They are in Dallas on vacation meeting their kids. Please pray for them, too. Yesterday they spent 6 hours in the ER because someone had rear ended them. They are all OK but really sore and Natalie has a whiplash.

Look for another update next week. Hope you all are doing fine.

Sold, Bought, Homeless & Moving

Yes, we were so blessed to have sold the house. The appraisal came in at the selling price so that confirmed the transaction for us. Closing will be this Friday at 3pm.

Yesterday, we had a huge yard sale. Greg sold his riding lawn mower, yard tools, gardening tools and many, many more items. It was a success.

After returning from our wonderful trip from Denver, we decided to buy the villa. By the way, to us it is a condo but they say it is a villa. Not sure what the difference is but whatever. It is a new villa so we are able to pick out all the colors, flooring, appliances, hardware and lighting. There are 2 villas to a building. We are the villa on the left of the building. On the back, you will see a covered porch and patio the length of the villa. It is sort of on a hill so we look down onto the walking trail. We were thrilled to have the trees behind us for privacy. Here are a few pics.




























We are moving out this Saturday. Everything will go into 2 pods and delivered to the villa. They will set there for 2-3 weeks until villa is complete. In the meantime, Greg, gizmo and myself are homeless. HA! I have a client that has offered for us to stay at her place while she is gone on vacation for a week. Then some of our best friends (Debbie & Wesley) have offered for us to stay with them a week, too. Eddie and Pam are going on vacation for a week as well and we are house sitting for them. So hopefully, we will be ready to move in by the time Eddie and Pam get home from Texas.
It is all so exciting but a bit stressful. Greg will be traveling some with work so I'm going to try to go with him some. This will allow the time to pass for us quickly. I will continue my business by making house calls. This isn't fun but will keep my clients happy and me an income. HA!

Last but not least, after the yard sale we had a family reunion to attend.
This was for Greg's mother's side of the family.
Here is a picture of him and his Aunt Margaret.
She looks just like his mom but they aren't twins.

You can expect more pics as construction is completed.

New York Visit!

We went to see the family in NY for the 4th of July weekend. It was wonderful. Got to visit with everyone and of course the food was great.

You've heard that you can't take the country out of the country girl. Well, here is the proof. Tupperware container had watermelon juice in it so she decided not to let it go to waste. HA!

Uncle Frankie carved the meat for the 4th of July party. I think I saw him eating some samples.

I loved these pictures. They explain a lot about our family. HA!



















Karen came to visit with us on Thursday evening. She was flying out the next morning for Florida to visit with her parents for a few days. We were happy that she was able to come by.

Skip had driven in from
New Jersey after working
all day. He was tired.


Carol and Lindsey came over to visit
and meet Skip.







We had a wonderful 4th of July party. The food was awesome!

Lindsey made the cupcakes and Cindy brought some wonderful brownies. You know we ate for 3 hours.

What a wonderful weekend! Always great to see family!

The Past Month or So...

* We celebrated the resurrection of Christ this Easter with our family in Aurora. Kristin baked a huge ham, Alisa brought spritzer drinks (A-mazing), strawberries and cool whip, and Grant and I made our family salad (AKA, "Shannan's salad"), deviled eggs, and Pecan-Gouda crescent rolls. As you can tell we had quite the feast!
All of us had really been missing our parents and extended family, so this dinner was really special to share with one another. To add to the festiveness I crafted some homemade place cards/menus for everyone (even miniatures for Lili and Aspen). This was a tradition originally started by my cousin Kim for the Christmas holidays. From there, her sister Shannan continued the tradition.
This little keep sake has been so special throughout my life, and I thought it would be neat to share it with my new family. Each place card had the person's name, "Easter 2009," the menu for the night on the inside, and a list of everyone in attendance on the back. I know the whole attendance thing sounds kind of lame, but as the years go buy and we collect our place cards, we see what new members and friends joined us each year to celebrate; kind of fun, huh? (Below are just a few).After dinner we dyed eggs. Rightly so, Kristin's was carefully thought out and done with such precision, I can't remember if Mike did one, Alisa's was fun and polka-dotted, Tommie's was Gator blue and orange, Grant's was hmm... original (having been fully dunked in nearly every color), and mine was simple and cute. I wish I had taken a picture of these, but you'll just have to trust that they turned out beautifully.

* In order to relieve some stress (from the old apt. situation), Grant surprised me with a night out on the town. We rode the light rail to downtown Denver to watch the Denver Mammoth play at the Pepsi Center. Little did I know that this PROFESSIONAL lacrosse team was so popular. Did I mention that we planned on paying the $5/person general admission, but some lady in front of us gave us her tickets for free! We spent a good three hours or more captivated by this new and thrilling sport.
We were surprised to see that the Pepsi Center (where the Denver Nuggets and Avalanche play), was completely full! I thought that maybe the lower level would fill up, but never did I believe this team (or this sport for that matter), would attract so many fans.
The game started with an indoor fire show and about ten Harley-Davidson's riding out on the field carrying some of the Mammoth dance team. If that wasn't enough, there was quite an energized commentator/entertainer who called the entire game and acted as the cheer leader throughout. Needless to say, there was never a dull moment. (Please have sympathy for our "looking straight into the sun" grimaces).
The Mammoth played the San Jose Stealth that night and went into over time.Unfortunately the other team scored first and won the game, but it didn't take away from the adrenaline-pumped game.We hear that there's also an outdoor league called "The Outlaws," and they play at Invesco throughout the summer. So our hope is to attend some more of these fun-filled, action-packed events. Feel free to come and join us! ;-)

* We moved into our new apartment! We're finishing the final details and pictures should be up soon, but I just couldn't wait til then to do my next post. (Here's a sneak peak of Grant starting to paint our accent wall).* I hope this satisfied your "Gubser update appetite".

Easter Weekend!

Here are a few pics of our Easter Sunday! It was great having Parker home. He went to church with us and grilled steaks for us. Parker has become a mean chef on the grill since going to college. I'm so proud of his new abilities. If you remember, when he was young he use to cook with me in the kitchen. So I think he does get it natural. Of course, this is the apron that Brittany made for me. I asked him to put it on for the pic.
We have been enjoying the weekend watching "The Master's".
Sorry we didn't get to see any of you this Easter but hopefully you had a great day with the family. Love you all!