Winter Camping 2010

This winter has been an incredible break for me from intense seminary studies. I have been able to take seriously the importance of rest for my life. Of the many exciting activities I was able to enjoy, winter camping was one of the most memorable. Peter Ivey and I had the ambitious plan to go backpacking for three nights at St. Mary's Glacier. We had an incredible time, going sledding down a mountain, carving out a three leveled snow cave, and hiking to the top of the glacier. After two wet and cold miserable nights, we decided to head back early. We packed up our gear, loaded our bags on the sleds, and sledded all the way back down the trail to our car. I put together a short video of our tip (not anything super professional), so here it is, enjoy!

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.