Fixer Upper

Andy has done so much work fixing up our house. He wanted a house he could do that very thing to. Since he has worked so hard I just wanted to show you around:

Let's start with the kitchen:

Here you see the 3.00 froggy cookie jar we got at target.

The walls were an ugly color before he painted them green. The only place I've gotten to paint in the house is BEHIND the refrigerator. It's okay though. I wasn't very good at it anyway.

The other day I came home from work and found him installing this awesome low lighting. The picture does nothing for it, though none of them really do. You'll just have to come visit.

We really haven't done anything to this room. In the back is the tape I put up months ago. We'll see how long it takes to get painted...

Looking into the living room.

Our super sweet living room. It might be my favorite room in the house. Between the stone and the wood it's so peaceful. And of course we have our houseplant Winston (although the cats have been using him as a litter box lately :o( Poor Winston)

This room isn't yet finished either. It still needs to be painted and a photo collage needs to be put up on the L wall.

This is the entertainment room where we spend most of our time. Mostly because we don't want Allie to feel all alone.

It used to be this awful bluish greenish color and now it's gray. We were going for all gray, red, black, and white. Allie fits perfectly but we have deviated from the plan slightly.

The dart board is pretty cool. The fuze box is behind there. It looked horrible all out in the open so he got some wood and some hinges and mounted so that is anything ever goes out we just unlatch it swing it open and we can easily get to the fuse box without it being seen AND there will be no holes in teh wall...unless you are really bad at darts.

Allison, if you look hard enough in these pictures you can probably find a lot of things you recognize :o)

Our room! The walls were pink...HAHA! Now thanks to my wonderful husband they are a beautiful blue and we have brown and white accents throughout.

Our Bride Bear and Groom Frog.

The curtains are usually tied up but with Andy working nights it needs to be super dark when he gets home. That other door leads to our master bath which is probably the biggest project in the house.

I've had all this furniture since I was about 12. My grandparents gave it to me for Christmas forever ago. That's good furniture!

This is our guestroom! We LOVE this room! Other than the entertainment room it has probably had the most work done to it. It was an awful blue grey color and now it's so bold and happy! There is also stuff from all over the world to decorate this one. The blinds were left behind by the old owners but really they are perfect.

That plant is Charlie. The cats can't get to him quite yet.

The other day we went to Kirkland's to decorate the last bedroom. It was also that awful blue gray color but now it's this really fun tulip yellow! Anyway, at Kirkland's we came across these awesome safari animals. They are 3 dimensional and made of metal. We had to get them and maybe someday it will be fitting for a new friend. A LONG time from now of course.

The giraffe is by far my favorite. The lion, elephant, and zebra are pretty cool too though.

Well that's our house as it is now. Like I said, the pictures don't do anything for it so really you should come by sometime!

Oh Night Shift

Andy is on nightshift the next couple days. It's so boring around here without him but hey, it gives me a reason to blog a little. Ha...blog used as a verb, who would have ever thought.

Not too much has been happening lately which is great. For awhile there it seemed like we were always having to do something so it's been nice to relax.

I have this job working as a teacher for 4 year olds. I have to say it is probably the hardest job I've ever had. I'm sure there will be more posts defining why but for now lets just leave it there. Needless to say it was been really hard on me and on us. The past couple weeks have been SLOWLY getting better and hopefully it will continue that way. I'm still hoping that Wake County Schools will see that I would be the best TA they have ever hired....

We have finally had some luck in the church department which was a huge blessing. There is this nice little methodist church within walking distance in downtown Cary. We went to their contemporary service this past Sunday and for once didn't leave completely discouraged. We'll definitely be going back and maybe even checking out the traditional service. On Friday evenings they even have a service in a log cabin right down the road from the church which is pretty neat. It almost feels like a merging of our two old churched. It's smallish in size and quiet but not super uncomfortable quiet...actually quite comfortable. So anyway, we;ll continue to see how that goes but it was definitely encouraging to find some place like that and so close to our house!

Haha...there is a lot more news but we'll stop with that for now. There is laundry to be done.

Ryan's Birthday!

This weekend we headed to Wilmington for Ryan's 17th birthday. It is exciting to have a brother-in-law and it's so good for Andy when they get together. It was a good and relaxing time. I really do love Andy Pants' family. :o) Well, I guess they are mine too! Here is the birthday boy:

More on Aruba

So I know there have been a couple posts on Aruba but I'm still trying to catch up here. Andy posted a link earlier to some of the pictures he uploaded to picasa but I wanted to put some on here. too. So enjoy the pictures and the stories. Hope you have the time :o)

This is the California Lighthouse. It's the only lighthouse on the island but it doesn't work. It just looks nice.

That red roof up higher is a restaurant we ate at one night. Aruba was so beautiful.

The last night we were in Aruba we went on a sunset cruise. Sorry, the pictures are backwards.

We also came to the conclusion that neither of us are really open ocean people or something like that. I just can't walk on the boat and he shouldn't take motion sickness medicine.

This was before our bellies started feeling icky.

We ate at the Italian Restaurant on the island for a sunset dinner. The view was AMAZING!

See, I told you! This was from our table :o)

Andy really enjoys doing impressions. Sometimes it's funny and sometimes he is really just a nerd. I still love him and his Fonzie, too.

Us in the water at Baby Beach. The water is so clam there Andy let us take his camera in it.

This was our last stop on a bus tour we took around the entire island. The beautiful Baby Beach. You could walk forever and still touch and see the bottom. It was pretty but I still liked the beach by our resort better.

We also took a stop to explore a cave. It was nice to get out of the sun for a little while but man, it was hard to see where you were going there for awhile.

Haha...we ate at a restaurant that day called La Granga...coincidental? Maybe. It turned out to be Andy's favorite meal while we were there!

We got to go exploring through the "national park" for a bit. There were lots on lizards!!! Really they are all over the island. Even out by the pools at the resorts. Oh! And there was a rock that looked like King Kong.

Andy in his element.

The Natural Bridge, the little one anyway. Apparently the big one fell down a few years ago. The Baby one didn't seem so little so I can't imagine how big the real one was! It was an amazing sight though. God does amazing work!

This is Alta Vista Chapel.

We could have just gotten married here!

This was our tour bus for our all day adventure. It took us around the entire island which was cool because it allowed up to see all the cool places all in one day. We would stop at each place for about 20 minutes or so but spent extra time in the caves as well as at baby beach where we stayed for over an hour so we could play in the water :o)

One night we went to the event called the Bon Bini Festival. They hold it every Tuesday to welcome the tourists. We though there would be a ton of people but really there weren't. That man in the photo was quite large with an awesome voice that Andy likes to impersonate often but he shared with us a lot about teh history, art, music, and dance on the island. It was pretty cool. These girls were especially good dancers.

One day we spent in a glass bottom boat. We both realized that maybe boats weren't our thing but it was neat to see what was going on beneath the water. We went around a reef and a ship wreck not to far off the coast. We also got to see a sea turtle or two, a bunch of fish, and even a couple of barracudas!

I just had to put this one up here. He looks like he is 18 and belongs in New Kids on the Block...

On our horses we rode up to the natural pool. There was the option to swim but as painful as it was in dry clothes to ride the horses I don't think wet clothes would have helped. It was really cool to see though.

We went horseback riding the first full day we were there. My horse was Billy Boy and Andy's was, well he doesn't remember right now. Anyway, we rode for the majority of the day going up cliffs, running on the beach (where I about fell off) and up to the natural pool. It was quite scary but a fun way to see the island.

This was the view from our room. It was AMAZING! If you looked the other way you could see the pool and people watch. That was pretty fun, too!