Happy Birthday Mom!

Just wanted to take a second to wish my mom a happy birthday today! We will see you tonight for cake & ice cream!

Shopped 'Till We Dropped!

Whew! On Friday morning, my mom and I left for Fargo for a little getaway and shopping trip. And boy, did we shop!! I wanted to shop for house-related things (naturally) and she did some shopping for Grandma Gerhardt (who is moving into her new apartment this week) as well as some shopping for her and Dad's upcoming trip to Hawaii. She was able to find swimsuits, towels and things for Grandma but my stuff took up almost the whole vehicle. Hmmm...maybe we should have taken the Suburban rather than the Accord. Well, maybe not - this way I was limited by space! I was able to find bedding sets for the master bedroom & guest bedroom (Jay, not bedroom sets), bathroom coordinates for both bathrooms, and some other odds and ends. I think I found some pretty good deals (I love sales) and am happy with my purchases...Jay still has yet to see everything (all up at my parents' house) but pending his approval, I think we have a good start in the master bedroom (there's that little issue of actually buying the mattress and bedroom set yet) and are pretty much done in the bathrooms and guest room! I have to hand it to my mom, she hung with me through hours of shopping for towels, bedding sets, rugs, pillows, lamps, etc. Not exactly the most exciting stuff - but she was a trooper!

Besides just shopping, we spent some quality time visiting & catching up with everything while we were driving and when we went out to eat. We have decided to attempt to take an annual mini-vacation together. Hopefully not all of them in the future will be jam-packed with shopping for household items! I think maybe next time we should plan to stay overnight two nights so we have an evening to just relax... Anyway it was a fun little trip and I'm glad we did it!

Today Jay & I decided to go out and look for something that will "corral" the beagles into our back stall of our future garage (where the doggy door will be available for them to use all day while we are gone at work). Well he found what he had in mind and I also got our spoiled little dogs a couple of doggy beds on sale! Then we went on to some other stores to start looking for a dining room set and bedroom set & mattress. We got some ideas at least. For some reason, Jay doesn't enjoy shopping as much as I do - hah!

While I was out and about on my shopping trip Jay was working & got to go out on Payton & Sydney's boat a couple times this weekend! Sorry I missed out on the pontoon/sand bar fun but maybe another time in the near future...

I decided to come into work this afternoon/evening to get a jump start on the week ahead...Going to be another busy one!

Other than that, the house is still progressing slowly (siding guy still going along at a snail's pace) but we know it will get done! Hoping to see some bigger strides this week but we shall see!

Have a great week everyone!!

House Update & Other Random Thoughts...

Well Jay pointed out to me today that it has been awhile since I've posted new pictures of the house updates...mostly that was because it seems as though things are progressing slowly. I was going to wait until they had completely sided/trimmed the house but that would still be a couple weeks out at the rate they are going!!

So, here are some pictures of where they are on our siding:

West side of the house

The garage doors are also in, as well as the concrete portion of our driveway.
Front of the house (all wrapped up). They should be pouring the concrete for the front porch this week. We'll see!
The back of the house (we LOVE the big windows - esp. those three which are in the living room)
SW corner of the house

They are also insulating this week. (Didn't include our pictures of that though). After the siding and insulation, they will begin on the sheetrocking. Our builder gave us a rough estimate of when everything should happen from here on out and it appears things are on schedule if not a little ahead of time from our intial tentative closing date of Oct. 31.

We have been doing our best to make the last decisions for the house - including paint colors, flooring, countertops, appliances, among other things. For the most part, we are doing well. It's amazing how much time you can spend deciding on something as simple as kitchen appliances or cabinet hardware! Oh well it will all be worth it - I'm really excited to see our home completed - it is really starting to sink in that this will be our HOME soon! :)

Other than that, we had had a good weekend. We enjoyed an evening over at Ryan & Raumi's house on Friday for supper and to visit. They will be moving out of that house and into their new house on Aug. 7th! I had to run all my flooring/paint/tile/countertop/decor ideas by Raumi on Friday evening too because she has such a great eye for that! All my choices met her approval so I'm happy about that! She also has some cool ideas for her new house that I can't wait to see!

Saturday night we ended up being on hail damage patrol and unfortunately had to be the bearers of bad news to some people we knew who were out of town and whose houses got hail damage. It was quite a strange storm and only hit certain portions of town and out of town. The good news was that no one's windows got busted but it still is a pain to have to get their homes repaired. We feel for you all! We should have let you know that when people go out of town and we are left in town to watch or check on their houses it often hails - just ask my brother, whose house was hit hard by hail a few years ago while I was in charge of house sitting for him while they were out of town!

I am heading to Fargo on Friday with my mom for a shopping trip and am looking forward to that. I might spend some money on house decor - haha! Can't wait!

Other than that, life is going well for us. The beagles continue to keep us entertained. We are trying to figure out how and when we will get everything ready to move out of the trailer before it gets sold.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Happy 30th Birthday Stacey - A Day Late!! Oops!

I completely forgot to wish my friend Stacey a Happy 30th Birthday yesterday on our blog - oops! You'd think after being friends with her for 24 years or so (since first grade) I would be better! We even used to know the number of days between our birthdays - now that's when you know you are good friends with someone...

Since it was a leap year this year, I was a little jealous that she got an extra day of being in her twenties than I did (since my birthday falls before leap year day). But oh well - now she has joined the rest of us in our 30s. (Val W - you are NEXT!!)

I hope you had a great birthday Stacey & I'll see you tonight!
Stacey & me at my 30th birthday party at the bowling alley. It was such a fun night! :)

High School Musical

Last Wednesday evening we went to the "High School Musical" production that was put on at Sleepy Hollow Park with some nieces and nephews. It was Lyndsey's idea and I'm glad she thought of it. We had fun spending time with the kids and hopefully they enjoyed the musical!

The show was set to start at 8:30pm but right around that time we had some rain showers, so the start time was delayed. Also, we all were a bit wet for the remainder of the evening and so were our chairs, sweatshirts and blankets. We toughed it out though and still managed to enjoy the evening after the rain showers stopped!

The crew had to dry off the stage before the musical started:

A rainbow after the rain!
The cast of High School Musical
Auntie Lyndsey with McKenzie & Mason
Michaela
Taylor
Micaela & Gabe

Windows & Doors Are In!!

Jay went up to the house tonight and discovered that ALL the windows and doors (except the garage doors) were installed today! So, I get to post new pictures that Jay took tonight!

Entry way into the living room.

Living room
Dining Room
Master Bedroom
Master Bathroom (window over where the whirlpool tub will be)
The front of the house is really starting to look nice!
Back of the house looks good too!
West side of the house
East side of the house (garage). Note the doggy door for the beagles!! :)
Inside the garage - I think we'll really like having the windows to brighten it up in there. We will also have windows on the garage doors.

The siding is also at the house and that is set to begin hopefully by early next week and will take 2-3 weeks from what the builder told us.

So, it's starting to "pick up" again for the bigger changes to the house! We're excited that the windows and doors are in!

4th of July Weekend

Well 4th of July weekend came and went and it was a good one this year!!

First, on Wednesday evening last week we did make it out to the house and got pictures of the shingles. They are sort of a dark gray and brown mix and we are hoping they look nice with the green siding we picked out. (Windows go in starting next Wednesday followed by the siding/trim so some more exciting house stuff is coming up!)

Front of the house with shingles (7/2/08)

Back of the house with shingles (7/2/08)
On Thursday, we went over to Jake's house for awhile in the evening to grill out and then went to Brian & Val's house to hang out and Brian & his brother shot off some pretty cool fireworks from their backyard (an advantage of those rural lots!!)

Friday morning we dropped off the beagles with my parents and headed out to Glen Ullin, boat in tow. It was Glen Ullin's 125th anniversary celebration in combination with an all-school reunion. Jay missed his class photo by about 30 seconds so I took a picture of the 4 of them (only ones that showed up) out in the hallway.

Jay was able to get his old Rattlers basketball uniforms which he has informed me will be framed and placed in the "man cave" portion of our house someday.

Friday afternoon we got some lunch downtown but spent most of the afternoon hanging out at Mike & Sandy's house. Jay got in some golfing later in the afternoon with his brothers and friends. We then went to some the Geiss's house to grill out for supper and, while we were there, Jay and Darla got to rescue a dog...which ended up to be one of Jay's boss's dogs! The dog ("Buddy") got away on them while they were staying at their parents' house in GU by digging under the fence. We saw him running by. I tried to get Buddy to come to me by just calling him and walking over to him but he took off down the highway. Jay & Dar hopped on a 4-wheeler and eventually were able to track him down and bring him back into town on the 4-wheeler. Jay and Mike tried going around town with the dog on the 4-wheeler to see who he belonged to (had Bismarck tags but no name/address tag). They had no luck with that so they called the Bismarck PD and found out the dog's name, on of the owner's names and the owner's cell phone number. It was then that it dawned on Jay that it was his boss's dog. The dog was safely returned to his owners and Jay and Dar did their good deed for the evening!!

After that we went downtown GU for the street dance with Gwen Sebastian and her band playing. We got to visit with a lot of people - it was a good time. We then returned to Geiss's to catch the fireworks display and then Jay & I headed home.

I woke up in the middle of the night that night with bad stomach ache and I wasn't the only one. Apparently some flu bug or food poisoning was going around because Landon, Mason, Ran and myself all got sick and Taylor had some stomach aches as well. I was better by morning but missed the 5k walk I was going to do with Val. Probably a good thing - I most likely would have slowed her down - she took first place!!

Saturday we went downtown again for lunch and went back to the house. We went to see Michaela's art at the art show and to the GU museum with Jay's parents. Then we decided since we dragged the boat back we better head out to Lake Tschida for awhile. We took Lynds and Nick with and stayed out on the lake for a few hours. It was a bit choppy but warm and not bad overall. Felt good to get out on the water with the boat - first time this summer we took it out!

Saturday evening we spent visiting with friends and family again. A LOT of stories between Jay and his brothers/friends/cousins began with "Remember when..." and followed by a lot of laughter!

Today we got up and bummed around again for awhile. We got to visit Grandma Schaff in the nursing home before we came back to Bismarck. When we got home my parents brought the dogs home since they were on their way back from Pollock. We are grateful they took our dogs for us and I think they had a good time with the beagles!

For more pictures from this weekend...click HERE.

This afternoon the beagles crashed and we thought that was a pretty good idea so we took our last nap of the vacation we've had. Made some of Jay's walleye he caught earlier this year for supper and then I actually headed into work for a few hours to get caught up before I head back tomorrow morning!! I know Jay would have liked a longer vacation but I feel refreshed, well-rested and ready to tackle things at work again!

Other than that, we're just unwinding for the evening. Jerz is snoring on the couch and Bailey headed back to bed awhile ago!

Life is...back to "normal" for now! :)

We had a great time this weekend but it's always good to be home. We can't wait until that HOME is our new house - just a few more months!!

Have a great week everyone!

McQuades Weekend!!

Well...I finally got around to getting all the pictures from our camera and my parents' camera from McQuades weekend!

It was a fun weekend full of playing and watching games! I left home at 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning and watched games until after 8:00 p.m. that day!

Jay's team won one and then unfortunately lost the second game, so they were done on Saturday...

My team, on the other hand, had better luck. We won all our games en route to our first McQuades championship in the women's class "D" division (second highest division for ND women's softtall). I'm SO proud of the way our team played and have to say it feels pretty darn good to win it!

Here are a few pictures from the weekend...

Our team photo with the trophy on Sunday!

Julie G. & myself hanging out Saturday night...as you can see Julie's team had some "props" to wear this weekend!
Stacy & me watching games Saturday evening...
Val W. and me watching games Friday evening..
My dad came down for the trophy presentation...and for all his years of being a fan, we decided we needed a picture together with our team trophy.
I also made Jay take a picture with me and the trophy...

All in all it was a good weekend - SUPER windy all day Saturday but we survived.

This weekend we are heading to GU for the all school reunion and 125th of Glen Ullin. I am sure we will have a good time!!

The house is still in progress and we are sad to say that apparently the insulation guys destroyed the nest that our little house guest mama robin had made for her little ones in one of our guest bedrooms :( I'm really sad about it but oh well what can you do I guess? Besides that, they continue with the plumbing, insulation and electrical work. Next Wednesday the windows/doors should go in and after that the siding & trim. It will really start to look like a house then!

I have been on vacation from work all week and Jay got to take vacation days today and tomorrow, so it's really been a nice week, in my opinion! There is always stuff to get done but we also have found some time for some R&R. The beagles even talked us into taking a long afternoon nap today! They have that effect sometimes!

Have a great 4th of July weekend everyone!