Harrisonburg

We had a great time at the JMU game in Harrisonburg this weekend!  We checked into our hotel (Greg chose Super 8....might I add, without asking me), and it was exactly what you'd expect for Super 8.  The doors were not even locked to get into the back part of the building.  The whole hotel smelled like cigarette smoke, including our room.  They had to dig the crib out of storage, and they couldn't even find crib sheets for it.  NICE.  The crib was rickety, there were screws coming out of it, and Emmett could shake it.  Now THAT'S what I want my son sleeping in.  So we politely told them we weren't staying there and would be taking it up with the corporate office.

We also went to the Farmer's Market.  It has some antiques there, a food store with homemade treats, a jam/jelly store, a bookstore, and a toy store.  I don't normally go antiquing, but I have started to appreciate these things more from reading people's blogs and seeing what can be made out of something that looks like junk.  Here are some things I found that I REALLY liked.

Old school desks complete with hole for ink

Butter churn $159

Claw foot tub from an 1893 farmhouse in Port Republic, VA.  

I ended up buying a blue Ball jar (heeheehee...did anyone else giggle??) :) with glass lid and 2 books that I'm using for Christmas gifts.  I asked the ladies what they knew about the difference between blue and clear glass, and they didn't know.  Thanks to the internet, now WE can all know.

Ball discontinued the use of their famous "Ball blue" glass in 1937. They had produced and controlled this color since the late 1890's, and it was caused by the minerals in the sand they used in their glass batch (which came from the shores of Lake Michigan) and also the amount of oxygen used in the furnaces to melt the glass.

I LOVE this jar.  And did I take a picture of it?  NO.  Not yet.  I'll add it later, I promise.  

Here are a few pictures from the game.  :) 

Kitchen Remodel Part 4

The countertops were put in on Thursday.  WOO!!  They're beautiful!  The contractor came back Friday to put in the faucets, and of course one of them is broken.  But Greg is ON IT!  They're already sending us another one.  Here are the most recent pictures of the kitchen and the bathroom.

The only thing we have left to do is to put in the backsplash.  I went to a tile class yesterday where I was the only student.  Apparently other people have a life on a holiday weekend.  :)  So I got to do most of the tiling and grouting at the tile shop, and I think it helped me feel more confident about what we're doing.  Here's hoping it's not a complete fail!

Kitchen Remodel Part 3

The cabinets are IN!  I repeat, the cabinets are IN!!! I am incredibly excited to have so much more storage than we did before.  Over the washer and dryer we had the white wire shelf.  Remember this?

UGH!  You're not supposed to see all of our crap!  Well, this is how it looks now!

It's all hidden!!  Well, except Clifford and Emmett's bathmat that he peed on.  :)  SO MUCH MORE SPACE!  And here's the kitchen before...

And here's the "so far" with the cabinets!

Ignore the giant fluorescent light.

That's the cabinet in the bathroom.  We have gotten the fridge put back and we've cleaned up some.  We are now waiting on the countertops and the sinks to be installed.  I'm not sure if that will happen this week or next (probably next).  SOOOOO EXCITED!  I actually cooked in the kitchen tonight, and it's been a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time since I've done that.  Usually Greg cooks because he can do it while listening to his headphones, and I hated our kitchen and felt frustrated in there.  So there you have it!  That's our progress as of right now.  I am in LOVE!! :)

Super Fantastic Awesome Birthday Party

I had the most awesome birthday party EVER this year!  :)  Jessica threw me a surprise party, and it was fantastic!  It was a White Trash-themed party, and everyone came in costume.  Greg got me a Jersey Shore shirt to wear, and Jessica had curlers and some trashy makeup for me to use.  :)  Everyone was dressed in their Sunday finest, black teeth and all.  The house was decorated with warrants for my arrest, streamers, and other white trash accessories, including a clothesline of lingerie.  Woowoo!!

Let the jello shots begin!  With a plate of twinkies, hohos, dingdongs, and oatmeal cream pies, how can you go wrong?!  There was also a plate of crackers and spray cheese.  YUM!!  I LOVE CHEESE!!  Pork rinds, spam, vienna sausages, and more...where does the glutton fest stop?  :)  It was PERFECT.  Cheetohs and queso dip, beer, wine, soda, and FIRE.  Ahhhh... :)  (see, more smiley faces...told you it was a good party!)

I don't have many pictures from this event, as I was busy laughing and enjoying myself, but here are a few to share.  :)

The company was perfect, the theme was perfect, the attire was perfect...it couldn't have been a better party! Thank you SO MUCH to my best friend Jessica for throwing me an AMAZING birthday party!!  I LOVED IT!  :)

Kitchen Remodel Part 2

The floors are done and we've painted.  I LOVE the floor!  The color is beautiful and they did a really nice job of putting the tile UNDER the door facings and not just putting grout around them.  There is one small place I'm not really happy with, but they couldn't do anything to fix it.  They tried three times to get a tile to go around this door facing and into the pantry, but it kept cracking.  So to install it, they had to cut it.  But they were very smart and placed the cut under the line where the closed door sits, so you can't see the crack unless you open the pantry door.  Here's the finished floor!

We decided to paint the kitchen green because the backsplash tile we chose has some green glass accent tiles included.  We tried to find a green that didn't exactly match but brought out the color of the tiles.  I hope we don't regret the decision later.  Three of the four greens we tried reminded us of baby poop...not exactly the color you want to have in the kitchen.  Overall, the painting went pretty quickly because there were some wall spaces we didn't need to paint and some cutting in that we could skip because the cabinets were going there.  We wanted to get it done before the cabinets get here because I don't want to be responsible for cutting in around brand new cabinets.  I am somewhat of a paint Nazi, and I would be livid if Greg and I screwed that up.  It wouldn't be so bad if we were actually good at painting.  :)

Here were the four choices.  See what I mean about baby poop?

We're very happy with how everything's gone so far.  The cabinets have been delivered and should be installed on Tuesday.  For now, they provide stadium seating for Emmett in the den.  :)

Kitchen Remodel Part 1

So we finally decided to remodel the kitchen.  YES!!!!!  I can't believe my husband finally agreed.  This is what our old outdated kitchen looked like before:

I know, it could be MUCH worse, but the laminate on the cabinets was peeling away and there was a lot of wasted space in here.
Example 1:

The floor was also white laminate.  Who puts a white floor in a kitchen anyway??  After a FABULOUS surprise birthday party last night, Greg and I had to demo the kitchen completely today.
Example 2:

 What better chore to do when you are hungover?  :)  With a little help and babysitting from my parents, this is what my kitchen currently looks like:

It's so ROOMY!!!!  I know it won't stay that way, but I could do cartwheels in it now.  Our kitchen really is big, but there's only 1 configuration that fits, as we have 7 doorways leading from this room (1 outside, 4 into other rooms, 2 closet doors).  The man at the cabinet store said we should just move.  NICE!

The floor starts getting installed tomorrow.  We are not doing that ourselves.  I am hoping they'll be done by Wednesday, but we'll see.  Here's what the tile looks like:

It's 18" x 18", and we're doing it on a diagonal.  My only worry through all of this is that it'll get done and I'll hate it or something will look terrible.  I am sure that won't happen, but as Greg likes to put it, I'm a woman so that means I'll change my mind as soon as it's done.  :)  Here's hoping they show up tomorrow!

Mulch

It's amazing how one small thing can make you feel so much better about something.  My "aaahhhh" moment this time was when the mulch was finally put down.  It's needed it since last April (yes, 2010), but it's finally done!  That is all. :)

Okay, so there's hardly any mulch showing in this picture, but IIIIIIIIIIIIII know it's there.  :)