Uncle Troy and Aunty Sherry

God has blessed us with a nephew on October 20th. Cade Myers Cole was born at 8 lbs and 2 ozs. He is absolutely adorable and already has a special place in his aunt and uncle's heart.
We also have three precious kids and their parents in our lives that are like family to us. Ella is playing with Uncle Troy, Abby is working on her hurdler pose and Josh thinks Aunty Sherry is pretty funny. We love you guys!

Weekend Activities

Ok, so “tomorrow” has more than one definition?!?! Regardless…we’ve finally got a picture of one of the wall hangings we made. It’s a bit difficult to get a mental image of where they are with the pictures we have, but basically we hung them above all four doorways that lead out of the living area.

We’ve now got a pretty good start on the bedroom area. Actually, other than a couple of outlets, the bedroom doesn’t require much work. But, the master bathroom and walk-in closet in the bedroom area are under way. The framing is up and we’re running the electrical right now. Sherry can’t wait to start drywalling the closet J, so I’ll try get her started on that in the day or two.

Otherwise, we’re pretty much back into the scramble routine. We’ve been asked to consider hosting a Christmas party the first weekend of December. So, we’re going to try to knock out this bathroom and closet so we can start making it more “homey” by then.

Where Should We Go???????????????

Ok - Troy and I will be celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary December 31st and would like to take a special trip around that time. It will actually probably be the first week of January due to Troy having work commitments from Christmas Day through New Years Day. So....we want your input/advice etc. We purchased our home the end of May and have pretty much worked non stop to get it move in ready by the end of November. We are on track to be moved in and somewhat settled by Christmas, so we are pretty excited. However, right now due to an immigration visa pending- the vacation spot needs to be in the U.S.A.

So give us your ideas, suggestions, invitations at your leisure and we look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Weekend Update!

Getting ready for the home fellowship this past weekend turned out to be less of a task than we had thought. So, it gave us an opportunity to go do some looking and bargain shopping. We found a great deal on some blinds and fabric if anybody is looking. Finding the fabric also prompted us to make our first living room wall hangings. We covered some acoustic tiles with some colors that kind of match our paint colors and hung them in all four corners of the living area in hopes of helping with the echoing in there. We’ll get some pictures tonight and hopefully post them tomorrow.

We had a nice time with the home fellowship. There were about twenty people that showed up for the taco buffet (FYI – from personal experience, I found that topping refried beans with black beans is REALLY not a good idea…especially twice in the same day…WOW!!!). The kids really seemed to enjoy playing on the floor…they could roll the tennis balls up the sloped floor and they would roll right back down to them. It reminded me of throwing baseballs on the roof when I was a little boy. Everything in the newly constructed kitchen seemed to work…although that old stove is a little touchy and will take some getting used to. Anyway, a good time of food and fellowship was had by all.

Per Holly’s request, I’ve also attached a revised layout of the upstairs floor plan. The basement plan will follow later in life, Lord Willing.

The Kitchen Morph

A trip to IKEA and a few nights of assembly and mounting and we’re all but done with the kitchen. We’ve got a few little things to knock out tonight, and there’s always the trim work and floor that we’re putting off. But, all in all, it’s come together every bit as nicely as we had hoped. In fact, we think we’ve got enough time to get ready for the Sunday dinner and still be able to move a chunk of stuff that we’re not using in our current house this weekend. May make moving in the middle of winter a littler easier to get some of that stuff out now.

Next is the bedroom…we’re hoping to have a good portion of the walk-in closet and bathroom done by Thanksgiving. Stay tuned…

I LOVE FALL!

I can't tell you how much I love fall. I love the cool breeze, smell of campfires, sweater season. There is something about the changing colors of the trees and the leaves all scattered in the street. I love walking hand in hand with my hubbie and just enjoying the scenery. Last year one of my favorite things we did was go to Metamora here in IN. We walked around - saw the sights and just enjoyed the weather. I also love this weather because it prepares us for snow and Thanksgiving and CHRISTMAS. I love living in a state that has 4 distinct seasons.

Friends and a Campfire

We had a campfire with friends the other day and it was so nice to catch up - relax a bit and enjoy each others company. We have been blessed with so many wonderful friends!

The Kitchen - Part 3!

Well the kitchen is almost finished. I wanted to post some pictures - we will write more later.

The Kitchen! Part 2

Well.....the kitchen is starting to come together and it is pretty exciting. We nearly finished all of the wain scot board (not sure if that is how you spell it) but the pretty wood on the front of the eat at countertop and at the back of the cabinets. We have four smaller pieces to cut yet but by the time we get out to the house it is nearly 6pm and then we have no more daylight by 8pm. So we have been trying to get things done inside after dark. Tonight we will finish putting the board up and Troy will start the plumbing and figure out what we still need to get for that. With a run to Menards first thing in the am we are hoping to get most of the plumbing done and the painting of the board this weekend. We will see though! :) We are also going to take a day trip to Chicago on Sunday to visit Harvest Bible Chapel and hear Pastor James McDonald preach and then run to IKEA. There are some things we want for our kitchen walls and other areas of the house that we either can't find anywhere or we can't beat the price at IKEA and so we are excited about getting to do that. Well, enjoy the pictures and come out and see what it looks like. And if you are really bored come pick up a paint brush with me on Saturday.

The Kitchen!

Well, we’ve done it again. We offered to host a deacon’s home fellowship in less than two weeks and we’re back in that familiar place…SCRAMBLING!!! It’s nice in that it forces us to set some deadlines. On the other hand, deadlines also mean pressure.

Regardless, now that the countertops are essentially done and in place, we spending our free time back out there trying to get back on some sort of schedule. The goal right now is to get the kitchen done by next weekend, knock out the master bedroom, bath, and closet by the end of November, and start moving in the first couple of weeks of December. Lofty…but we’ll see.

We rewired the entire kitchen end of the house over the weekend. Despite bruised legs and smoker’s lungs from army crawling through the crawl space most of Saturday, the wiring went pretty much as planned. Now, at least in that end of the house, there’s no more old, nasty wiring and everything should be grounded.

After much debate and consideration, we opted out of the galvanized metal for siding the cabinets and eat-at countertop. We’re now siding them with a wainscot siding (you can see a bit of it in the picture) that Sherry will paint the same color as the kitchen.

Other than that, we’re in the hunt for living room furnishings and have been visiting all the local furniture stores over the past couple of weeks…I hope nobody takes this personally, but its almost as bad as showing up at a car lot. The minute you walk in the door, you get swarmed. But we’re finding some things we like, we’re finding a lot that we don’t. And we’ll gladly take suggestions from those of you who’ve been there.