Adventures in Gardening

Dan and I needed to plant some bushes in our backyard because it was just looking plain back there. You can’t really tell a difference because they are little right now, but hopefully next year they will have grown and look better. We also planted watermelon, squash and tomatoes in a garden. Hopefully they’ll turn out. It’s a toss-up knowing me, I’m not exactly known for any kind of Suzy Homemaker -ness. Here is a picture of the bushes… you have to really squint to see them. Haha

Five minutes after this picture was taken Brenner ripped one of the bushes out of the ground and ate it. Go figure.

Chocolate

This is a random post, but oh well. For those that don't know, (which is probably no one because I have been talking about it NONSTOP for 40 days) I gave up chocolate for lent. I love chocolate. This was a hard thing for me to give up, but I did it for all 40 days (minus a slip the first week at Jason's Deli.... I honestly forgot). On Easter I had some of the Girl Scout cookies that had been sitting in our freezer taunting me for a month. They weren't nearly as good as I had made them out to be in my head. Last night, though, I got my chocolate fix! YUM. Dan brought home the most awesome brownies I have ever had and I ate the whole (probably 1,000 calorie) thing.... and it was worth all the calories! I love chocolate!!.

As a side note.. I will try to remember to post pictures of our living room tomorrow. The painting is complete and it looks wonderful!!

Quick Update....

We are coming along really well with the living room and dining room. Dan finished the wainscoting and it looks great! Here are a few pictures of the color in the living room. Dan and I both love it more than we ever thought we would. Still have one more wall to go, and we have to paint behind the bookcases, but we are almost done with the painting!

Here is Dan painting with his new toy! That thing is awesome and has been the reason we have not had to hire painters!

Here is the paint in the room:

It's snowing in April?

Yes, that’s right. It is April in Georgia and my wonderful husband has just called to tell me that it is snowing at our house. Not cool. Not cool at all! Mother Nature keeps teasing us with a little Spring and then taking it away. Hopefully this is the last cold snap. It kind of came out of nowhere.
I am doing a pretty good job of updating this right? Posting two days in a row, who would have thought?!
Anyway, we have decided to start taking on some home projects. Most of it involves little details and painting, A LOT of painting. Dan is wainscoting around our dining room. He did the first one to make sure I like it. I think it is going to look great and add a nice little touch to our dining room. Here is a pic of one on the wall:

My hubby has tuned into his handy man side and I love it! It’s nice to be able to save money and he has been a great sport about taking this stuff on!
We have also taken on the main living room. We are going a little out of our comfort zone for this project. I have an idea in my head and I REALLY think it is going to look good if I can translate the idea in my head to the living room. Here is a little taste of what has been going on.

Color choice, color choice! It’s so aggravating. These colors don’t look the same on pics as they do on the actual wall, but we are probably going to go with the one of the far left. (they are all gray/green colors) It’s a big step for us, but I think we will like it. We have HUGE built-ins on either side of our fireplace and I am going to antique those (white antique) and then we are going to stone in the fireplace where the green granite is. Here is a pic so you can get an idea of what it looks like:

Do my ideas translate? Anyone have an opinion on if that will look good or bad before we jump in with both feet?!?! We tend to go with neutral stuff, so this is big. If it turns out bad it’s a room everyone will see! Haha. I want a more warm/inviting feel to the room, so hopefully that is the direction this will go to. The painting will probably happen shortly, we can’t leave samples on the wall for too long. If I get a fire under my belt, I might start with the antiquing process. I will have to get our neighbor to help me. That is how I got the idea, she did something similar in her kitchen and it looks AWESOME! Hopefully in the next few months I will be able to post pictures of the finished product!

Our house has rats...

At least once a year we have to get the cats shaved. They have SO much fur and they get fur balls. Fur ball is really not a good word for it. Seriously, these things get almost as long as they are. Its gross. Their new groomer is a wonderful lady and I don't know what secret power she has but now when we get them shaved they get home and prance all over the place. They think they are just the coolest/cutest things ever... we don't tell them that they really look like giant rats, no, that would just be mean.

I thought I would share a few pictures of our little rats. Just as a little reminder... this is what they looked like before....

Cute, right?!?!?!

And now.....

You can see the rat resemblance right?! Haha. I still think they are adorable, but it might be one of those "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" moments!

1 Wonderful Year later....

Well, I think we have all found out that I am horrible at updating this. I could say I will try harder to update, but we all know by now that is not true. Oh well. I tried to upload pictures of New York onto Facebook but my work computer will not let me, our home PC is busted and don't even get me started on Dan's MAC. I am useless on that thing!

Anyway, as many of you know already, Dan surprised me with a trip to NYC for our 1st anniversary (he has A LOT to live up to now! ha!) He told me Friday night (via a word search that I stunk at!) what we were doing. I was sooooo excited! We went and did site seeing stuff and then went to our favorite restaurant The Capital Grille and went and saw Avenue Q on Broadway. Avenue Q is like an adult version of Sesame Street. Very Funny!! We had such a great time and it was the perfect way to celebrate our 1st year as husband and wife!

A lot has happened since I last posted. We had a great Thanksgiving and Christmas! My dad and my Aunt Gina came to town for Thanksgiving and we had such a good time. Yummy food, fun games, it was really a good time!

We had a good Christmas but since I didn't have anymore vacation time, we stayed in Atlanta. Dan and I decided to put a $25 limit on gifts for Christmas and we both ended up getting each other the adult footy pajamas from Target... yeah, I guess we have a very similar sense of humor!

Mom, Harry and Charlie came to visit at the end of February and we had such a great time! One night ended up with us putting on a "show" for our peeping tom neighbors! It was a blast! Mom called a few weeks after they left and said they had talked and decided that when the boys are done with school in March 2010, they are all going to move to Atlanta! Dan and I are SOOOO ridiculously excited! Mom and Dad Murray have a house here and will be moving down shortly and then my mom and brothers will come down! Dan and I have such great families it will be great to have them close by! Now we just have to get Mom and Dad Pepper and my Dad here (don't worry, we are already working on it!)!

Other than that we have been busy with home stuff. Dan has been vigorously working on our yard and it is looking great! It was very overgrown when we moved in, stuff grows like crazy here. Our "kids" are doing great. Brenner is 50lbs now! He still jumps, but he understands the command to stop doing it, so hopefully it will come together in his head soon and he just wont jump period. He "graduated" from beginner obedience training and even had the fastest "down" in class! haha. Jenkins and Bella are as cute as ever, not big fans of Brenner though. We are hoping that will change when Brenner is a little older and less puppy!

Well here are pics of NYC. I don't know why my work computer will let me upload stuff onto Blogger but not onto Facebook. Weird.

We stayed at the Waldorf=Astoria in Manhattan. It was amazing! Such a beautiful, ornate hotel. We definitely looked like we didn't belong, but had a blast with it! haha

HUGE chandelier in the Waldorf

Dan jumping on the bed!

Rockefeller Center

Set of the Today Show

NBC Rainbow Room

Tiffany & Co.

Dunananananana Batman! This guy was just dancing and being funny.

Being all Sex and the City and wearing my heels in Manhattan on the way to dinner

NY Library where Carrie and Big were supposed to get married. I am hoping when Ryan and I go for our girls trip in September they will be done working on it. This picture isn't very good b/c of the construction.

Ground Zero. They have started building again.

Ladder 10 Co. Right across from Ground Zero. They lost 5 men.

Eternal Flame for those that lost their life 9/11/01

Dan with the Hudson in the background

2009 Ball in Times Square