New York City

I think I am finally starting to recover from the long weekend in New York City last weekend. We had a blast! Of course we had all of the typical NYC experiences… site seeing, shopping, Time Square, Central Park, Statue of Liberty, getting into a fight with a bum and almost getting jumped. Ask me about the last two for a couple of good stories! We walked all over the place. I think NYC is the only place you can go and eat horribly and not gain weight just because of all the walking! NICE! No wonder everyone in that city is so dang skinny!! Since I posted my NYC pictures on Facebook, I thought I would steal some of Ryan’s NYC pics and post them on here.

Yummm... brick oven pizza. It was so good we ate the whole thing. No seriously, the whole thing!

Me in Central Park

Ryan got much better shots of Drew Barrymore than I did. She is the one in the black shirt and green pants

Ryan in front of Radio City

These are all M&M's. We could have gotten ourselves into all kinds of trouble here. But we were good!
At Buddakan

Cosmos in NYC...what else?!?!

Dan and I are going to O-H-I-O next weekend! Can't wait! We will be sure to post some pictures of the Avery fun!

We got a camera!!

Mom P. gave Dan and I a camera for our birthday (for those that don’t know, Dan’s and my birthday are exactly a week apart - well a week and two years). It is SO nice to be able to take a picture and actually SEE the picture after we take it (as a girl, this is a great feature to have back again)!

I came to a stall with posting on this blog, but hopefully I will pick up with it again. Honestly, this summer has just been nice and relaxing, not much to post about, just enjoying the weather, the pool, the friends and of course that wonderful husband of mine.

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but I feel like this year is just flying by. I can’t believe next week will be August already! We have a very busy second half of the year coming up, so I have a feeling the rest of the year will pass by quicker than the first part has. Next week, one of my best friends, Ryan, and I will be going to New York City for a long girls weekend. I am really excited! We are going to play most of it by ear… but we do have the Sex and the City tour booked. That was the important tour to make SURE we had a spot on. We will miss our hubby’s but we never get to see each other anymore since we live in different states, so it will be a blast to hang out with her again! Then a couple weekends after that, we are going to the Avery family reunion in Ohio. (Why do I have a feeling that is going to be a weekend I need to recover from?) Then we get the second part of Mom P.’s b-day gift – a trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park. Google it, it looks pretty awesome. I guess it’s the largest amusement park in the US – with the largest/fastest roller coasters. We are going to spend the day there with Mom and Dad. It will be a blast! I love roller coasters, but I haven’t been on any since high school. Then in September we will be visiting with the Runty’s and the Purcell’s in Houston for Labor Day weekend. Then Mom and Dad P. and some of their friends will be coming down to Atlanta for their “annual Halloween trip”!! haha Then we have the cruise in December. See what I mean about the rest of the year passing by fast too?!?!

We are also eagerly awaiting Mom and Dad M’s move to Atlanta. They were here this last week and I think they are going to move as soon as Dad M. gets the job transfer. It will be so nice to have them here! And my mom and brothers are still on track to move here in the Spring of next year. Really, I think the next year is going to go by fast!! We have so much really good stuff going on, that seems to be when time passes by the quickest.
Anyway, I will end with some pictures of the house – that I can finally update now that we have a working camera!

Just for comparison sake... this was the living room the way it was when the house was up for sale:

And here is the living room now:

Here is the "formal" living room, we still want to add a bar piece. (Not sure why the couch is showing up greenish in the picture, but its a blue couch) Dan was a good sport with the color on the wall:

Dining Room:

Office:

One of the guest bedrooms:
Now, we just have to work on accessorising the house. As you might have noticed, there is not a lot of stuff on the walls. We will be working on that!

I am really happy with how the house is looking. It definitley feels like it has Dan's and my touch!

We need a new camera....

I was on such a role updating this blog. I have a good reason for not updating recently, I promise. Our camera screen broke about a year ago. Part of the bottom of the screen still worked and we got really good at lining it up to take good pictures so we just never fixed/replaced it. Well, we have some how turned off the flash and since the screen is broken, we can't figure out how to turn it back on. Go figure. So I guess it's time to get a new camera. 

Our living room is done except for the built-ins. So hopefully we will get a new camera soon and I can post finished pictures! 

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!