Emily and I decided to not let this be a typical lazy weekend. The weather was great – nice and cool with the sun shining. With all the wind storms over the last few months we had a yard scattered with broken branches – some so large, they even looked like little trees! Then we trimmed a ton of dead branches from the trees. I made a pile in the driveway about 7 feet tall and 5 feet wide. Going to take a while to get that scrapped and into trash cans.
Emily cleaned out the gardens – weeds, dried leaves, dead plants, and straightened up the boarder rocks. She filled two trash cans with crud. While she did that I gave the yard its first mow and spread some leftover mulch in our side garden. Mowing this yard is not a quick task. Very thankful for the in-laws riding mower. If I had to push mow this yard, I’d probably invest in a whole lot of ivy!
This morning I got out and put down some Scott’s weed and feed fertilizer. With all the work the previous owners put into the house, I don’t think they did much with the grass. I’ve never seen so many dandelions and “bad” grass. Probably going to take a couple feedings to take them all out.
Emily and I also started on our first project for the backyard. With the advice from my mom, we decided to start on a small project fist to get us motivated. The back yard needs TONS of work, but we picked a small 10×10 area just behind the house next to our stairs that come into the yard. It was a bit of an eye sore because the previous owners dogs used it as a sleeping area and it has a large cement slab that covers an old cistern. We are building a retaining wall there with 8 inch lodestone blocks and will fill that area with Irish Moss. Behind that, we plan to maybe put in some hostas, and a vine to grow on the trellis covering the stairs. We may also do another trellis against the wall for the vine.
So we laid down part of that this evening – at least the test run. Then we will need to back fill.
Glad we got that done this weekend as the weather is now predicting snow and rain Monday and Tuesday and low 40s-50s with rain the rest of the week.
That will sure make going to Florida Thurs – Sunday more worthwhile 🙂
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Steph Carson’s pictures arrived today! I know everyone’s dying to see them, so I’ll just stop typing and attach them 🙂
Click the picture below to see the rest.
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While i did not let Emily edit them yet, i knew people were waiting for them. Emily has a couple of videos to edit and upload as well. Click the pic below to go to the 13 Month gallery with the pics!
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I’ve always admired Chris’s Goals postings and reviews and wondered if I could do them myself. Emily and I had some discussion on things that we would like to do. So here they are, in no particular order:
1) Except for our mortgage, we want to be debt free. This means student loans, credit cards, car payments, etc. in 2009. This is very possible and I think we can do this easily. Update: just paid off the credit cards.
2) start using that gym membership I paid for. I know its a very cliche but it needs to be done. I’ll set my goal to three days a week for 30 – 45 minutes. Doesn’t sound like much.
3) Paint the two guest rooms in the house and move the office to the 3rd floor.
4) Sell the motorcycle and find a safer toy 🙂 After a coworker was hit on his scooter checking his mail, I think I’ll put 2 wheel hobbies at a rest and maybe, eventually, get back into something fun with four wheels.
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We can’t believe that 10 months ago today we met our little boy for the first time! He’s growing up so fast and is looking more and more like a little boy every day, instead of a baby. He’s really close to walking; he actually took 2 steps the other day toward the cat. He’ll do 1 step and then fall forward going from person to person as well. He’s also really into doing “so big,” waving, saying “bye bye” clapping his hands, and playing with his toys. Santa was really wonderful to him this year, he got some awesome toys and very cute clothes 🙂
Sean is having a great time with his Oma, Opa and Aunt Cate here in New York. It’s funny, he slept really horribly the first few nights that we were here, and my Dad and Colleen offered to take him in his room for the night to let us get some sleep. He ended up sleeping perfectly. He slept in their room again last night and slept perfectly again. I guess he’s just tired of his mommy and daddy and wants to be with Oma and Opa! They just love it 🙂
Here are some pictures of Sean from our vacation so far, along with Christmas pictures. Notice his Christmas outfit with his name embroidered on it from Stephen and Ally (Thank you!). What a cute gift. We got it for a baby shower gift and it fit him absolutly perfectly on Christmas morning. He wore it all day 🙂
Here are some more pictures of our time here, mostly of the birds and snow. We havae about 3 feet right now, although it’s packed down on itself some over the past few days. Still…a lot more than we get in KY and it made for a wonderful white Christmas.
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I took these pictures awhile ago, sorry that I’m just getting around to posting them. Here’s Sean having some fun with his Daddy; getting thrown in the air, flipped upside down, giving nose kisses, etc. 🙂
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I want to wish my wonderful husband and very very happy birthday! Here’s to another great year! I love you! Also a happy birthday to Sean (big Sean that is). Hope to see you at Christmas!!
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Our real estate agent, Holly Nally, came over last night…we have an offer on our house!!!! We countered just a bit on it, and she will hear back from them today. We are so excited to only own ONE house soon! We are losing a heck of a lot of money on it, but that’s the market right now. At least it will be off our backs.
Please cross your fingers / pray / do a rain dance or anything else that you do to bring us luck! We should find out today!
*UPDATE*
They accepted our counter offer! So, now we just have to wait for inspections and loan paperwork, etc to be done and then waiting for the closing!
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