The corkboard...

Remember the corkboard project I was talking about doing last week? Well I did it - I just haven't gotten around to posting about it yet.

Garet and I got a painting/picture from our neighbor awhile back. He didn't want it anymore and so he just gave it to us. Well, let's just say it didn't fit in well with our home decor, sooo... it stayed in our office closet. I wanted to have a frame around the corkboard to kinda fancy it up, so I used the frame from the picture. Here is the picture before:
And here it is after:

I used some spray paint for the frame. I bought some fabric, cut the corkboard down to size, and recovered it. I am happy with the way it turned out. It looks so much nicer.

Birthday weekend...

We had a really good weekend! Friday Garet got home from Atlanta - and actually made it home before I did! I made him a 12 layer cake (per request from the birthday boy). Actually it ended up being a 10 layer cake. For some reason my layers were thicker than the last time I made them... so I had to stop at 10 or it wouldn't have fit in my cake holder! You can see an extra layer in the background of this picture!
We did a hike in the Land Trust on Saturday. We also went to the mall and did some shopping. If you know me, you know I am NOT a fan of shopping! But I had a couple coupons that were about to expire, and Garet had some birthday money to spend, so it was a nice shopping trip.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. Garet and I just had a blast hanging out together! We went to lunch after church and ended up seeing a lot of our friends at the restaurant. The rest of the day was just us hanging out and talking. Weekends always go by way too fast!

Last week I didn't get a chance to post this but Garet chopped ALL of our firewood from our trees! We are set this winter!!
This week is probably going to be a busy one for both of us at work. Next weekend Garet's mom is coming for a visit! Yay!

Birthday...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARET!!!

Today is Garet's birthday!! AND he is coming home today from a week long work trip! YAY!! 4:00 can't come fast enough :) So, today Garet turns 29! I have a cake baked and ready for him when he gets home, and I have stuff to make a nice dinner. Lasagna, requested by the birthday boy. I am excited to see him - a week is a long time!

Time flies...

This week we have been in Huntsville for 3 years! Wow! It does and doesn't feel like it has been 3 years! A lot has happened during that time! Here we are up on Monte Sano Mountain... this is where we lived for the first 1 1/2 years here...
We sounded so crazy to people (and actually still probably do!) when we told them what we were doing. Long story short - after our honeymoon, we put our house in Wilmington up for rent and set out on a road trip to figure out where to live. We drove around the south for a little over 2 weeks, staying the night in different towns, getting real estate agents to show us around, having an adventure :) At the end of 2 weeks we decided: Huntsville, Alabama it is! I think everyone was shocked - including us!



Turns out this place is great! We have made some good friends, and there is definitely no shortage on outdoor things-to-do which we love! This is the longest we have stayed in one place since we've met! Maybe it's time to move again.... :)



On a side note: I did finish the cork board project and it turned out great! Too bad Garet took our camera, I'll have to remember to post some pictures later! Tonight I have a date with So You Think You Can Dance!

Wonderful weekend...

Yesterday (Saturday) Garet took me to one of his Boy Scout camps in Scottsboro. There was an awesome hike that he wanted to take me on. We headed out soon after we woke up. This hike was called The Pinnacle. It was the hardest hike I've been on in a long time!! But well worth it :) Here is a view from the bottom:
It probably took about an hour or so for us to get to the top, and once we were up there here is what we saw:

You can tell by the view how high we hiked - it was very steep!

The view was amazing!!

We packed a lunch and ate on the top of the mountain. We had a really good time!

Goodbye trees...

Garet and I moved into our house in November 2007 - so all of the trees were dead in our backyard. Once it started getting warmer and the trees started growing leaves again, we noticed that we had two really dead trees. Not good. We had planned on putting up a fence so we wanted to get these trees down before the fence went up. We talked with our builder and he agreed that, while it was not their responsibility after we move in, since we did not know they were dead at the time they would take them down for us.

Great right? Wrong. 3 months went by of Garet communicating with them and them putting us off, then Garet said that we were going to be putting up a fence and they need to come asap. Didn't happen. Garet (and his dad) went to work building a fence. They were on the last piece and guess who showed up? Yep, the tree people. Well they said, now that we have a fence they couldn't do it, plus it was a favor to us anyway. So sorry.

Man we were mad! But we got over it. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Garet was mowing the grass and notice that one of our dead trees had a crack going up it. From the roots all the way as far up as we could see. Definitely not good! We started calling tree people. Yesterday we had a crew come out and take down the trees, grind the stumps, and even left us with firewood :)

Before:
After:

This was so entertaining to watch! I was soo nervous that the tree would hit a fence (or our house!) but they did a great job! And here is our firewood pile now!

Now we no longer have to be terrifed that a tree will fall when there is a storm :)

What to do...

Next week Garet has to go out of town for work. I hate when he has to leave - But that is when I normally can get a lot done around the house. Isn't it funny - when he's home, I'd rather sit on the couch and watch t.v. or movies, but when he is gone I can't sit still! So... I need a project to work on next week. I really can't think of much that I really want to get done though.

One thing I have been wanting to do is get our office straightened up. Right now it is a real mess because Garet attempted to rearrange last week... so now there is stuff EVERYWHERE! It looks like we just moved in, I'm not even kidding! I want to get things back to normal! Also, we have two cork boards right now in the office. One is for odds and ends, stuff that we need out but don't want on the desk... ya know what I mean. The other one mainly has pictures of all our nieces and nephews (we have 12!) I want to condense these down to one. That would free up a whole section of wall space! But I want it to be prettier :) I have seen people cover their cork boards with fabric and that looks pretty easy. Here is a picture I found of one

Of course I would use different fabric - but what an easy way to fancy up a cork board! One of the blogs I like to look at is of a photographer in Texas. She has one of these in her kids playroom and it looks soo good! Here is the post about it. I love the way it is framed!

Anyway, that would be pretty simple (hopefully!) So I am still trying to think of stuff to keep me busy, so the time will fly by! I would LOVE to get a new headboard (actually a whole new bedroom suite!) for our bedroom. I like the idea of making my own - either a fabric one, or using a door like this one:

I just think that is so clever! I have seen people use many different things as a headboard - I just don't know if I'm that creative. And I think that would be a bigger project that I want to concur next week! But I love the idea!

Garet's birthday is next week, so I have some shopping to do! And some baking! I love to bake, for some reason it is soothing to me. When I get bored or if it is a rainy day - bake! I'll have to figure out a good recipe for a cake or something sweet to make for his bday!

Randomness...

I haven't posted in a really long time so this is truly just going to be random!

First off, today is my parents anniversary! 29 years! :) Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!! I think they are planning a trip this week to Garet's mom's house in Morehead, N.C. FUN!

I don't think I ever put this on the blog... but a few weeks ago (okay it's probably been at least a month) Garet and I were doing yardwork. I was mowing the grass and Garet was weedwacking. We found a small burrow on the side of our house. I had no clue what lived there - I was just hoping it was something cute. Well when we got to the inside of our fence Garet screamed and therefore so did I. Turns out it was a baby rabbit! Garet ALMOST got him with the weedwacker! So I scooped him up (in a laundry basket) and put him in the woods next door. Well the next day I was in our garage getting stuff for more yardwork and I saw a furry butt behind one of our cabinets! Turns out it was another baby rabbit! Here is a close up

Poor baby was TERRIFIED! Garet kept telling me to pick him up, so I grabbed some gloves and the laundry basket to put him in. He finally just got scared and ran out of the garage himself, here I am attempting to grab him. See how cute and little he was.... aww...

This past week Garet had a mandatory week off... I know right. Who does that?!

Anyway, he wanted to keep himself busy so one of the things he did was organize our garage. (You can see from the above picture that we needed it!!) He put up shelving and a wall of peg board so he can hang his tools. It looks really good! Too bad I haven't taken a picture of the finished product... but here he is at the beginning...

Oh, and the tennis ball? Garet hung those so that I would know how far to pull into the garage without hitting a) the steps or b) not getting far enough in. It works well :)

Another project is curtains. Oh the dreadful curtains. It seemed like a good idea at first...

I already had curtains that went over our backdoors, but I wanted them over the two windows in our living and dining rooms too. So finally I got some curtain rods that I liked. Then I measured from the top of the doors, made my marks, drilled, screwed, and viola. After the door, I measured from the tops of the windows, same deal. Afterwards I realized that the top of the doors were taller than the top of the windows. SOO........ my curtain rods weren't all the same height. SOO..... I had to redo them. :(

Here is me at the beginning of my project (when it was still a good idea). Once again, I don't have a picture of the finished product... although, they do look good!

That brings us about up to date. I will try to be a better blogger, promise.

This past weekend weekend Garet and I just enjoyed hanging out together. We went to a movie and ran errands and Garet even cooked me a WONDERFUL dinner! We've actually been going though a tough situation that I'm not quite ready to put on here. Just keep us in your prayers. WE are doing great so don't start thinking crazy thoughts!! :)

Next week is Garet's birthday - and he has to be out of town all week for work. At least it will be a good time for me to get him his gifts!! I hate when he is gone though. At least he will be getting back on Friday, his actual birthday!

Was that random enough?!

Fourth of July...

We had a great 4th of July weekend!

On Friday, we both had the day off which was GREAT! We went to a friends house for a cookout that night. Saturday (the 4th) we did things around the house that morning. Garet decided to organize our garage with shelves and stuff. I put up curtain rods in our living room. That night we went to Lake Guntersville with some friends for dinner and fireworks. Today we went to church and then relaxed! It sure will be hard to go back to work tomorrow!

The biggest thing this weekend was about my brother - on Saturday night I looked at my phone and noticed that I had 3 missed calls from his girlfriend, Kailey. I was worried something was wrong so I called back right away! When she answered she told me that they are engaged!!! How exciting!! My whole family loves Kailey, and I think they are just too cute together!! Congratulations Eric and Kailey!!!