...now let's have a BBQ.
Q: How can you tell when you live in a friendly neighborhood?
A: The day after you move in, you're invited to the ninth annual neighborhood BBQ!!
And that's how we ended up at a BBQ this past Saturday night - with 50 of our nearest neighbors, of whom we knew not a soul. But everyone was so kind and genuine that we quickly met so many nice neighbors and (hopefully!) new friends. Even though the heat was oppressive and there was smoke in the air from the local fires, we had such a wonderful time chatting away with everyone that the pros definitely out weighed the cons.
Kevin and I can't believe our good fortune to have found a cozy, charming home in a neighborhood as wonderful as ours is. Thanks, Kim, for the invitation. Here's to many more future neighborhood get-togethers!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Now I ask you...
Have you ever in your life seen a more handsome umpire than this hunk?
I think not!!
Recently Kevin had the chance to fly back to Washington, PA and participate in umpiring the Pony League World Series. He had such a great time! He got to spend time with his dad (Hi Joe!) and other family members that he hasn't seen in ages and then, on top of that, he had the chance to umpire some good baseball. We're both so delighted that he had this wonderful opportunity. How lucky can you get?
I think not!!Recently Kevin had the chance to fly back to Washington, PA and participate in umpiring the Pony League World Series. He had such a great time! He got to spend time with his dad (Hi Joe!) and other family members that he hasn't seen in ages and then, on top of that, he had the chance to umpire some good baseball. We're both so delighted that he had this wonderful opportunity. How lucky can you get?
Suite!
Yesterday we had the opportunity to take a little break from all of the hard work of moving. A friend of Kevin's phoned Saturday night and asked if we were free to go to an Angel's game. Sure!
Did we ever luck out?! We're sooo happy we accepted Gary's offer: the tickets were for a dugout suite! We met earlier picked up our tickets and then continued on to the stadium. We decided to have lunch in the Dugout Club restaurant - not an inexpensive meal by any means ($32.00 per person for the buffet!). When the tab came for the table, Gary picked it up ... for all four of us! Then we headed down to the suite. Amazing! It was large enough to hold a group of about 12 people, and - the best part - it was air conditioned! Not a small amenity considering it was about 100 degrees outside yesterday. The seats were just up the steps from the suite - dugout level, just to the right of home plate. SCORE!
See for yourself:
(view from the restaurant where we ate lunch)
(view from our seats)
(Kevin snuck a picture of me watching the game)
We had a wonderful time at the game - what a treat! Thank you, Gary for giving Kevin the tickets and thank you, Kevin, my wonderful husband, for inviting me to be your date. I love you!
Did we ever luck out?! We're sooo happy we accepted Gary's offer: the tickets were for a dugout suite! We met earlier picked up our tickets and then continued on to the stadium. We decided to have lunch in the Dugout Club restaurant - not an inexpensive meal by any means ($32.00 per person for the buffet!). When the tab came for the table, Gary picked it up ... for all four of us! Then we headed down to the suite. Amazing! It was large enough to hold a group of about 12 people, and - the best part - it was air conditioned! Not a small amenity considering it was about 100 degrees outside yesterday. The seats were just up the steps from the suite - dugout level, just to the right of home plate. SCORE!
See for yourself:
(view from the restaurant where we ate lunch)
(view from our seats)
(Kevin snuck a picture of me watching the game)We had a wonderful time at the game - what a treat! Thank you, Gary for giving Kevin the tickets and thank you, Kevin, my wonderful husband, for inviting me to be your date. I love you!
Just a little preview...
We have been very busy bees unpacking and setting up our new home. Kevin thought we should take some new photos yesterday of what we've accomplished so far. There will be many more photos in the weeks ahead, but I thought I'd go ahead and post a little preview. So, without further ado, here are a few comparison pictures of the kitchen.
Here are the "Before" photos:
And similar views in the "After" photos:
As you can see, there has been a huge transformation! When we saw the photos side by side yesterday, we had a hard time believing it was even the same room! What a difference a little paint and imagination can make =)
More to come later!
Here are the "Before" photos:
And similar views in the "After" photos:
As you can see, there has been a huge transformation! When we saw the photos side by side yesterday, we had a hard time believing it was even the same room! What a difference a little paint and imagination can make =)
More to come later!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Whew!
We did it!!
Well okay, we're not completely finished, but at least all of the furniture is in! Moving day was this past Friday and Kevin and I have been busy bees putting things together/away. We're coming along, but there are still many, many things to be done. Our goal is to have everything unpacked/put away and the house in order no later than early October. We still have some things to move out of the old house and we need to have completely vacated by October 2nd. With that date in mind, we want to have everything out of there by that date and the rest of the new house in order by then, too. It's going to be a bit of a challenge, but I just love a challenge!
I'll be posting some pictures soon, but we've been so busy with the move, I haven't had a chance to post much. Hopefully I'll have a bit more time very soon. I can hardly wait - it will be nice to take a well-deserved break in our new home =)
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Happy Anniversary, Honey!
Yesterday Kevin and I celebrated our eight year wedding anniversary! We've been so busy with getting the house ready to move in, and Kevin suffering from a bit of jet lag, that we were both a little tired. However, we planned a very sweet, romantic dinner ... IN. We picked up food and took it to the new house where our lovely kitchen nook was all set up. Kevin put on some music, I poured Italian lemon soda into plastic champagne glasses and we toasted each other, linked arms and took a sip of 'champagne'. During dinner we talked about our favorite memories from our wedding day. Then, to top it all off, we danced around the kitchen - turns and dips included - with the front door wide open. I'm sure we made quite the fetching silhouette.
Fancy restaurant or no, this was one of my favorite anniversary celebrations so far. I loved it! We were in our new home, together, having a wonderful time. It doesn't get much better than that.
I love you, Kevin, and am so proud and happy to be your wife. I'd marry you again, and again, and again, and...
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Primordial Goo
One of the projects at the new house is painting the kitchen cabinets. As Kevin was taking all of the hinges and handles off the cabinets and drawers, he noticed that they'd been painted over many times and had some sort of glaze or shellac on them that was pretty funky. We're painting all of the cabinets a particular shade of creamy white, but the current hinges and handles in the state they were in would definitely not work. With all of their funk, we did not want to put those back on our newly painted cabinets and drawers!
With handles and hinges for 39 cabinets/drawers, replacing all of that hardware would be prohibitively expensive! I suggested that maybe we could paint them, but neither of us could figure out how to get what was already on them off so that the new coat of paint would adhere.
Ahhhh, the internet. You just have to love the fact that you can search for anything and come up with dozens of solutions in mere seconds! I found something interesting and thought we should give it a try. We were both a bit skeptical, so we thought we'd try a few hinges and handles first; then, if it worked, we'd do the rest of them. Well, believe it or not, it worked like a charm! Here's what you do: place hardware in bottom of crockpot; fill crockpot with water to cover hardware; add a few tablespoons of dishwashing liquid and turn the crockpot to low. Let them 'cook' overnight. (Be forewarned: what results is something resembling primordial goo.) Fish out the hardware and scrub gently with a wire brush. All traces of paint (and whatever other gunk was on there to begin with) can then be rinsed away. It was like magic! We then 'baked' all of the hardware to make sure it was dry. The next day I gave everything a good coat of black spray paint and, viola!, they all looked brand new!!
With handles and hinges for 39 cabinets/drawers, replacing all of that hardware would be prohibitively expensive! I suggested that maybe we could paint them, but neither of us could figure out how to get what was already on them off so that the new coat of paint would adhere.
Ahhhh, the internet. You just have to love the fact that you can search for anything and come up with dozens of solutions in mere seconds! I found something interesting and thought we should give it a try. We were both a bit skeptical, so we thought we'd try a few hinges and handles first; then, if it worked, we'd do the rest of them. Well, believe it or not, it worked like a charm! Here's what you do: place hardware in bottom of crockpot; fill crockpot with water to cover hardware; add a few tablespoons of dishwashing liquid and turn the crockpot to low. Let them 'cook' overnight. (Be forewarned: what results is something resembling primordial goo.) Fish out the hardware and scrub gently with a wire brush. All traces of paint (and whatever other gunk was on there to begin with) can then be rinsed away. It was like magic! We then 'baked' all of the hardware to make sure it was dry. The next day I gave everything a good coat of black spray paint and, viola!, they all looked brand new!!
The New Casa de Weir
Last Friday we got the keys to our new house. YAY!! By 7:30 Saturday morning, we were there ready to start preparing our new home for the big move. First, however, we had to take a tour.
Now that the house was completely empty, we were both anxious to do a walk-through. The reality of it is, we'd actually only seen it once - when we did the initial viewing - and we had been going from memory when trying to make painting/decorating decisions. As we walked from room to room, we took some photos. Come along with me and I'll give you a tour.
(Of course I forgot to take a few snaps of the outside front of the house! I'll save the back yard and patio for another time, too, since this post is already so long! Those will come along later, but for now...)
When you open the front door, you're immediately in the livingroom:
If you walk straight in past the livingroom, you're in the kitchen:
(I just LOVE the kitchen nook!)
Just off the breakfast nook in the kitchen is a small bathroom (on the left), the door to the back yard (on the right) and Kevin's 'man cave' (straight ahead):
About that 'man cave' - it's going to be Kevin's room, and he'll be in Heaven!:
To the right of the kitchen, there's a lovely, albeit small!, diningroom with French doors and a built-in hutch:
There are built-in linen cabinets in the hallway and just past that, the master bath:
Next is the garden room:
And finally, the master bedroom:
As you can see, we've got a lot of work ahead of us! The house is just in beautiful shape and it's got so many charming details - hardwood floors, crown moulding throughout, chair rails, bead board, ranch-style windows - it's so sweet and just cute as a button! We've been having a wonderful weekend/week turning this adorable house into our home.
Stay tuned, there will be much more to come!
Now that the house was completely empty, we were both anxious to do a walk-through. The reality of it is, we'd actually only seen it once - when we did the initial viewing - and we had been going from memory when trying to make painting/decorating decisions. As we walked from room to room, we took some photos. Come along with me and I'll give you a tour.
(Of course I forgot to take a few snaps of the outside front of the house! I'll save the back yard and patio for another time, too, since this post is already so long! Those will come along later, but for now...)
When you open the front door, you're immediately in the livingroom:
If you walk straight in past the livingroom, you're in the kitchen:
(I just LOVE the kitchen nook!)Just off the breakfast nook in the kitchen is a small bathroom (on the left), the door to the back yard (on the right) and Kevin's 'man cave' (straight ahead):
About that 'man cave' - it's going to be Kevin's room, and he'll be in Heaven!:
To the right of the kitchen, there's a lovely, albeit small!, diningroom with French doors and a built-in hutch:
There are built-in linen cabinets in the hallway and just past that, the master bath:
Next is the garden room:
And finally, the master bedroom:
As you can see, we've got a lot of work ahead of us! The house is just in beautiful shape and it's got so many charming details - hardwood floors, crown moulding throughout, chair rails, bead board, ranch-style windows - it's so sweet and just cute as a button! We've been having a wonderful weekend/week turning this adorable house into our home.
Stay tuned, there will be much more to come!
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