Home is where the AF sends us: The Kitchen

The dining room.  It's actually pretty open to the kitchen, but it photographs as a very closed room!

It definitely has a wine theme to it, and actually gets used as more of a paper catch all spot.

It was one of the first rooms we completed decorating though!

The view from the dining room.  Actually, looking at the picture it looks kinda...cluttered? Hmmm, I may have to reorganize a bit.  

:) I know, trashcans.  

Our city picks up our recycle curbside, and we don't have to sort! So this is our system.  Trash in one, recycle in the other.  Now if we move to a city where it isn't as easy, it will be a hard transition!

Remember all that wine we got on our honeymoon?

There is also a cabinet full of wine down below.

Not to be forgotten, our glasses.  I'm really only posting this to show how crazy it is.  I don't know how we accumulated so many wine glasses.  Granted some of those are martini and beer glasses, but the majority is wine.  I'm thinking when the garage sale at church comes around some of these will get donated!

Home is where the AF sends us: Come on in!

Welcome to our home!

Please ignore the slightly funky, built in the 80's features.  Some days I hate them and some days they are fun and quirky.  I should do a complete post on them. :)

With our 80's disclaimer out of the way....this is the view when you walk in the front door.

Coat closet on the left, office doors on the right, sky light up above, and funky tile down below. 

Needs some better wall hangings, but luckily we don't hang out in the hallway.

Straight ahead is the living area.

Ooo eerie floating specs.  Dust or ghost-ies? I'm going with dust...

Our living room is pretty spacious.  Fits our furniture and we spend a lot of time in here.
The door goes to the backyard, and you can see the dining room a bit.
The passthrough window goes into the kitchen.  Handy when we eat dinner in the living room and I can just set my glass or plate on the ledge, walk around and pick it up if my hands are full.



View from the other side.  You can see the office doors in the hallway.
I love our family tree wall hanging we got for our wedding!  They are all separate pieces though, so Cody did not love hanging it!  We still need to fill it with pictures, but it's coming along!
I have no clue where to put our Christmas tree.  I may have to move Cody's chair...

Cody's mom got us our huge clock to go over the mantle.  I'm so glad she suggested this idea and found the perfect clock!  I wasn't sure what to do with the space and this works perfectly.

Now about the mantle.  I'm not sure what to do with it.  For now there is a framed picture of Cody proposing, a candle, willow tree figure, (the cross has since been moved) , coasters, and some flowers.

The flowers are actually from my wedding bouquet.  The florist added some silk hydrangeas to supplement the supply that came in wilted.  You couldn't tell, and one of my bridesmaids didn't realize her bouquet was half fake/half real until halfway through pictures I believe. 

Anywho, some days I like the mantle decor, others I don't.  Suggestions?

Home is where the AF sends us: Part 1

I've been planning on posting some house pictures, and finally have decided on doing a series of posts.  I think it makes it a little easier if I do it bit by bit, and don't overload on pictures!

Cody actually was transferred in February, and luckily I was able to help him help him move.  Which meant I got to help pick out our future home!  We only had about 3 days to search before he had to start work and I had to leave.  We met with a relator and got searching!

The first day was horrible. Disgusting homes and bad neighborhoods.  By the end of the day I was ready to throw away my shoes and do a court house ceremony so we could apply to live on base!  (There's a waiting list so that wouldn't work.) The next days were much better, and we finally settled on this house:

I totally blurred out our street number and license plate.  No stalkers please!

It's pretty close to all the important stores and Cody doesn't have a very long commute either.  Plus, our little section of neighbors are all really nice, and keep an eye out for each other. 

View of the backyard.  It's a really nice size, much bigger than some we looked at.  

We have a nice little patio and scooped up some cheap but comfy chairs from Lowe's.  We also scored some tiki torches (to keep the bugs away!) marked wrong, so we got them for half price!  The part of the roof over the patio is some fiberglass material that lets in some light but keeps some heat out too.  We are hoping to spruce it up with some twinkle lights and pretty plants.

Have you noticed our grass yet? Yeah.  We are currently in a Stage 3 drought restriction and mere inches away from Stage 4.  What that basically means for us is that we can only water by sprinkler once a week at a certain time, and by hose only in the wee hours of the morning.  Stage 4 brings us to watering every other week, and Stage 5 is no watering at all.  It's supposedly the worst recorded drought 30 or 60 (don't remember which!) years.  I think in the almost 3 months that I've been here it has rained 3 times.  When it does rain it may be a sprinkle for 5-10 mins.  Although, one of those times it thundered and poured for a little bit and completely had me confused!  What is that noise? Man, lots of planes flying over today!  It is suppose to rain this weekend though, and we are super excited to see if it will!  We are waiting for cooler weather to start looking at getting some plants, right now it is way too hot and dry!

Settling in

Our first weekend in our house was definitely hectic. We had already reserved Maxx and then ran around trying to get everything he needed, plus groceries for us before needing to go pick him up.   We also started unpacking all of my boxes.  I had originally planned to wait until Cody went back to work to start unpacking, after all I was going to need something to do! However, we quickly realized we needed what was in those boxes! 

Not the best picture but you can see the craziness.  Counters covered in food and kitchen stuff that was being unpacked from boxes on the floor.  Plus, we had gone to Costco so we had surplus stuff to pack away.

Our first dinner at home!  

The first few meals we just picked up food from Whataburger or wherever until we made it to the store.  Not the healthiest first dinner but definitely the easiest! Oh, and Jamba Juice smoothies from Costco? Amazing.  We love them.  Super quick and so yum!  We were gifted our blender with a bunch of margarita supplies, but we have actually used it more for these smoothies! 

I spent the next week getting everything unpacked and set up just in time for our first overnight guests!  Cody's brother and his girlfriend spent the night with us before the whole family made the trip out to Concan to float the river  in the swimming hole!

A couple weeks before our wedding I put these emergency kits together.

While I was collecting all the supplies I kept thinking that it was something we wouldn't end up using, but if I didn't make them we would need them.  So I made them, and boy have we used them!

Refresher of Contents:

Johnson and Johnson First aid kit
Band-aids & alcohol swabs
Sewing kits
-buttons/thread/needles/scissors/safety pins
Ibuprofen
Allergy Medicine
Mini Tide Stick

Seriously has been one of the handiest and most used item in my bag!
My sandals for engagement pictures gave me blisters - break out the band-aids!
The day of the wedding I believe Cody said the boys cracked open the Ibuprofen and Allergy meds.
Ibuprofen may have been used out of the girls room one too.

Perhaps most importantly it was used to fix Ethan's pants!
When he got dressed that morning they discovered that his pants were way too short! So when the boys got to the church E was sent downstairs so Mom could quickly let the hem out....hmmm actually....maybe she didn't use the sewing kit after all.  Oh well, funny story anyways!

After the wedding we've continued to use the kit for bandaids, medicine, and the sewing kit!

Reunited and it feels so good

Sharkey was one of Maxx's first toys.  He loved him almost to death, splitting him open and spilling out stuffing.  Luckily I grabbed my handy dandy emergency kit and stitched him back up.  After being Sharkey-less for a couple weeks Maxx was so happy to have him back!

One day Cody asked me for the tide stick...and I actually didn't have the kit on me, oops.

I will definitely be keeping it stocked and on hand for emergencies!

Puppy Love

 Cody has been wanting a dog for a long time, and I had told him he had to wait for me to go pick one out.  While in Michigan he had been checking the website and saw a dog he thought he liked so he wanted to go look before someone else adopted him. So the day we got back from our honeymoon we headed over to the humane society.

The dog he thought he wanted was a mix between a great dane and a corgi.

Really big tall dog and really short dog.  Awkward.

He was only a puppy but he was huge!  It took up two of the little cages they keep the puppies in, and was close to needed a third.  Way too big for us!  We looked around at all the others and I found this little guy.  

He was pretty darn cute so we got him out and played with him for awhile. They told us he was a hound mix and would be about 40-50 pounds.  He had arrived the day before and had been found wandering around on one of the interstates here in town.  We had to wait for two days to pick him up so they could finish neutering and giving him some shots, which gave us plenty of time to go buy all the things he would need.

I was super worried about how Zoey would adjust to the big move and new puppy. The first day she pretty much hid behind the washing machine but slowly began exploring and getting comfortable with the house.  Then Maxx came home.  I thought she would hide again but she did pretty good holding her ground and investigating Maxx. 

He's grown so much! Almost twice as big as Zoey now.

They still do pretty good together.  Maxx just wants to play, but makes Zoey a bit nervous because he is a little rough and hyper.  Although she has definitely established her dominance as queen bee in the house! I found them one day under the kitchen table with Maxx laying completely flat and every time he would try to sit up Z would smack him back down. I'm sure as he gets older and calmer they will get along even better. Hopefully...

Texas or bust

We were not excited to leave Michigan, but had to head home eventually.  

We checked out of the hotel, stopped at Rosie's for one last breakfast and headed home.

To Illinois!

Ok, so we really just stopped for about four hours at my parents house.  I still had a few things left there, and my parents had taken all of our wedding presents home, and we needed to pick up my cat!

Mom had picked up lunch from LaGondola.  I always miss having LaGondola near by, and Cody had never had it before.  For my out of state readers (Hi Belinda!) LaGondola is a local spaghetti and italian sub place.  We get their subs (gondolas): sweet bread, salami, ham, cheese and lettuce.  Simple but so good.

My Grandma, sister and nephews came over to visit one last time too!  The boys had been talking with Jamie about where I was moving too on the way over, and as soon as Owen walked in he climbed in my lap and told me "I need a mooch and a squeeze!" He doesn't like living 'far away' as he always puts it.

Pretty present from an art gallery/antique shop in  Colorado. Thanks Uncle Lowe!

We opened gifts, visited, and then got to work packing up the car.

22 bottles of wine (please don't break!), luggage for two weeks for two people, one cat, one litter box, and a gazillion wedding presents.  It was quite a squeeze but with a lot of help from Mom and Jamie we got it all to fit.

That was about the point we realized there was no way to get our luggage out and we'd be driving straight through.

O and E played in the car while we packed it up.

I was worried about how Zoey would handle the car ride.  She stresses out going to the vet 20 mins away.  

15 minutes into the drive and she was already out of her cage and snuggled down with Cody.
She did wonderfully.  Mostly chilled in her cage but would come out and sit on a lap and watch cars or snooze.  A big car transporter passing us did scare her though, which was pretty funny.

 Last glimpse of the Arch in St. Louis. Yeah, I had to look through that for a week!

Obviously the straight through ride to Texas was not super fun.  Both of our allergies went crazy, and we were both super tired, especially Cody since sleeping in my little car is not easy, but we made it.  We arrived in Texas the next morning, with all 22 bottles of wine intact!

Oh yeah, remember how Dad was all "Oklahoma is great!  You can drive through in the middle of the night and not see a single deer!"?  Not true.  They all waited for me to be the one driving through Oklahoma, in the middle of the night in the rain, to cross the road.

Honeymooning in Michigan: Leftovers

Cody thought this gas station/restaurant was funny.

We didn't eat here, but we did get gas.

We have a ton of pictures of me reading various things.  Not sure why....

Our 'wedding present' from McDonalds.  The lady in the drive up saw the car windows and was so excited for us.  The little boy toy was kinda like a bobble head, which was amusing, but wouldn't stay on the dashboard. 

My chill sleeve!  I had been looking for one once and finally found one that I liked at a winery we stopped at.  It's pretty cool, just freeze and then wrap around the bottle to chill your wine in 15 mins.  Works pretty well, and for extra coldness when we put the sleeve on we just pop the whole thing back in the freezer for good measure.  

Went for a bike ride, and stopped to swing.  

Lunch at Round Barn.  Pulled pork sandwich with tropical salsa, very good!

Enjoying Round Barn.

Just a warning, I am very awkward on video. 

I feel like I am always posting pictures of myself, but since Cody is our resident photographer he doesn't end up in a lot of pictures. We need to work on that!

I think that pretty much wraps up our trip to Michigan.  Next up, driving home to Texas!

Honeymooning in Michigan: St. Joseph

We had talked about driving to Kalamazoo for a day, but then we visited Lemon Creek Winery and chatted with a lady there about St. Joseph.  With the promise of beaches, a light house, museums, shops and food we decided to check it out.  A short 30 minute drive led us here: 

I LOVED this beach.  It was so pretty!

Look! That lighthouse we were looking for!  

We walked down this very long pier to check out the lighthouse.  I think we are about halfway down at this point in the picture.  It was crazy windy at the end, but really neat.  We also saw a bunch of guys fishing off the pier. 

We went into town and stopped at a museum.  They had an exhibit highlighting their local art fair from the year it started to present day.  30 years or so.  It was interesting to compare to the art fair I worked on, and see the difference in art displayed.  Although their exhibit labels needed some serious help.  Seriously.  

As we were walking down the main street of town, we got caught in a sudden rain storm.  It lasted about  10 mins and we got pretty wet but still were able to see the war memorials along the way.

World War II Memorial

Koren War Memorial

I don't remember what the cannon was memorializing. 

Pirates? Civil War?  I'm gonna go with pirates. 

We found a local pizza place that was really good for lunch.  Hanging outside was this guy:

It's a corn dog!

They had a few of these dog statues around town decorated differently.  Not sure why.  This one cracked me up!  I seriously could not stop laughing.  It's a dog...dressed up like corn...it's a corn dog bahahahaha!  Still pretty funny!

After lunch Cody surprised me by taking me to ride the carousel!  

I have always loved carousels, and this one was pretty awesome!

Why yes, that is a box of pizza shoved in my purse.

I made Cody ride the ostrich (after almost being attacked by one once, it seemed fitting) while I got the fire department horse, with a Dalmatian riding on it's back.

Then we found some circus fun 

I don't look to happy with my big forehead...

It was a pretty fun trip to St. Joseph.  We actually talked about staying there if we go back to Michigan, but decided we liked visiting St. Joseph and staying in the quieter New Buffalo. 

Honeymooning in Michigan: Out and About

One of the first days we went driving around to see what all was in the area.  We stumbled across Mt. Baldy National Park, just over the state line in Michigan City, Indiana.  We definitely wanted to check out the sand dunes and see if you can climb them like the ones in Colorado.

Do I look freakishly pale or what?  Hopefully Texas is changing that.

The sign basically explains how all of the visitors climbing this particularly area has destroyed the natural grasses that keep the sand dune in place.   With no grasses the dune is eroding and will cover the parking lot (where I am standing) in a few years time.

They did have a designated climb area though, so we trekked to the top.  It was pretty awesome.  Minus the nuclear plant like smoke stack in the distance.  That was just eerie, and was cropped out of the picture.  I wanted to climb down the other side of the dune and check out the beach, but Cody didn't think I would like the steep climb back up.

So we climbed down the dune the way we came, and I convinced him to take the path to the beach.  After all, it didn't have the strenuous warning sign the dune peak path had.  The main difference though was it was hot! More trees and at a lower altitude I guess. Still, the beach was pretty cool.  Literally. That water was freezing! Pretty much killed any idea of swimming while we were there. We were a month too early for good swimming water!  

We also spent a morning checking out all the little shops in town.  They didn't have a whole lot, but some were really neat, while others were your typical beach town touristy shops.

We also walked down to the little beach front not far from our hotel.  It was pretty nice, and definitely would have been handy location wise if it was nice enough to swim.  

Holding the drinks, while Cody snapped pictures.

We also walked around checking out all the vacation condos and ignoring signs saying things like "Owners only, no trespassing" so Cody could take pictures.

There was another sand dune National Park not far from the hotel in Michigan.  This one had more dunes and were larger than the first one we stopped at.  Unfortunately this day was quite chilly and rainy so we snapped some pictures, chased some seagulls (ya know to snap some more pictures) and called it a day.  Needless to say, our car was quite sandy on the way home!