Hasta la vista, baby!

For the most part, it's always a joy when I come home and John(who gets home an hour before I do) has done something exciting with the house. One day, it's replacing the toilet seats, the next, it's ripping up the carpet in the master bedroom. For those of you who have wanted to do this before, here are a few pics to help inspire you:

Make sure you use the right tools. Our carpet was the original from when the house was built(about 11 years old), therefore it was (and still is) quite dusty and dirty. These three guys are essential.

Ripping up the carpet is the easy part(especially if you're a muscle man like mine is)

Little tip: make sure that you know where the local dump is, or whether your regular trash guys will pick it up or not. Thankfully, getting rid of ours was easy, but we didn't think about that ahead of time, and it did have to sit in our garage for a day or so(not a pleasant smell).
This is the hard part, which I will have to get John to share more tips with you since I wasn't there for it. Isn't he amazing? This is no small room we're talking about. And, If you have back problems, I don't think I'd recommend this for you to try.

And this is our new carpet & smell-free room. See all the grey? Yea, that's leftover dirt. Super gross. We highly recommend a shop vac. Ours is a 9-gallon Ridgid, which you can find locally at Home Depot(or Craigslist, as we did) . Those things are amazing!

Now, here's the thing. After ripping out that carpet, and realizing what a big mess it makes, how you are the one who has to haul it away(unless you have teenagers or someone who owes you a favor), and how you can't really live in the room unless you replace it, we know that we've got to have a better plan for ripping up the rest of the carpet AND living here at the same time.

Thankfully, due to the smell of that room(tip: don't smoke, especially not inside your bedroom), we are already bunking in what will one day be the office, so this really isn't a problem for us right now. However, if you're thinking about doing this, make sure that you have your plan B ready to go in case you're not able to put carpet down right away.

Due to the bad shape of the carpet throughout our whole house, we are planning on ripping it all up(yikes!) after we finish painting all of the carpeted rooms/hallways. So, it's going to be a while. But, our goal is to let Lowe's install it for us when the time comes. They seem to be offering a great deal right now to install carpet in all of your house for only $97 buckeroos. Sweet! Now, obviously there are a few things to note here: 1)You have to buy both the carpet AND the padding from Lowe's 2) You have to have EVERYTHING moved out of the room, including all of the carpet, ahead of time. They'll charge extra if they have to do anything except install. 3) Beware if you have stairs. They charge extra for that, too. 4) ...not sure yet. I'll get back to you once we do some more investigating.

So, that's the latest for now.

Adios!

Backstreet's Back...alright!

Just got back home from a fun weekend in N. Wilkesboro with John's family. We forgot our camera, but still had a great time. Laura and I got roasted by their little brother Daniel and Gran in Trouble, a game which all of my life I have gotten flattened by my own grandmother and little sister. Even now that I'm older, nothing has changed. The entertainer of the weekend was definitely cute little Camille, who is definitely one of the cutest and most well-behaved babies in the world. No one could get enough of her, especially in her little swim suit. So cute!

And tonight...all you ladies who grew up in the late 90's/early 2000's are going to be sooo jealous:
Natalie and I are going to see the Backstreet Boys!
Yes, they are still a band. All 4 guys who make up the band are original members. And we were thrilled when our radio station announced that they were bringing their tour here(who knew!). They are coming to the brand new Raleigh amphitheater tonight at 7pm, and we are so psyched! Don't worry, we got permission from our sweet husbands who I think are just thankful that we didn't ask them to come with us :)

I am definitely planning on bringing my camera for this once in a lifetime event. T-minus 4 hours...

Oh, and John "on the ball" McNeill ripped out the nasty, musty smelling carpet on Thursday afternoon. He's so great at jumping on the "to-do" list and getting it done pronto. I'll be sharing some pictures and some of his tips in case you may be planning to rip up your own old carpet anytime soon.

Later taters!

And so it begins...

So, we're in the house and things are going well. We still have all the colors of the rainbow going on in each room, but we're slowly getting around to changing everything to be the way we want it. It's going to take time and a lot of patience and elbow grease, but overall the chaos has lessened a small degree, which is enough to help our sanity.

Room numero uno:
The Bonus room

This "lovely", bright, overwhelming orange has
seen its last day. We're just about ready to
starting priming this giant citrus fruit, which
we decided to start in first to work out the
kinks in our painting skills. As you can see,
we're just about ready to go!

This baseboard pic is just an example of the current
horrible paint job that is displayed over our house. More pictures will come as the room continues its
slow makeover. Who knew how tiring even thinking
about painting a whole house can be. But, I have
been encouraged and inspired by Sherry and John
and all of their great tips and designs. The "how-to"
section has already come in handy, and we've only
been here a little over a week. :)

A big thanks to our friends Mowgli and Becky, and my brother Jeremy
for coming to visit and help out this weekend. John and Mowgli,
among many other things, added a light for my sake
inside the garage so I didn't get creeped out or stumble over our
many boxes which are currently lying in the floor.

Finally, my favorite upgrade/new addition to our
house: a toilet seat! I know it may not seem like
that big of deal to you, however if you could feel
these nasty things, you would certainly be grossed
out by the roughness and certain exfoliation it
brings. 1 down, 2 to go! We're testing this one
out before we buy the rest of them, but so far
so good: only $13 and some change at Home Depot.

This is actually the current seat in the upstairs
bathroom. The guys tossed the other old nasty one
out the door before I had a chance to get a "before" pic.
And this is the new seat! It's so clean and bright
and isn't looking like a camouflage failure with the floor.
And that's just one little way we're sprucing up the place!

Until later... :)

New Garner Residents

Today, John and I bought are first house:

We signed all the papers and got the keys today!
And, we start the moving in process tomorrow,
which we're not too thrilled about moving all
of those boxes again! Oh well

My sweet parents and sister Meredith are
coming up tomorrow to help us clean before we
start moving stuff in on Saturday. My family is
so sweet to do this for us, especially since we'll
both be at work for most of the day. More
pictures to come, and of our 1 year anniversary
excursion, but I discovered the other day that the
camera cord is packed away so it'll have to wait.

This house is such a gift from the Lord. We're so excited!


(This picture might be a little fuzzy, but I'm not sure why)

One Year

So this Sunday marks our 1 year anniversary of marriage.

We're so excited to celebrate this weekend, and we're so thankful to the Lord for His blessing and grace to us this first year.

Pictures to come after the weekend...at least I hope(we're not the greatest at remembering to take pictures, but since this is a pretty important weekend, we're going to try really hard!)

It's been a while...

After a much trying week, I've got to share how I am sooo thankful for health insurance. It's not easy to have it, especially when you're paying for it on your own, but it's worth every penny when you have to go to the emergency room. I had a minor incident a few weeks ago and had to go, and let me tell you...the amount the hospital charges for you being there plus the physician's separate services fee(who knew!) on top of other things is CRAZY! However, thanks to Blue Cross and the kind gentleman that I spoke with today who explained how all this works, John and I will only end up paying the $150 copay for all of the emergency room/physician expenses. Incredible! The Lord is continuing to show us just how He is our provider; even when we doubt He is so faithful and loving to us. We're so thankful!

So, I just had to start off the post with that bit of good news.

Now...here are a few pics that I've had the best intentions to put up, but just never have.

A little bit of Christmas...

John's dad, Rick

Me "trying" out the new bow

My funny parents

Jere with his new pole

Meredith with her new Christmas sweater

Little Holly didn't get anything but a pretty bow on her head

And John with his favorite after Christmas purchase :)

Aunt J and Mama P while waiting to meet Camille(from Nov)

Carly and Matt are now proud parents of beautiful little Nora Conley!
(game was in October)

Grandma Dee

So, it has been a while since I last updated you all on our latest adventures. I was actually going to post a bunch of pictures and give a little update on some fun things that we had been up to over the holidays, however right before I finished the post, my dad called me to let me know that my beloved grandmother, Cynthia "Dee" Wells, had passed away.
She had gotten sick shortly after Christmas with pneumonia, and never recovered from it. Thankfully we had three weeks with her, and during that time she surrendered her life to Christ. It has been amazing to see how God's great mercy and grace extended to us through Christ even until our very last breath.

My grandmother's life was full of many hard and painful events, but also through that, I have seen the grace and mercy of Christ displayed immensely. My mother and her three siblings loved my grandmother and served her with a selflessness that was only found in Christ, and I saw displayed through them how to really honor your parents.

My grandmother was a very unique woman who loved her family immensely, who wasn't afraid to ever speak her mind, was fiesty, and who was smarter than I even knew. I wish that I had had more time with her while she was still healthy, but I am grateful for the memories that I do have and some of the fun and crazy times spent with her. I am also greatful for her sacfices that she made for my mother, and me and my siblings all of our lives. She loved us so much, even if sometimes she got tired of us ;-)

So, here are a few pictures of my Grandma Dee. Wish you could have known her.