Valentine's Day...not excatly typical

Although not a typical v-day this year, it was a great one. It all started with Silas planning a hunting trip for the weekend of February 14th. Being the amazing wife I am, I did not get upset, but I did use his trip as leverage to get him to take me to the melting pot for our v-day celebration :) Who really wants to fight the crowds and go out to eat on valentines day anyway. (OK, so I'm sure he would have taken me wherever I wanted to go, but it felt like I got my way when I think about it that way...)A few days before the 14th Debra asked me what I was doing and suggested that since both of our hubbies would be MIA (hers was working), that it might be fun to invite our friend Chris to have dinner with us.

*Chris has refused to be pictured in my blog...I had to remove the picture I had of him or else he would never talk to me again* haha....I will get another one one day!!!

Chris is a friend we met several years ago. He lived across from us in our apartment complex. He befriended us three girls (Debra, Alicia and I) and pretty much got us through college, providing us home cooked meals, movies, groceries and company. He has turned out to be a great friend that all of us girls are thankful to know. So, we suggested dinner and decided to have it at my house. Of course, he insisted on cooking for us since it has been so long since he has cooked us a meal. Alicia has married and moved to Hawaii :( so her "replacement" was Shama, (Caleb is with Silas hunting). (<--He even made the plates all pretty and presentable) Chris has a tendency to cook way too much food (but we weren't complainin'!!!) It was soooo yummy. We had so much food we started callin' around to see if anyone else was lonely on v-day and needed some food...Kathy came over and joined the fun. (<---Kathy and Gavin) Chris served us steak with baked potatoes and asparagus, king crab legs, and a Thai dish...yes 3 full meals....(and salad, although i skipped that part).

<---The crab legs were my favorite part...

I made the desert, cookies and blackberry cobbler (no picture, guess it wasn't that impressive...). Chris also rented some movies, a bunch of chick flicks for us to watch. All in all it was a lot of fun and a great way to spent the day if you cant be with your man....

<---my substitute man :)

Chris even got us girls gifts! All I can say is that I hope he finds himself a worthy wife soon and whoever she is, is one lucky girl.....

Thanks Chris for the wonderful evening, even Silas said it sounded like it was almost worth stayin home for... :)

P.S. We missed you Alicia sooo much!!!

The Never Ending Projects of a Homeowner

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 2008 was an amazing year for Silas and I. One of the most exciting things is that we bought our first house. After the longest search EVER, we found the perfect home (for us anyway). It was a foreclosure, but in really great condition, just needing some MAJOR updating! I had a ton of pictures from before and after we did minor improvements, like painting, but that camera is MIA....so I'm starting over with my new camera. We have a lot of major projects to do, so hopefully you will be reading and seeing the progress. It may take us several years to actually make it through the list of things we want to do, so hope I have some faithful followers :) The first project I'm posting is not really the first project done and is still sort of in the works, but Silas really wants me to post it and then I will backtrack to some early stuff...enjoy!

The Shed...(halfway completed)



This is the old, original shed that was already in our backyard when we bought the house.



The framework for the new shed...



The roof...

Pouring the concrete...

The slab...

The completed picture so far...
To get it to this point we have been working on it for about 4 months now. To complicate things all of our pool equipment needed to be moved and re-plumbed so that it could be located inside the shed...

The clean-up crew...

So, we still need some walls, a door, and maybe a window, but that all takes money :) Hope to be completing this project in the next month or so...

Christmas Time

Here is my attempt to decorate our house for the Christmas Season...

Oh Christmas tree...so glad that its December and we actually have something in the dinning room since we lack a table...

Mini-Murdock...(special thanks to Debra and Robbie!)




Christmas dinner/family photo day...

We have already had three Christmas dinners and it is only December 16!!! I have to say I feel so blessed to have such a great family. I'm am especially blessed to feel so close to my husband's family, not only his mom and dad but his siblings, cousins, and grandparents...how did I get so lucky??? Merry Christmas!

The Girls Vacation

Every year Silas takes a hunting trip to Kentucky and usually his dad and brothers go with him. This is their tradition and what they do for thanksgiving. The girls in the family decided to make our own tradition and this is the second year we have taken a trip while they are gone.

Kathy (my mother-in-law), Shama and Cora (sisters-in-law), Gavin (nephew) and Kimber ("aunt") all went to Captiva Island. We stayed at the Southseas Resort. It was so fun and relaxing. We had a condo right on the ocean. We went shopping, laid on the beach and ate...ALOT!

Before going to Captiva, Kathy, Shama, Gavin and I went to Orlando, just to pass some time before everyone else could meet us, and since it is our men who are gone hunting...

We didn't visit any parks while we were there, but we did visit all the outlet malls :) We visited some of the Disney resorts. We ate dinner at the Wilderness Resort. That was really fun, it would be especially great if you have kids, its very loud and entertaining...

Gavin's first trip to Disney!! (well...he got the button but we didn't really go to the park)


We ate in downtown Disney at the Rainforest Cafe. We walked around that night, it was freezing and I definitely did not pack a heavy enough coat, but we got some hot chocolate and explored Lego land before leaving. This is a Lego Santa built out of the tiny Lego's!

Here we are outside of Disney on our way to the Wilderness Lodge. If I could ever afford to stay there I would, but I don't see that being in the near future. It was amazing. Somehow you know you are at Disney but feel like you are staying in the middle of the woods in a beautiful cabin. The restaurant was Disney inspired for sure. The whole dinner was a big production. As soon as you walk in you are involved with the whole dinning room. The waiter had us yelling "yeehaw" and our neighboring table judged if it was good enough or not...at several points throughout the meal all the kids were invited to ride wooden ponies around the restaurant, and if you wanted ketchup it was announced to the whole place and you received every bottle of ketchup that was available. We also had to stop eating a couple times to stand up and dance...Then it was on to Captiva.

This was the third time I have visited Captiva. It is a small island and doesn't have much to do besides the beach, shopping, and eating. It was perfect for us girls just to relax for the weekend. They are famous for their gorgeous sunsets. The white beaches and blue water are relaxing, unless getting attack by the sea gulls...

The birds at this resort are not at all scared of people. We all decided since the weather was so nice we would take our lunch to the beach to eat. We all sat down on the lounge chairs and I happen to put my plate on my stomach. All of a sudden a bird swoops down and grabs some chips off my plate! This startled me and I jumped up and tried to run under the umbrella. Shama jumped up to shoo them away and Cora followed me. Well, by now there are probably 15 birds looking for our lunch and we have attracted the attention of the whole beach. Shama shooing them did not scare them, I think it motivated them and another one swooped down and took half of my sandwich from my plate that I was holding under them umbrella!! This ruined my lunch and I have a new hatred for these birds...I wish we had a video of this because judging from the reaction of the people observing us...we could have won some serious money from America's Funniest Home Video....

Shuttle Launch

As long as I have lived in Florida I can not remember ever going to watch a shuttle launch. While Silas was in Kentucky this year this is one of the things I did to keep myself busy.

Lift off...

My shuttle watchin' buddy...

Meet Murdock

His tail use to be so much longer...those pictures are on my camera that was lost/stolen, so these awful pictures will have to do until I replace it.

Murdock. He's the neighborhood peacock. Who knew when we moved in we wouldn't need a dog or cat, we would have a bird! Murdock belongs to a neighbor down the street. This neighbor decided they wanted peacocks for their yard. The peacocks decided they really did not want to stay in his yard. This is the only one left and he wanders the neighborhood looking for bread. I have seen him in both of my adjacent neighbors front and back yards and even on their cars...good thing my car is always parked in the garage! When we moved in Silas was so excited about the "wildlife" he was determined to get it to eat out of his hands. SO, every time the bird was spotted in our backyard we got out the bread. And of course he learned that our yard was the goldmine...

We trained him so well that not only does he eat from our hands but he comes to the door of our bedroom and pecks on the glass in the morning. He also will walk right up to the sliding glass doors in the living room and press his eye up to it and look in to see if anyone is gettin' him something to eat! Its a little weird, but also entertaining.

He has even contributed to the decor of our house :)

The feathers are so long and have such beautiful colors, one day I walked outside and they were laying all over the backyard. I was so excited, I guess the bread paid off...

Romance Gone Wrong...

Last night Silas tried to create a relaxing and romance filled evening. It was so sweet and what made me appreciate it even more was that nothing he did for me turned out right...but he kept on trying!! Here's how it began. I got home from my third 12 hour shift this week and when I walked in the door he told me I had a bubble bath waiting if I felt like it. And of course a bath sounded wonderful! In the bathroom it was dark with just a few candles lit...so relaxing. The jacuzzi tub we have is pretty deep, so I stepped right in and found that the water was scalding! Poor guy walked into me standing on the outside of the tub letting water out while I was filling it with some cold water. I assured him it was ok, and it did eventually feel really great to just sit and soak. His next thing was that he was going to make me dinner, whatever I wanted. Lucky for him I wanted a frozen pizza and a salad. This week we have had salad to go with every meal. I got some salad toppers to make things easier and tastier. The one I asked for was cranberries and pecans with raspberry dressing. He came back in with my salad and I took a big bite....of sun dried tomato basil cheddar cheese, spicy chicken and almonds...with raspberry dressing. Not exactly what I was expecting. He saw my face and knew that something wasn't right. Apparently he saw two bags of salad toppers and didn't read what they were so he just put both on my salad. So, back to the kitchen he went to make me the salad I wanted (he was happy to eat the first one). For the next 20 minutes I soaked in the tub ate a little salad and told my husband about my day at work. This was great, and then the timer for the pizza went off so he walked out of the bathroom to go get it. As he was passing the shelves to the left of our bathroom door, the glass bowl, filled with rocks and candles came tumbling off the shelves and shattered on the tile floor, sending rocks, glass and wax everywhere. For the last few minutes of my relaxing evening I watched him scrub the floor!! Poor guy, it didn't seem to bother him though, and I felt so special, which was his whole goal in the first place. So I guess the romance didn't go so wrong.