murdock update

Apparently we have reached peacock mating season. The peacocks have become increasingly noisy around our house the last week or so and on Saturday morning Silas was up pretty early to try to finish up the shed project. He snapped some pictures while he was out there of the peacocks...apparently the Murdock we have been seeing is actually two birds...here they both are. We were trying to figure out if one was a female and one a male or if they are both males.


So either this guy is in love or he's chasing the smaller one away...

Either way, it was pretty cool to have this in our backyard. He is HUGE...about as big as the saw grass bushes...maybe we will get another chance to see him and take some pictures without the sun behind him.

Wedding Portrait

Way before I was even thinking of getting married I had an idea that has stuck with me about what I wanted to do with a wedding photo of mine. I think I saw it in a magazine and just really like it and kept it in the back of my head. After we were married and I looked through the photographs that our photographer took I fell in love with this one he took of us walking up the boardwalk. I'm not sure why I liked it so much since it didn't have our faces, but it was just a neat picture and it had the back of my dress and my veil in it, not a posed portrait. I decided that this was the picture I wanted to use for my idea. So, for christmas Santa got me a 20x30 print made!! haha...I also kinda thought that it was more artistic and that we would use it for a long time. Then I found a calligrapher who would write the date of our wedding on the mat board (there is no way I would even attempt to do it myself). I found http://http//www.calligraphybycami.com, she was great, if anyone ever needs something done, she also has a lot of cool ideas on her website. And here is the finished product!!

This is going to hang over our bed whenever we remodel our bedroom. It will go great I hope since our colors will be blue and brown, this picture is black and white but is warm tones so the mat board I chose were tan and chocolate brown and a dark brown frame which goes with our bedroom furniture. Sorry the pictures aren't better but I could not get good lighting no matter what I did, maybe I will try again later and post a different picture.

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...