New Deck Door

We ordered a new deck door that goes out off our dinning room back at the beginning of April.  It came in a week and a half ago and we spent an entire Saturday installing it.  Anytime we start a new project in this house we get nervous because it is always like opening a can of worms.  We never know what we are getting into and what obstacles we will be tackling.  Amazingly though, we didn't run into anything too bad.  We did find some rot under the old door and we had to build it up with some new wood under the base of the door.  It looks so nice compared to what was originally there.  The old door was so far gone that we had to seal it every year with old towels, duct tape and a plastic sheet placed around it.  We had about an inch gap in the bottom of the door that was completely open and was always blowing in cold air and pine needles from trees and sometimes rain.  We held it off as long as we could but we finally did it.  Doors are not cheap anymore, I will tell you that!  We had some pretty good size thunder showers blow through here over the past week and amazingly the door did not leak.  We are so proud that we survived another project in the house.  We still have molding to do around the door on the inside and out and we have to replace some of the siding on the house outside around the door.  The new door really gives some new character to the house.

Here are some before and after photos!  Tell us what you think!

Old Door

Look at the rot!

Look at my Stud! :)

Meg

Inside View of New Door

Outside View of New Door

Meagan holding Zoey

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Meg's Boyfriend "Gary"

We also added some stones for a little walkway on the side of our house.

Semi-Formal Dance

Elizabeth had her Semi-Formal Dance at school this past Friday.  She was asked to go to the dance with a boy Casey that has had a crush on her since 3rd grade.  She said she would go with him as friends.  We have a rule in our house that they can’t have a boyfriend till the 8^th grade.  Meagan did her hair and she got herself all pretty to go with one of her best friends Izzy.  When she arrived at the school to meet Casey he gave her a wrist corsage of a white rose to wear.  She still has it in the fridge.  Oh to be young again….

She had also sprained her ankle 2 days before and was using crutches.  She tried going without them but we got a call half way through that she needed them.

Overall she had a great time and got to dance her first slow dance to needless to say “Stairway to Heaven”.  I can’t believe that they are playing what we used to have as our last song to dances back many years ago.  I guess the tradition continues….

Update

It’s been a while since we last posted.  Things have been really busy around here and by the time night rolls around we are too tired to write anything. 

Here's a re-cap of some of the things going on around here.

My Mother’s Day was spent with breakfast being served in bed followed by cards from the kids.  I also had entertainment from Emily and Danni with them singing and dancing.  They were great!

Later, Timmy and I went down to our local feeds and needs store to purchase our vegetable plants for our garden.  We bought Green Peppers, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Squash, Pumpkin, Eggplant, Strawberries, and a wide variety of hot pepper plants that Timmy loves to grow.  He gets tons of these and we dry them out and he crushes them up to use in his dishes.  I don’t use them they are too hot for me! 

We later finished the day with a nice cookout with burgers and hot dogs.  My good friend Lisa came with her two girls to join us for dinner.  The weather has been really nice lately on the weekends.

We started planting our garden in shifts.  We put some of our plants in some pots on our deck to grow.  I hope they do well. 

We also made a second raised bed in our yard to hold more plants this year.  I just hope that we have a good growing season this year with the weather.  We get really excited when everything starts to grow.

The kids have been busy with school and field trips.  They are winding down to only 19 more school days.  We’ve been attending music concerts for chorus and band with Abbie, Elizabeth and Emily in them. 

I managed to squeeze in 16 hours at The Scholastic Book Warehouse that puts on 2 huge book sales each year.  I love working here at these sales; they are a lot of fun and the people that actually work there are really nice. I’ve been doing this for the past 3-4 years.  They give you vouchers of $10 in books for every hour.  They usually give you special projects to do like putting books back on the shelves to packing books to head out or just getting things ready for the sale that is open to the public.  I  got $160 to spend plus I had a coupon for $25 off a purchase of over a hundred.  Mind you that most of the books are already half off with others that at 25% off.  I came home with 2 big boxes filled with books for myself and a bunch that I’m putting away for Christmas.  I think I have most of the books that they carry now. J  I love getting the cookbooks.  I will be definitely helping them again in December at the next one. 

I will be trying to do more posts this week with some of the other things that we have been up to.  This is the first week that I'm actually going to be spending time in the house to get things done. 

Rainy weekend

We had such a rainy week last week with a few days over the weekend of beautiful weather and now it’s back to rain again for the next 3 days…Ugh…  I know that we need it and everything is looking greener but I wish it would spread out a little more than many constant gloomy days in a row.  It sure makes you not want to move and get things done.  Lazy, Lazy....

We spent part of Saturday moving things around in the barn to make room for all of Meagan’s stuff.  She moved back home last Thursday from college with a car filled with all her stuff.  We’re surprised that the car didn’t pop when she arrived.

We gave our lawn its first haircut of the season.  We also can’t wait to start planting our garden.  We still have to decide what we want to plant this year so we can make a list.  We are working on making our second raised garden bed this year.  We ran out of screws for it (mis-counted we did) so we will hopefully finish it this weekend if the weather agrees.  We will post more on this and pictures when it does happen. 

 We celebrated Elizabeth’s 13^th Birthday on Sunday with a meal of her choice.  She chose for us to make her crepes.  For those who don’t know what crepes are it is a French Pancake.  The kids love when we make these.  It usually takes us about an hour and a half to make them for the huge amount we need to do for all of us.   By the time all was said and done there were only about 5 left on the plate. We ended our dinner with a yummy cake for dessert.

Here is Brittany at one of her track meets. 

How did you spend your weekend?



Happy 13th Birthday Elizabeth!

Happy 13th Birthday to our daughter Elizabeth.  We cannot believe that you are 13 today.  Where has the time gone?  You are turning into a very beautiful young lady.  We love you!!!