This week has flown by!

Saturday, we had to work, so the weekend was extra short. More work on the house, some decisions made, which were as important as actually completing the jobs themselves. Kitchen arrangement and colors picked, found some awesome, inexpensive granite for counters, and most importantly, flooring picked!

Gene finished up the roof, he was so happy, and PROUD of the work. It does look so much better.

Picked up our flooring today, I'm going to just save what we're doing for pictures because it sounds dorky, but will look awesome when done.



Tanner is quite the little business man. When you are 12, there aren't many other employment options, so his step-brother and him have a little lemonade/sno-cone business. I came home to this sign in my front yard. Extra cute.

The sun setting from our new back yard Sunday night. The finish to our weekend. Looking forward to seeing that out my back door on a regular basis!

Not making my posts by sundays, but I AM making them once a week. You gotta gimme that!

Some more shots from Amber's wedding

I know I need to share some other photos, but I took soooo many, and I love these and wanted to share.

All the photos are edited (well, except about 10 that I noticed as I was looking for these. I seriously could spend 40 hours on just editing photos!

Some flowers from that day at the golf course.

Dad and Amber's hands. I actually cropped this from another picture, as I was resizing it, I happened to catch this view and I think it's one of those little details that tells the story of the day instead of just documenting who was there.

For some reason, this is my favorite shot of the guest. The girls are Amber's bosses that own the salon where she works. The cowboy's real name is Rowdy!

Sweet.

I won't tell you his last name so you won't go stalking him, but let's just say, his parents gave him no choice to be a real cowboy. LOL. Gene regularly wears a hat (a nice stetson at that), and looks good. But I saw Rowdy, looked at Gene and said "That dear, is a real cowboy."

No offense honey.

Little turd.

LOL. That's Rowdy's baby girl, Dally (little cowgirl), stomping on Amber's dress. Very cute and Amber didn't blink a wink. She also smacked Amber during the wedding LOL. No one got worked up a bit. Life is good.... NO BRIDEZILLAS!

This was Amber's shot. She'd seen it done before and it turned out really cute. Cole is a golfer and I'm sure he appreciates the critique.

Jump!

We did this three times and everyone played along well and didn't worry about their hair. sweet. Pre- wedding too. Everyone was totally cool with whatever I poked them to do. LOL.

The maidtron of honor (far right) is my older little sister Torrie. Torrie and Amber grew up together a dozen years behind the rest of us. Just when Torrie thought she had all the attention. BAM. Along came Amber.

Touche' Torrie. How's it feel? (I was the baby of the first 3) LOL.

JUST KIDDING.

(?? maybe ??) ;)

Road trip!

Another post.. in one day. Some quickie pics from a mini trip Gene and I made to Hannibal, MO over fourth of July. We took off a couple days from work and just wanted to be away from here on the fourth.

Here is a pic of the steamboat that we took a 1 hour cruise on. Kinda neat - pretty hot!

Gene took this reasonably acceptable photo of me. Pretty good shot if you ask me, hard to take a bad picture with this camera. Mine is silver tho.

Went to some antique stores. Decided to take pictures of things instead of buying things. Isn't that refreshing? I did buy an uber cute clock (actually gene did for me) red, with cherries... very 40's/50's for my scrqapbook room.

Love this shot of Gene from above.

Love this dress form ala Donna Downey. (Donna you are at the top of my blog visit list every day).

My beautiful little sister is harassing me for her wedding photos. You'd think she'd got married or something. SHEESH. :) So going back to editing those, but wanted to get in my at least once a week post.

Amber... I know you're reading this with baited breath. Gimme 2 days! Love ya!

Discovering New Families - new friends

Being in a relationship has other benefits outside of just having a companion.

When I divorced a few years ago, part of my sadness was not just the loss at the chance of a working relationship, but also of a family that I had aquired by marriage. Sure, we are polite to each other because my children are their nephews, grandsons, and cousins, but it's not like it was.

So now that I meeting Gene's friends and family, I'm gaining lots of new people in my life. Gene has 2 brothers that are so sweet, both with wonderful wives. One niece and a another niece or nephew on the way!! There's children and beautiful grandchildren (trust me, you'll see pictures eventually) not to mention an awesome mom and dad. Dozens of people I didn't even know a year ago now slowly are becoming my family too.
In that fold, you have to include friends.

Bobby is one of Gene's closest friends since the FOURTH grade. How many people have one of those? Bobby beat up Gene. Gene beat up Bobby and they've been good friend ever since. (I will never understand men). Well, I've met Bobby a few times, never spent a huge amount of time with him until this past weekend. This guy, came all the way up here, just to help put a roof on the new house! No charge. wow. It was so hot, and it sucked SO BAD and I wasn't even on the hot, shingled roof. That's a true friend. No charge (well, except for some beer and a t-bone steak).

In the process I also found out what a funny, talented and nice guy he is. He's a keeper. Bobby is in a band (kinda by accident). Lead vocals. Not bad for an old guy.... LOL. JK JK!!

Roof is pretty much done (small bits and bats), Gene knows how to roof and it looks great. I hope we haven't used up the "good friend token" for life! LOL

Some pics of the guys roofing. Kind of darks but I've not mastered how to force the flash on my new camera yet!


I grew up in rural Iowa, but it's been a while since wildlife was within eyeshot of my front door (if you don't include stray cats and bunny rabbits). The FIRST day we went to look at the house we saw wild turkeys. Big selling point. This weekend, in the same spot, I saw NINE wild turkeys and just beyond them, in the same spot... two deer. Me? um, no camera. I was pissed.

Next day, I'm driving along, mid-day and thinking how it was too hot and no deer are out at midday grazing. Turn my head to the right and there's one 10 feet from the road! I did a U-turn and by the time I got back, she was taking off for the woods but not til I got a nice butt shot.

On a side note, I had never seen a wild turkey until last summer. For real... *never*. Weird for around here. Either they weren't around or I didn't know what I was looking for. Probably a bit of both!

July already?

I didn't mention, but ... I bought a house! It's been a long process, most of which would have been me complaining if I'd have started this blog earlier.

Essentially, we found a great deal, thanks to Torrie and Darrell on a HUD repo. It's a Manufactured home on 2 acres in the country, just north of Maryville. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, and needs tons of TLC but it has soo much potential.

I'm really looking forward to seeing it improve - even if just a little at at time. The person that put this on the property, was just looking to save money, have a place to live and was not thinking about the "value" of the home, so there is a lot of improvements that need to be done.

Yesterday we removed all the popcorn ceilings from the kitchen, dining room and living room. Not a terribly hard job, but very messy. Wet "popcorn" sounds like a soft rain when it hits the floor LOL. We also ripped out all the carpet in the same said rooms - they will be replaced with new wood flooring - or laminate, we've not decided yet.

Not a lot of pictures to share this week, but love this pic of Gene after we are done for the day. He's covered in dust. Tanner is helping rip down all the trim between each "panel" of drywall/wallpaper CRAP.

I'm still editing Amber's wedding photos, I intend to be done by this weekend so I'll probably post a few more favorites as I go!