Home from Charlotte

We are back home from our Charlotte weekend with The Cupp Clan and we had a blast. It is so quiet in our house and Richie and I are just staring at each other with nothing to do. Friday night, we has a wonderful time at John's 40th Surprise party. It was at a bbq restaurant and the food was great. The decoration were awesome and the cake was the best part. (We continued to eat the cake for the rest of the weekend.) I think John was surprised for the most part. I think he recognized some of the cars in the parking lot. He just has no idea who else was inside. We sang karaoke and just had a fun and crazy time. We went back to the house and hung out some more. The girls were already asleep, so I had to wait until the morning to see them. Although, Kathryn did come downstairs for a second, but I think she was partly sleepwalking. Haha. We hung out with the girls in the morning and decided to venture to IHOP in the rain. Rain would never get in the way of PANCAKES.... MC and I bonded that morning while putting on make-up, so we were buds all day long. Potty breaks included. Later that night, we cooked out on the grill. Yesterday, we got up, played with girls, visited with John and Leah, went to lunch and got on the road. It was a fun packed weekend and need to do it again sometime soon.

Pic: I wasn't initially in the picture, just jumped in. Looks silly because everyone else is positioned. Still think the pic of Richie and the girls is adorable.

Charlotte Bound

We are going to Charlotte this weekend for our friend John's surprise 40th birthday party! Richie and I are so excited. We have not seen The Cupp Clan in forever. John, of course, has no idea we are coming and that we are staying the weekend. We haven't been down to Charlotte in a couple years so it will be so nice to see everyone. The girls are 5 1/2 and 2 1/2 and loads of fun. I can't wait to see them. Gotta go pack for our weekend getaway!

Garage Work Con't

Since Richie built this nice storage loft above the garage door, we also decided to finish the drywall in the garage. When we have people over to the house we usually wind up hanging out in the garage. I never noticed how crappy our walls looked until I took pictures of people and the background looked horrible.

When the built our house almost 9 years ago they did not finish the drywall in the garage. Evidently, they are only required by code to finish the walls that connect to inside walls of the house. They wanted to charge us an outrageous amount of money to finish it completely. Back then, we thought we would do it and it would cost less if we did it ourselves. Boy, do I wish we just sucked it up and paid them. It was a lot of work. We spent a lot of time on ladders, mudding, sanding, taping and more sanding. Then we primed and painted the whole thing. Richie also added cabinets in the corner for more storage. Now that it is done, we are very happy with it.

This is the loft built above of garage door. It is about 20' in length, 8'depth and 3 1/2' in height. Lots of wasted space that we can now use for storage. YAY!
This is the garage finished with wet paint (that's why it is so shiny). I should take another picture minus the tarps.

Me Time

I just returned from a 4 day/3 night work conference. I was about an hour and half away from home and the conference itself went really well. The conference was for people all over our state and I was the only one from on county going. I did not know a soul. Most if the day we were in classes, but that was not the fun part. I had a hotel room by myself the entire time. It was great! I don't think I have ever in my life spent any time away from home by myself. At first, I thought about bringing Richie, but he had to work. Then I thought about taking my Mom, but after seeing my schedule I didn't think it would be worth it. I went to class and went back to my room, checked emails, ordered food and just did whatever I wanted! Bonus: my bed was made for me, the room was cleaned and fresh towels were placed in the bathroom. I realized that although this trip was work related, it felt more like a mini vacation. Now, that I am home and back to reality- I am off to do laundry! :-)

Happy Birthday.

Today is Richie's birthday. He has never been one to celebrate his birthday, so it will be a very low key day. My Mom is coming over and the 3 of us are having dinner. Then we are meeting some friends some out at a bar and grill. I still love celebrating my birthday- actually my birthday month. It reminds me of being a child and getting all exciting about birthday parties, cakes and being with friends and family. Even though, I get older those feelings are still there. Richie just lets the day pass like any other day. It drives me nuts and on the flip side, I think I drive him nuts for trying to plan something for his birthday. Oh well. Happy Birthday, Richie!

Projects

Richie is working on about 4 different projects right now. Although, he will finish them all, I don't understand why he is not finishing one before moving on to another. Right now, he is putting plywood down in our storage areas in the attic, working on a friend's motorcycle, remodeling his tool area in the garage and also building a storage loft in the garage. In between all this madness, my Mom will be moving into our house. We decided that my mom is going to come and stay with us for awhile, maybe a year or two. She is going to rent her house and save money. Since the economy is still not great, this will be the best option for her and also us in the long run. After we decided that this is what we are going to do, the projects began. Richie is adding all kinds of storage to our house. This will be great when he is done, but the process is such a pain. I have started cleaning and condensing closets to make more room also. We will see how it goes.