Project Complete!

One project started. One project completed! All 146 tiles cut, laid and grouted. It feels so nice to have accomplished laying the tile in my sunroom. With the help of my dad and mom I was able to undertake this project. Last Friday I left work a bit early and came home to find that my parents had started laying the tile and they were about half way done. So I just jumped in and started helping. We got to the end we ended up being two tile short so a field trip to Lowes. The next morning we the did the grout for the tile. Once that had started to dry we then cleaned the tile and finished letting it all dry.
It is so nice to have a beautifully finished floor in my sunroom and is such a dramatic change from the plywood that was there before. Now I am so anxious to start decorating it and making it a relaxing reading and plant room.
Thanks mom and dad for all your help!

My First Project

I am undertaking my first project on my house without hiring someone else to do it for me (I had someone paint the inside of my house and refinish the wood floors). What do you ask am I going to undertake? Well the floor in my sun room now is a 'wonderful' plywood so I am going to tile the floor.

I am so excited to start this project! I went to Lowes this last week and spent about an hour looking at tile and contemplating all the different choices. I went in thinking I would get one color but ended up with a totally different color. (You don't get to know the color til I get the room finished=)). Twelve boxes of tile, two bags of mastic, one bag of grout and one bag of spacers later I officially had a low rider for a car. I cant believe that it all fit in my car but it did. I then had to drive really slow home and took all side roads. Taking everything out of my car was such hard work. I feel like I had just moved 300 pounds of tile into my shed and I was only half way done with moving all that tile. Where are the big strong guys when you need one? Oh well I got it all moved. Now all I have to do is start laying it. Wish me luck!

Crazy Two Weeks

Lets first start with Labor Day weekend. I came home to Colorado to spend the long weekend with my family. It was so nice to be able to see everyone as always. My cousin Jenny was on leave from the Air Force from her deployment in Honduras and it was wonderful to be able to spend time with her since I have not seen her in quite some time. Ne-J was also extremely excited to see Jamba and Sydney. The night we arrived we walked into the house and Ne-J and Jamba pretty much attacked each other and ended up playing for about 2 hours before we separated them and went to bed. The whole weekend consisted of seeing Neal, my family and a few friends. I really had nothing planned and ended up just hanging out and relaxing.

Then the weekend after Labor Day I went camping in Lebanon, MO with my church. It was such an amazing time to be able to fellowship with God and other people in the church. Ne-J was great through out the weekend. She did amazing around all the little kids and was so gentle with them. I thought that she would be crazy around them but she was so calm when they wanted to pet her.

On Saturday we went on a float trip down the Niangua River. We canoed about 8 miles down the river. I was so happy that our canoe did not flip especially since Ne-J kept wanting to stand on the side of the boat and every time she would do this the canoe would rock. She only jumped out once but we were only in about 4 inches of water when we got grounded and had to push our canoe a bit into deeper water.
On the look out to find a good place to play in the water....


Just guarding lunch from the fish....


Then that evening after the float trip we all had dinner together. After dinner a campfire was started and we sang songs and worshiped. And you cant go camping without have a s'more so that is what we did roasted marshmallows and made s'mores it was great fun.
Then on Sunday the guys of the church made everyone breakfast. After breakfast we went down to the river and had the Sunday morning church service where there were about 6 people who got baptized in the river. It was so cool to watch these young people profess there love for Jesus. Such an amazing weekend

Water Dog

Today Ne-J and I were driving to the pet store and on the way there I saw this little park called Stagecoach Park with a pond that has fountains in it and a really nice pathway. So on the way back we stopped there for our daily walk. As we were walking towards the pond I noticed that there were little steps that go down to the water and that the water was quite shallow but still deep enough that Ne-J could swim in it. When we got close enough for Ne-J to go in she was a little hesitant but gravity decided to help out a bit. She was sniffing the water and oh no, splash! She blinked the water out of her eyes and started swimming/ doggy paddling around. Ne-J was splashing water everywhere and trying to eat her splashes. Then she would try and get out but the ledge where she jumped in was too high for her to get back out on her own so I had to help her out. When she was out of the water she looked like a drowned rat but that look was soon gone and she would jumped/ fall back into the water and would swim some more. She had such a wonderful time playing in the water and running around the park. So I think I officially have a full blown water dog!

Big Changes!

In the past few months I have had a ton of huge changes. One of the biggest things that I have done is I have just bought a house. It is so nice to be able to have all of my own space and make all the changes that I want to. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment...

The front of the my house
The living room
The kitchen
And finally my huge backyard
You don't get to see my room because its messy. As well as my office and spare bedroom. But oh well what can you do?

Look close at the picture of the living room... I have a new addition to my family. She is a Yellow Lab/ Golden Retriever mix. Her name is Ne-J. She is so much fun to have around, the care free craziness that puppies have.

Spring Fever

The first flowers of the year. The days start getting longer and the temperature is slowly rising. Spring is coming! Lately I have been restless as and wanting to venture outside. But whenever I have the time (especially during the weekend) it seems that the nice springs weather that we had all week is no more and is cold and windy. I am starting to feel a bit claustrophobic and am needing to get out and about a lot more than I have. Anytime that its nice enough to walk outside and is not too windy I take a walk on one of the trails that is close to my apartment. So I am just itching to get out and about even more in the coming weeks.

The Day of Love

Today is the commercialized day of love. Valentines Day. They always say that it is a holiday that single people hate and couples love but I think that it is hardest for those people that have someone and are not able to be with the person that they love. Overall for me today has been a really nice day. Neal sent me a dozen roses (which I might add are gorgeous!). And Neal and I are able to talk tonight as well via video chat (all I have to say is yeah for technology). So for the day of love. I LOVE YOU NEAL

Miss Me?

So I have not written on my blog in such along time (since before Christmas). It seems like I think of all these things to write about but forget about them before I have a chance to share them with my blog readers.
Lets go back in time a bit to Christmas. First, I had a wonderful Christmas! I was able to see my family and friends and spend more than 2 day home. I was able to take the whole week of Christmas off. During that week Neal and I drove back and forth to Colorado Springs about 3 times to have lunch and dinner with Mike, Mallory and Ethan, and did Christmas Eve dinner with Neal's family. We also when to the Christmas Eve service at Nor'wood. Then on Christmas day we headed back to Denver to celebrate with my family. It was so nice to be able to just hang out and really have nothing to do. I did have to buy all my Christmas gifts for everyone since I did not have enough room in my luggage to carry very much stuff to Denver. So that kind of made the few days before go by quick since I had to shop.
Then after Christmas I had to go back to work and that first week went really quick since I had New Years day off. So after a vacation I was able to easy my way back into work with a short week before I had a full 5 day week.
Since the New Year I have just been getting back into the grove of my everyday life. For me it is always comforting to be able to have a constant routine something that for the most part that I can count on.
It has taken me a bit to get used to the non-winter here. It is as if it has been a really nice fall for me and I really like that, but I do miss the snow. With all this nice weather I have been able to utilize an outside walking track at work. It is so relaxing for me to be able to take my breaks and enjoy the sunshine.
So I think that I am all caught up with what is going on in my life. Even though that it seems that my life seems predictable it is comforting for me.