Halloween

This Halloween Mom and Glen were visiting. We also had our good friend Meredith come over with her little girl, Maggie. Below are some pictures from the evening.

Forrest, Meredith and Maggie in the front yard. Maggie was a hot dog :)

Dudley was a pumpkin but got cold and wedged himself in between the blankets on the porch.

Me and Mom

Dudley with his pumpkin costume and Maggie the hot dog

Amazing Date Afternoon/Night

I just wanted to quickly do a post on how sweet my husband is! This past week Forrest called me from work to ask me on a date for Saturday. After being excited all week long, Saturday finally made it here and we set out about 3pm for our adventure. First we went to MacQueen's Apple Orchard (pictures to come later). After tasting apple cider and picking up some Honey Crisp apples we headed to our next stop. We wound up at a pick your own pumpkin patch! They also had pansies, which haven't made an appearance here this year until very recently. We picked our own pumpkins, got a hay bail, and got two flats of pansies and violas. Then we grabbed a quick bite to eat and found ourselves at a drive in movie!!! I had never been to one before so I was super excited. We wound up seeing a double feature that included Couple's Retreat and Love Happens. Both cute movies. Any way, we got home super late but it was such a fun afternoon/evening of things I had been wanted to experience but hadn't yet. I have such a thoughtful husband! :)

Baby Shower

No, not for us :)

A few weeks ago our friends the Seen's from our Young Married's group at our church had their first little baby boy. About a month ago, my friend Meredith and I hosted a baby shower for Kot and Laurie. Meredith and I had such a great time planning, buying and decorating for the shower. Below are a few of the pictures from the event. Sadly we didn't get any with the mom and dad to-be. :(

The table in the dining room.

Baby blue punch

Kot & Laurie are missionary interns at our church and have a heart for missions in China so Meredith made panda cookies and bottles.

The chocolate fountain was a BIG hit.

Poor Maggie really wanted to come inside and be apart of the festivities!

The panda bear cake I made and decorated with piped icing. You can't really see it but he has a pacifier in his mouth :)

Renovation Projects

Over the past few weeks we have replaced our flat roof, tiled around the fireplace and front door and refinished our living room floors. We have also had roofers replace our roof. Here are some pictures from our projects. Keep in mind, we are currently waiting the 7 days before we can clean our refinished floors or replace our furniture. We have also not repainted our baseboards or installed the quarter round. More pictures to come once the house is back to normal! I also threw in a few pictures of Dudley and his new winter coat for good measure. Thanks to Walter & Terry for the new coat! Dudley sure does love it :)

A Dudley Video

Here's a little video of Dudley playing for the camera. We're stilling learning what a "bone" is. You can hear the construction in the background. Notice the bad Petsmart haircut.

Updates Around the House

Right now Forrest is on our "flat roof" over the kitchen and here's what it looks like outside our dinning room window. Hopefully by the end of it we will have a leak free roof!

Our flat roof without the railings.

The back corner of our kitchen with all of the mess from a falling ceiling.

More garden goodies!

Our new duvet cover!

When we finished installing the outlets in the bedroom we rearranged the furniture and put out our new duvet cover. Our bedroom feels so big now!

This one's for you Alyse!

Fruits of Our Labor

A couple of weeks ago we got our first cucumber from the garden. Now, I'm drowning in them! Especially since Forrest won't even go near them. I did my first batch of bread & butter pickles today. I was going to try some dill pickles but after reading about how much time and effort they take, I decided I would just buy my own. We are also getting lots of squash from the garden. Here are some pictures of the fruits from our garden.

Home Updates

We recently got a new rug for our dinning room...thanks Mom! The room is almost complete and is only lacking blinds and some form of a curtain. But for now, here are a few pictures of the semi finished room.

After 9 months of a primer white office, I finally picked a color and painted. I have yet to organize the room so the pictures are just of the walls and and floor. More to come when it's done. Eventually my colors will be blue, black and white. Here are a few pictures of the walls.

Our Garden

Since before the last frost...which by the way was the middle of MAY!!! Forrest and I have been growing vegetables. We started by planting seeds in peat pots inside of the house and in May we began to dig our garden outside. We then transplanted some of the peat pots and added a lot of seed to the garden. We have since found that the things we planted directly into the garden as seed did much better than those we transplanted from the peat pots. Go figure. We are also growing everything organically. We purchased all organic seeds and have only use poultry poop as fertilizer.

Here are some of the things growing in our garden.

• Corn
• Green beans
• Squash
• Broccoli
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Parsley
• Rosemary
• Bell peppers

While there is a lot in the garden, we have only begun to harvest lettuce, spinach, all of the herbs, and cucumbers. Another reason we are so late getting anything is that we planted everything from seed and the growing season in Ohio is much later than NC's. However, we are excited about the veggies we've gotten so far and can't wait for the rest to be ready. Here are some pictures of our garden. These were taken a few weeks ago so everything is much bigger. Especially the cucumber, corn, and squash plants, they nearly take over most of the garden.

Our beans..we thought they would climb but to our surprise they are bush beans!

The cucumbers that have doubled in size and have 4 times as many blooms.

The squash on the left has also doubled in size.

Our corn is to the top of the fence now.

The tomatoes in the right front are also above the top of the fence.

Broccoli, onions, and green pepper

A Beautiful Drive

At the end of May I took a drive to Burnsville, NC for my grandmother's funeral. I haven't driven this route before and could not believe how beautiful it was. The GPS took me south through Ohio, into Kentucky, Tennessee, and into western NC. Below are some pictures from my drive back. We also had a wonderful family friend let us stay in their cabin on the creek. Some of those pictures are also below. Hopefully I can take Forrest back with me in August!

An update and some pictures

We have been pretty busy over the past couple months. Sorry for not updating as much as I should! I just finished my first year of grad school this past week and will begin my summer work on campus on the 18th. On the 20th we're coming back to NC for Memorial Day weekend. We are so excited to bring Dudley and introduce him to the members of the family he hasn't met yet. Speaking of Dudley, below are a couple of pictures. The first few are of Dudley and his chicky (I think it's actually a duck but somehow it was named chicky) that Mom gave him for Easter. He absolutely loves it! Thanks Grandma ;)

Dudley was in serious need of a haircut in this picture. We've since taken care of that :)

Next is a video of Dudley playing with a balloon that found its way into our yard. Note: this is funny to us because he hardly ever barks!

Since the weather has been a little warmer we're spending more time outside. Here's a couple of more recent pictures of Forrest and Dudley from last week. Aren't they so cute?

 In March I took Forrest go karting in Indiana for "Man Day". Here's a couple pictures from the indoor track.

We'll that's about all for now. Sorry they're all pretty much of Dudley. Hopefully we'll have some more to post after our trip to NC!