A Work in Progress

Since I posted photos of the empty house, I've had a few requests to post photos of the house with stuff in it. We have accomplished a lot, but there are a few rough edges still. I'm still looking for the right rugs for some rooms and new bedding for others. You will be able to see, from these photos, just how big our bedrooms are. They look so empty, even with our stuff in them!

As promised, a photo of the outside. I'm really glad I took this because now I can see just how bare it is out there. It's a grand house with a grand yard and I need to step up the plantings a bit. Those little pots look pretty wimpy out there!

This is one shot of the kitchen. Notice the little flat screen TV?  I LOVE that. Since the kitchen sits off by itself, I can't see or even hear the living room TV and I love to have it on while I'm cooking or baking. Nick bought it for me for purely selfish reasons. If I like being in the kitchen, I cook and bake more.

Do you just LOVE the old coke crate on the left of the stove?  My friend Debra had one in Rhode Island I just loved it. I am using it for a spice rack, just like she did.

Kitchen sink. I love the big window and the fact that it has a window sill that i have junked up.

This is a shot looking back toward the dining room. I can't manage to keep my counters clutter free. What can I say? It's a working kitchen. Notice the baby loves of banana bread cooling on the butcher's block. It's because I have a TV in my kitchen. Oh, and very ripe bananas.

This is the dining room from the entry hall. That's my big ol' purse on the left side. I should have moved it. Yes, I only have five dining room chairs. Yes, it looks off balance... and yes, I hate it. I can't wait to get a new set. I've ordered a beautiful rug for this room. I can't wait to get that in there to finish it off.

The other side of the dining room. You can see the kitchen through the door there. And the rug rolled up on the other side of the table. That's the beautiful rug I first ordered for the dining room but realized, too late, that I clicked on the wrong size when ordering it. It's going back.

Living room from entry hall. The living room tables are the next things to go. They are past their time and I'd like something a little smaller for a coffee table.LOVE the fireplace!!

Looking just to the left of the fireplace to the built-in bookshelves. I love these too.

The last side of the living room. This room, for as large as it is, is laid out terribly. There are no good walls for furniture between the fireplace, the large entry and bookshelves. I had to make do with what I have. The love seat is in the sun porch for now. I think it will make it's way upstairs to the guest room. Did I mention how big the bedrooms are?

This is the little wall under the stairs as you go through the entry to the back door and back entrance to the kitchen. I would love to add to the collection of crosses and the needlework is an Army Wife's Prayer hand stitched by the chaplain's wife in Hawaii. We just found out that he is going to be Nick's chaplain again here and we are so excited!

This is my tiny little bathroom downstairs.  It's done in a nautical theme. My girlfriends and I back in Rhode Island shopped for weeks to find stuff for our new nautical bathrooms once we moved.

Love these oars I found in Newport. they are hanging above the tub.

Cheesy little soap and toothbrush holders but I love them. The starfish are temporarily on the back of the toilet awaiting just the right basket or bucket to display them in.

Going up the stairs. Oh and there's Cleo watching me from the back door.

Guest room. One of the rooms that still has some rough edges. I guess I should have moved the lamp out of the way. It's just sitting there awaiting a new home. I have furniture in storage that will help fill this room.

Master bedroom. Doesn't that queen sized bed look lost in there? That's a full triple dresser to the right and we have still have loads of floor space. We definitely need rugs for this room. Winter will bring some cold floors!

A shot of the other wall with the dresser.

Opposite the dresser. A big ol' bookshelf and TV stand. Still loads of room.

My dressing room. I stole Callie's vanity that goes with the bedroom set in the guest room (it's all hers) There's no way to get it to her now and I have this lovely little room.

I didn't get a shot of Alex's room because I'm awaiting new bedding. Something fitting for a young man and not a boy. The stuff he has is very juvenile and I think it's time to grow up. I also skipped the home office (sleeping porch off the master bedroom) it's a hot mess right now.  I will continue to post as I finish off more rooms.

The New House

I've been such a lazy blogger lately. I took a few photos of the house before we got our household goods delivered, but after that, I didn't even take the camera out of its bag for about a week or longer.
We have almost completely settled in. Just in time for our second shipment (stuff we've had in storage for the last year) to be delivered. I wish I could remember what all is in that shipment. I have a feeling it will show up during the time Nick is gone to the pre-command course. Won't that be lovely?
I worked like a crazy lady the first three days we were here. Suddenly, I lost my steam. Right now, we've been in the house around 11 days and I still have something in every room that needs to be finished up. UGH!
Today, Nick is back to work doing his in-processing. I am determined to finish up downstairs. I have a list and I hope I can stick to it!
Enjoy these photos of my empty house. It's a great house and I'm going to love living here..if I can just get finished.

The view from the front door. Dining room on right, living room and sun porch on left.

The living room, facing the front wall (with built-ins)

Better shot of the built-ins and you can see the front door over to the left.

The sun porch which is just on the other side of the fireplace wall. I love this room!

The dining room from the entry hall. You can see the kitchen door on the left.

This is a shot of the kitchen from the dining room. Once you walk in, immediately to the left is a butler's pantry which is just below.

Butler's pantry. Just to the left of the cabinet shown is a floor to ceiling pantry. Love it!

This is a shot of the kitchen looking back toward the dining room door (just to the right of that cabinet and two window wall) I am standing in the other door to the kitchen which comes in off the back door hallway.

Tiny little "bedroom" downstairs. That bathroom through the "bedroom" is the only bathroom downstairs so we will make this room a "sitting" room with Callie's old futon. That way it can be converted to a bedroom for a kid when we have guests that need to take his room.

This is the master bedroom from the hall. See that door?  It goes out to the "sleeping porch" which is right above the sun porch downstairs. It's wall to wall windows too and will be used as our home office.

This is the sleeping porch. Isn't it wonderful?!

This is a little room off the master with those built in closets. It is labeled the "dressing room" on the floor plan. That's what I use it for. I have Callie's old vanity table in there and all my clothes in those closets. It's too cool!

Here is the master bathroom. I finally have a bath tub again! I am enjoying it. It's SO long though, and I'm short, so it's a struggle to keep from drowning :)

This is the shower head in our bathroom. I thought it was very cool, but now I'm not so sure. Yes, it falls like rain. Yes, it looks all modern and what not, but like I said, I'm short. This sucker is so far up the wall that I seriously can't reach it to adjust it from a standing position in the shower. I have to stand on the side of the tub to adjust it. By the time it hits the top of my head, it's such a large spray that I have trouble rinsing my hair. Such a silly thing, but I think it doesn't spray very hard (dang water savers) and I have trouble and take longer in the shower now.

This is the upstairs hall. Linen closet on the right. I have tons of closets!

This is a shot of the guest room. The bedrooms are really big in this house.

Since I am having a hard time uploading more photos, I will leave you with these. This covers most of the house. I don't have a real photo of the outside, but will get one. I took one with my phone to send to friends and family and post on facebook, but it's not that great.

Thanks for being patient and hanging with me through the move. Hopefully, I will get a routine going again and start blogging about real life stuff. I'm so anxious to get involved in the community here, and there are LOTS of opportunities already. My neighbor has already tried to recruit me for the spouse's club board. I have a feeling I will be very busy, very soon!



Road Trip 2011 Continues

After our overnight stay in Niagara Falls, we set out for our next destination, Green Bay, WI.  The drive from Niagara Falls to Green Bay is nothing to take lightly. That’s one long trip. We spent around 14 hours on the road and were completely exhausted when we arrived.
Going to Green Bay meant that Nick and I would have our own room and we would be able to have home cooked meals and do our laundry. His parents are very hospitable and we always have a good time there.
We took a day off from travels on Monday of last week to catch up on laundry, visit with family in the area and re-pack for our side trip to Texas.
Bright and early Tuesday morning we took off from the small Green Bay airport to land in Dallas/Ft. Worth. The rest of the day was a blur. We grabbed our luggage, rented a car and headed towards JD’s apartment to pick up his hand me downs for Callie’s apartment. Once all the vehicles were loaded (our rental van and Callie’s car) we headed south to her new home in central Texas.
We spent all day Wednesday moving Callie into her cute little apartment and buying the things she still needed. Did I mention that Texas is hot this time of year?  The work wasn’t too bad but add the 95 degree heat and a few sets of stairs to it and I was one tired mamma at the end of the day.
Callie was thrilled to be able to stay in her apartment Wednesday night and be a grown up. I’m so happy for her! She’s got exciting things ahead.
After a wonderful dinner out on Wednesday night with some dear friends, we set out Thursday to go back to the metroplex and prepare for the week-end’s wedding festivities. Nick’s parents flew in on Thursday and so did our other Callie that lives in North Dakota.  Callie (from Texas) picked Zach up at the airport Thursday afternoon so we had a crowd gathering. We checked into our fabulous hotel and I knew it was wedding weekend right away, because I was given this.

A great little goody bag filled with snacks and directions to all the places I needed to be for the weekend.

A bag of popcorn, two HUGE chocolate chip cookies (of which I got NONE), two bags of peanuts, two bottles of water and the pink paper with the directions on it.
I immediately sent JD and Meghan a text message stating that I was in the hotel and that I LOVED my goody bag. Nick and Alex had dropped me off while they went to grab Alex’s tux for the wedding.
Needless to say, I really enjoyed my alone time in the hotel. I was able to sit and finish the slide show (nothing like waiting until the last minute) and relax a little before dinner with the crew.
Photos of Thursday night’s dinner, Friday’s festivities which include the rehearsal and dinner as well as a few shots from the wedding (my camera batteries died in the middle) are coming in other posts.
Today we are on the road again. We’ve spent a relaxing day in Green Bay (again) and are headed to Fargo, ND to drop the boy at his mother’s for a few weeks. Fun times I tell ya, fun times.

Niagara Falls

As I mentioned previously, our first day on the road took us to Niagara Falls, NY.  Neither the kids nor I had ever been and it wasn’t too far out of the way, so Nick decided that would be a good place to stop for the night.

I had people tell me that the Canadian side was the place to be as far as hotels and restaurants, but alas, we didn’t pack our passports (and the kids didn’t have any) so we were limited to the US side. I have to admit, I felt like our side was a little seedy. It was very touristy and a little yucky.  In spite of that, we had a good stay.
We checked into our hotel, settled the dogs in and started the walk over to the falls. I was amazed at the magnificence and power of that much rushing water. It was truly awesome. I could have stayed and watched for hours with the spray hitting me.

After the hiking around the falls area, we were a little hot, tired, thirsty and hungry. We headed over to the Hard Rock Café for an adult beverage and dinner. Later, after we got back to our hotel, Callie decided that Zach would like a Hard Rock t-shirt so she and I headed back over to pick one up. As we made our way back to the hotel, we saw this and decided we needed ice cream.

I couldn’t believe the flavors this place had. It was a simple little ice cream shop with a walk up window. They had stuff like red velvet cake, yellow cake with chocolate frosting swirls, and all kinds of stuff.  They were delicious. I didn’t get a photo of us eating them because they were melting so fast we had it all over!
It was a good first day on the road and we enjoyed Niagara so much. Next stop… Green Bay, WI. Now THAT was a long drive!

First Day on the Road

As I mentioned before, we left Rhode Island last Saturday. We checked out of the home we’d had for the previous few days, The Navy Lodge, and hit the road.

Here are a few photos of us getting ready to go.

Our two cars were filled to almost overflowing. Between suitcases, dogs and a few household items, there was nothing else fitting in either one of them.

This little dog wasn’t happy about being in a crate at all! In spite of the doggie downers we gave her.

To break up the trip, Callie and I made a few signs to flash at the boys in the other car. Here is one of them. (I couldn’t find my sharpie so I used a pen to color in some sloppy letters)

Another time, we just drove up next to them with the camera pointed at them.  This is what I got. (forgive the glare, I should’ve rolled the window down)

I have to admit, I enjoyed being the passenger. I loved making the goofy signs and taking photos of stuff no one else would find interesting.
Here’s a shot of my girl helping me drive.

Does anyone see a common theme with my family?
We drove from Newport up to Niagara Falls Saturday. Next post will be of our walk around the falls area. I think I’ve overwhelmed everyone enough with photos in this post.
We are currently staying a couple of hours south of where JD and Meghan will be married this weekend to get Callie moved into her apartment. We’ve had a great day today and I’ll write about that more later too.