My Favorite Marine

This past week was spent with my family in Parris Island, SC picking up our Marine from boot camp!! We were so excited to see our Sara after months of corresponding only through letters. We arrived very early in the morning with our matching t-shirts, sign, and pins with Sara's face on them!!! :)

Grandmarjie and Pop-Pop joined us up there, as did a couple of Sara's friends.

We got to watch a beautiful sunrise while we waited

at the Parade Deck to see our Sara!!

The first activity of the day was a 4 mile motivational

run with all the families cheering on the sides!! We went bananas! :)

Here she comes carrying her platoon's flag!!

We were all so excited to see each other!!!

I just love my family!!

We found a map of the base and Dad is pointing to

Sara's squad bay where she slept each night.

Finally getting to hold our Sara!!!

I'm so proud of my sister!!!

My siblings are AWESOME!!!

Sara had a few hours of liberty on Thursday so we got to

spend the afternoon with her!! We had a picnic lunch, explored the base,

saw her rack and footlocker, and bought some USMC merchandise!!

Thursday evening we headed out out to Folly beach to play in the Atlantic and then enjoy some delicious pizza for dinner!!!

At graduation on Friday morning Sara was honored as

top shooter of her battalion!! She is so awesome

and I am incredibly proud and inspired by her!!!

Love you sister!! xoxox

Weekend with the Fletchers!

So, this was one of those weekends when Chris had to be up

at the hospital all day/night on Saturday.

(He's actually sleeping right now in an attempt to catch up.)

He's such a hard worker, and I'm so proud of him!

Because he wasn't around to entertain me, :)

I got to spend my weekend with JC and Dabney!

Friday night they invited us (Chris was able to participate!)

to Blue Star Brewing Co. & Art Center for

San Antonio's First Friday event.

It's an outdoor affair featuring different artist's

work and street vendors with all sorts of treasures.

One of the restaurant's best features is eating out on the deck

under big umbrellas and mist-sprayers with a nice cold beverage,

while listening to live music. Needless to say, we were

prepared to sweat and when I arrived at the Fletcher's, Dabney

and I discovered we were on the same brain wave

of dressing to stay as cool as possible!

Aren't we just precious! :)

Eating outside makes everything taste a little more delicious I think!

On Saturday morning JC, Dabs and I went and had breakfast tacos

and coffee together! Then, after making some purchases at

Home Depot,we rushed home to get started on our

"Saturday Projects."

Dabs chose the perfect shade of grey to paint a desk for

their office space. After adding some large, yellow flower

drawer pulls, the piece goes beautifully in the room

and looks wonderful with the curtains she found at World Market!

She did such a great job!!!

Whilst we ladies were painting, JC did manly work like assembling

this new shelving unit for their garage. He got to make a lot

of noise and sweat and stuff...

... that's what makes it manly

Let's face it we were all sweating bullets,

but he had a hammer or a screwdriver or something.

Oh, and he installed a row of hooks to hang up the rake,

outdoor broom and such!

Well done JC!!!

I got to work on our dining chairs.

I chose to paint them a fabulous Hummingbird blue!

Thanks Martha Stewart! :)

So, 1 chair took me a couple hours (at least)

and I was kinda dreading the other 7,

but Chris wasn't home... meaning I stayed up till all hours painting!!

Before & After

It's a flock of Hummingbird chairs!!

So far only 4 are officially all completed, and they look so great!!

I am loving them next to my happy yellow walls!!

Once the chairs are finished the table will be stained.... I'm thinking

a dark, chocolately stain would be lovely.

What do you think?! :)

God is so good!!!

So I just had to post these Garden-of-Eden-ish photos

taken the other evening from our back yard.

They have not been edited at all, just snapped from our deck at sunset!

Way to go God! Absolutely stunning!

One Year!... Can you believe it!?!

This is us one year ago... right after our rehearsal dinner...

ready for the big day!

it really doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but it has been so fun to

look at all the pictures from the year and remember

all the things we've done and places we've been!!

i wish i could post them all... such happy memories!

we are SOO ready to go back to our casita at the El Dorado Royal Resort

in Mexico...what a fabulously fun and relaxing week!

and their guacamole.... gah! so good!

then, we spent the month of september in Oklahoma City and

got to hang out with some wonderful friends!

Candice Wood and Richard Earles

Emily and David Taylor

and in october we lived in Nashville, TN and got to see the leaves change!

birthday dinner at Bucca Di Beppo with the Thames' and the Wood's

Vandy football game! ... sooo cold!!! :)

oh, we also both graduated this year!

Christopher this May from Texas Tech School of Medicine

and I graduated last August from Parker College of Chiropractic

and we also bought our first house this year!!!

our little Scrub Jay home!

There are a hundred other memories from this year!

God has blessed us so richly and we can't wait for

the years to come!

rainy day post

i just love rain!! it quite seriously makes me giddy. :)

when the clouds start rolling in and i start to hear the thunder, i can't help but jump up and down a little bit! i put the kettle on for hot tea, open the blinds and curtains, and maybe even the sliding glass door

just as the rain starts coming down

...the better to hear the lovely pitter pattering! :)

walking in the rain is quite lovely too!

i happened to be on a walk the other week

with Jenny and Lindsey and it just

started coming down when we were

about a mile from the house. haha! it was glorious!

being barefoot makes it even better! :)

Mmmm rain! :)

GirL's WeeKeND!!!

I had to do two posts today because I just spent a wonderful weekend with some of my favorite women ever!!! My sister Becca, my mom, and my mom-in-law came down to San Antonio this weekend to see us and the new house and spend the weekend relaxing, talking, eating, shopping and just having fun together. Here are some pics of the weekend...

Of course, we had to have a little welcome sign on our door!

And since Becca came a day early she helped me sidewalk chalk the driveway

and entryway path! The neighborhood kids were pretty jealous. :)

We did some shopping in the La Cantera area!

or as it's affectionately know by Becca...Locke & Terra :)

Then we freshened up and headed to the Riverwalk from some delicious

MEXICAN FOOD!!!

I have no idea why this wants to be underlined... I can't make it stop!! :P

Christopher got to go with us....he was our chauffeur! ;)

What a wonderful weekend and what wonderful girlfriends!!! Can't wait to see you all again!

xoxoxo

faux crown moulding

So, here's a nifty (and thrify) little idea Chris and I picked up from his HGTV iPhone app.

It's homemade crown moulding!!! First, you pick out two types of trim that compliment each other and the existing door trim and baseboards in the room.

Next you nail both pieces to the wall, leaving about 1/2" to and inch between them.

By the way... that little corner piece is wonderful little device that helps simplify the process if you only have a hand saw! And I think it makes it all come together nicely. :)

Lastly, you fill all the holes and edges with wood glue, sand it down and paint it all white!

......and Voila!

sew pretty and the guest bathroom edition

time for me to blog some more... :)

my precious sister becca came to visit me over the Fourth of July weekend!

it was such a blessing to have her here especially since chris had his first shift of day/night call up at the hospital. so, becca was here to keep me company, snuggle beside me at night, and help make some absolutely fabulous curtains!!! check out her blog for the skinny on the whole weekend... http://gibbgabb.blogspot.com/2010/07/sewing-for-usa.html

here's a few pics that i took to show you the final product...

first we have the lovely grommet top drapery panels in the living area...

to save a bit of money we chose to do just a band of the fabulous

(but more pricey) printand finish off the rest of the panel with a great muslin

(NOT muslim...bahaha) fabric.

in le kitchen i wanted to do something a bit more funky and fun.

a good friend in amarillo, mrs. elizabeth mason, has some fantastic

curtains that she and her mom made and this is

my interpretation of them. :) we had to be a little creative to figure it out but i think it came out great... my favorite feature is the little cloth covered buttons holding back the little flaps!

and here's another before/after for ya!

this is the guest bathroom before....

and now it looks like this!!!...

yay, Target and your super cute shower curtain that just happened to

have all the colors needed to pull together our wedding gifted towels! hooray!

this is actually the first room in the house to be completed... almost. :)

this weekend i worked in the master suite, painting the bathroom, taking down a huge over-toilet cabinet, updating the lighting and adding some finishing touches.... once that's completed i'll post more pics! oh, and i painted our front door blue... reminds me of Oxford, England and all its blue doors! yay!

peace!