Month: March 2007

Jamie and Cody (her dog) came to visit this weekend. They arrived in time to grill kabobs and spend a few hours talking before bedtime. Today we did what we do best – shopping. We shopped a little in Anderson and then drove to Greenville for “the big mall”. Jamie and I can truly say we have shopped around the world together (Semester-At-Sea). We decided to have leftover kabobs for dinner again tonight before Jamie drove home. I wonder if she’ll come back if I keep making her eat leftovers?
As you can see – Jamie’s dog is definitely dwarfed by Madison and Jack, but they all seem to get along pretty well.

Spring is a great time in Anderson. Everything in our neighborhood blooms – dogwoods, azaleas, red buds, tulips. etc. Our yard has 17 dogwoods. They didn’t bloom last year, but they are gorgeous this year!

Danielle and I decided a girls’ day out was needed. Especially since I am about to go back to work full time. Emma came along and decided she was a big girl and didn’t need a stroller. We spent the day window shopping at Haywood Mall. Emma even found a few things she liked.

By the way, Claire’s does not allow photographs to be taken in their store. I got in a lot of trouble from a 15 year old employee for taking this picture.

I think Jack and Madison are definitely friends. They even like to share the dog pillow now. Jack and Wade are not bonding however. I think Wade is very ready for Jack to leave. The puppy part – which I think is cute – is starting to get to him.

Today was a full day, but lots of fun. This was one of the Sundays Catalyst Church doesn’t meet so Wade and I went to early church with some friends. Then we had lunch with Wade’s Aunt Louise and Uncle John. They have two new puppies – a springer spaniel (Maggie) and a German short-haired pointer (Sam). After lunch, we took the puppies to a pond to see how they felt about swimming. Maggie took to the water really well. Sam was a little more hesitant, but eventually chased some birds in.

The rest of the day flew by. We stopped to look at red digital cameras for me, took a nap, and then headed back to Greenville for a host team meeting and dinner with Nate and Michelle.

Wade and I spent most of today working on home improvements, but not at our house. Wade knows a woman who has a house that was being remodeled and expanded in four different directions when her husband died. Her husband was a contractor and doing all of the work. Now some people from her church meet on Saturdays and work on the house. Wade went last week and we both went today. We framed windows, painted, etc. The woman is really cool and makes excellent brownies!

We got home after lunch and did a little work on our house. I pulled weeds and did some housework. Wade mowed the lawn and fixed the sink in the basement. As a combined effort we even cleaned up Wade’s shop. Then we grilled steaks and chilled on the couch and watched “Mindhunters”.

I wrote a post a while ago about the Siener twins. I am happy to say Kip and Kase are doing well and will hopefully be going home soon. Kip is off of oxygen and getting all his food from bottles. Kase still gets a little oxygen and only takes half of his food by bottle. They do both weight about 6 pounds – which is fantastic. They have been moved to Nashville, TN and my sister had a chance to visit and took this picture.

I am writing this post strictly as a reminder to me. Wade and I have been using up all the small tubes of toothpaste we tend to accumulate. I don’t like mint toothpaste so I am using the regular paste and he has a mint flavor. We are on the last two tubes. I have just enough to brush my teeth tonight. The problem is I have been trying to remember to buy toothpaste for a week. If I don’t remember to get some today, I’ll be in trouble tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is church and we have to get up very early – too early to have time for a toothpaste run. If anyone happens to read this and wants to call and remind me to buy toothpaste – that would be awesome!

Wade drove home for lunch on Thursday and the serpentine belt in his engine slipped. Wade knew what was wrong, bought the necessary part, but couldn’t get the new belt in place. He was getting very frustrated (not so much fun for me). Then last night Michelle and Nate came over for dinner and Nate helped Wade fix his car. I walked outside to see why it was taking so long to BBQ the chicken and saw both of them covered in grease and under the car. They timed it perfectly and finished work on the car about the time the chicken needed to come off the grill. We enjoyed dinner and dessert (banana pudding for the boys and cookie dough for the girls). The boys played Nintendo for awhile and Michelle (with Jack in her lap) and I talked.

Jack is still with us and looking for a home. We’ve had lots of people interested, but no one has completed all of the paperwork yet. Jack has also become more adventurous. I let go of his collar a moment to unlock the back door (shock that it was actually locked, I know) and he darted. Then Madison quickly followed. I got Madison to stop fairly quickly with voice commands, but Jack just kept going. I took Madison home and then drove around to look for Jack. The nice policeman that was looking for speeders agreed to keep a look out for him. I finally happened upon him on a side street and he came when I called. Thank goodness – I was getting worried.

My favorite flowers are tulips. This is the first year I have been able to plant and have tulips bloom. If we’re still in the house next year, I plan to plant even more!

I also planted a few flowers in the front yard.

I got a call from my mom early yesterday morning that my grandfather had died. He and my grandma had been eating breakfast when he evidently had a heart attack. My grandmother got in touch with her sister who lives next door. Then they called the rest of the family. Thankfully, my sister was in town for job training. I drove up yesterday night and plan to stay through the weekend. Wade is coming up tomorrow. The visitation is on Thursday and the funeral is on Friday.

My granddad was a college educated dairy farmer. He and my grandmother continued to live on the farm even after the cows had all been sold. My granddad would have been 90 years old this Friday.

I promised pictures and here they are. I wish I had taken a picture of the old metal door, but that has long ago been taken by someone from the side of the road. I do have a picture of the wooden door before I did all the work on it. I know the picture looks weird, but I took it while the door was still in the attic.
Before:

After:

I think I mentioned a while ago that Wade was responsible for the backdrop at church for the new sermon series. Once the idea was in place, creating the backdrop was rather tedious – something I love. I also have very flexible hours so I spent a lot of hours working on it. Anyway, I didn’t get a picture till this Sunday.

The backdrop is lots of red plastic plates held together with 12 black wire ties per plate. My fingers are only now starting to recover from pulling all of the wire ties tight. The red plates symbolize apples, which is a central part of the series Pause.

Michelle is getting serious about the house hunting so I have spent the last few days looking at houses with her. We met for lunch and then hopped in a minivan with a crazy man and his wife. He’s a crazy man because of his driving, but he did get us to every location without a scratch. The cute little couple drove us everywhere from Anderson to Easley to Williamston. After two days of looking, Michelle had narrowed it down to three houses she really liked. This makes Nathan’s job easy. He just has to see the three houses and say yes or no. They ended the loop in Anderson and we hung out for a while and then went to the Rocket Donkey (Mexican food) for dinner. The real name of the restaurant is not the Rocket Donkey. However, they have a menu item that translates to the Rocket Donkey and the name has stuck.
The remainder of the day Wade and I spent on house projects. Wade took off the kitchen door and I chipped paint and then sanded it down. Wade got the back door ready to hang and then created a master layout for his shop that should allow for easy use of all of his tools.

Wade and I are tech people. We know lots about electronics and seem to buy computers and electronics on a regular basis. Christmas is a perfect example. We gave Wade’s mom a whole new computer setup, updated Wade’s dad’s computer, gave my mom a new flat screen TV and DVD player. Many of these items come with rebates. Wade would probably never mess with them – he doesn’t do detail things very well. I am the detail queen. I get everything turned in on time. The only thing I didn’t do was keep up with the rebates. If a check came in the mail, I was happy. If it didn’t, I never realized it. Then the rebate companies started asking for your email. Now they let me know when my check is coming or if there is a problem with my rebate.

About now all of our rebate checks from Christmas are being mailed. I decided to check on the ones I haven’t received yet. The $80 rebate website said it wasn’t coming because we didn’t include the UPC. I know for a fact we did because I had to unwrap a present to get it. However, I have no proof. I didn’t make copies of the items I sent and I don’t have what was left of the box. I was annoyed and mentioned it to Wade. He searched google for a phone number and called the company. Evidently they are having “technical difficulties” and will have it all sorted out in a month. Wade thinks they lost a bunch of UPCs and aren’t sure how to handle it. I guess a little perseverance pays off.