Sad

Sunday John and I came home from my grandpa's to find this:








Sadly someone had vandalized our display. The arch was a total loss and penguin isn't usable any longer either, plus whoever it was stole another penguin that looked just like him before the beating. Very upsetting as it just seemed so violent. So we took down almost all the lights in the yard related to the arches and pathway and brought it several of the other small yard ornaments. For now we'll leave the lights on the house up. Not sure what we are doing yet with the inflatables as the officer who took the report mentioned that they had some trouble of people slashing them. We'll have to check all ours and then decide.

Meet the Grizwolds - Kuberski Style

First here are 4 out of 5 inflatables. I forgot to take a picture of the Santa. Penguin is in the back yard. Moose and Globe are in the front on the garage side. Santa is in the front, sun room side and scooby is in the side yard, sun room side.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y289/burgie11/Inflatables.jpg

And then here's the rest. Top picture is the front yard from the garage to the side yard. It's hard to tell but all the lights form a pathway from one sidewalk to the other (we are a corner lot) with lighted arches at both ends. Then there are some plastic figures, a train and a bunch more lighted things along it. Our neighborhood kids are loving being able to walk through it. So cute. The next picture down is the back yard with 3 trees, penguin and mama and baby bear. Mama bear is also pictured top right. To the right of that picture is one of the snowmen that run along the garage, which is pictured directly below him. The picture to the left of that is again the front of the house, along the lighted path with a picture of the train that's along side it. Behind you can see the inflatable santa and the edge of Scooby on the left hand side. Also the lights around the sun room and a few of the lighted candy canes by the front walk. Under that are the trees that go along side the garage. This pic is taken from the back yard looking toward the front. The Snow Globe and Mosse are in front of these. Then Finally are some of the small trees that are behind santa going towards scooby. What I didn't get pics of are the lights on the house, one the deck and the lighted rope latter that goes from up the deck, with characters on it so it looks like Santa and his elves climbing up.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y289/burgie11/Lightssmallversion.jpg

Landscaping

And catching up on one other big event. We had our yard landscaped in September and it turned out so well.

The front:


The back and side:

Behind the garage:



Another view from the side:


Alongside the garage:


The Japanese Maple right outside the front door:


Some of the stuff you can't see from the pictures is that there are 4 red maples along the road between the curb and the sidewalk. And instead of doing wood chips we used a type of coral rock in most of the beds which really turned out nice. You can kind of see it in the pictures of the pine trees. The guys from Everett's did an amazing job and we can't wait to see what everything looks like in the spring!!

An Addition to our Family

Meet Teddy :

He's a 2.5 year old long haired orange tiger and he's a sweetheart. He came home at the beginning of October and hid under the bed in the spare bedroom most of the time. We introduced Callie on day 3 and while Teddy was interested in his new sister, Callie wanted nothing to do with Teddy. The next day while John was home, he left the bedroom door open and slowly Teddy began to venture out and Callie, would follow him around but wouldn't get too close, as shown here:

A few days later though we were to this point:

And it's been all good from that point on. They groom each other and rough house like crazy. They love to chase each other around the house and tackle each other. It's so funny to watch, even though I'm a bit paranoid they are going to hurt each other. We also find them curled up together in a few different places. They really are cute together and Teddy's been a great addition to our family.

The floor is in!!

After a very long day for John, the basement floor is in. It took an entire Sunday with the help of our friend Dale and John's brother Randy but it looks awesome. Only a few minor glitches. John accidentally cut of the part that you need to snap the next piece into on one piece for a little built in shelving area and didn't realize it until he had laid three more rows. Thankfully Randy was over and they pulled the the needed pieces and fixed it. John still has to do the trim and a few little pieces but the majorirty is DONE!!

One more picture

Here I am with the rest of the instructors. In the back: Matt, Greg, and Angela. In the front: Jen, Heather, Me and John.


I had so much fun with this group and they were all wonderful in giving me suggestions and encouragement. I especially want to thank Heather for all her help. She's the one who encouraged me to get my paperwork in to become an instructor, made sure I submitted everything correctly and took care of a lot of other details!! I definitely owe her one!

Good News

Lots of good news around our house lately. First, I spent last week in Howell, MI training to become a Child Passenger Safety Instructor. I passed and as soon as the paperwork is completed I will be certified to train new technicians. I had to have a wisdom tooth the morning that I left but other than that the trip went extremely well and the other instructors were very encouraging and lots of fun! The picture is of me teaching on Wednesday and we were discussing proper use of the harnesses.

On the home front, we were thrilled to finally recieve our flooring. Home Depot called Saturday morning and we picked it up that evening. We have to fix a small water leak from the wall were the outdoor hose attachment is and then after that we will lay the floor. John laid out one box and it looks awesome.

And my flowers and garden is flourishing. I have tomoatoes the size of golfballs already. I staked them yesterday. My lillies are looking just wonderful. I can't believe how much they expanded in one year. For those of you who don't know these were given to me from a very dear friend who grows them. And the best news of all is that my allium has finally bloomed after 3 years of trying!! It got really close last year and this year it actually survived and has two blooms. Here are pictures:

Another Delay

Home Depot called yesterday an there is another delay in getting our flooring. First it was backordered until the end of May and then June 5 and now Pergo says it will be going into production June 9 and shipping out June 13th. We don't know how long it will take to get here from there but hopefully by the end of the month!!

Our Anniversary

Monday was our second anniversary. At times it's amazing how fast time goes by and other times it feels like it's been a lot longer...in a good way. We had orginally decided not to do gifts or just do something small, as we just purchased the basement flooring. John didn't listen and totally spoiled me. He sent me this beautiful and enormous bouquet of flowers. He had it delivered to me at work and it made me smile the entire afternoon. Then when I got home he had a card and a gift waiting for me. The gift was a beautiful mystic topaz ring that I had seen in an ad and really liked. It was a wonderful suprise...even though he's in trouble for not sticking to the agreement. He said he mis-interpretted small to mean small in size not expense. Sure! Anyways, we decided to go to Logan's for dinner which was really nice. John had a chicken sandwich and I had the porkchops. Yummy!! After dinner we went to our favorite Hallmark and I bought John some new beanie babies he had been wanting. I'll have to post a picture of them at some point. Then we had the great excitement of spending an hour at the store so that John could get ahead on his ordering as they had a big store evaluation on Tuesday morning and wasn't sure how much time he was going to have. I did some stocking while he ordered and we only stayed for an hour. We came home and watched the Piston's blow game 4 against the Caveliers and then went to bed early. A very nice day all and all. Here are two more picture, one fo the flowers close up and one of the ring sitting in a lilly.

Mother's Day

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. Callie was very sweet and gave me a card from her and several of the cats at the shelter, a bouquet of roses and a scrapbook magazine that I had been wanting. Sorry the picture is bad. I was trying to get it in natural lighting but ended up with shadows.

Our day seriously flew by, as we started with having Sunday coffee with my grandparents. Then visited John's parents to see the new bedroom suite and to see John's mom. Dropped John off at the store for an hour, then back to my grandparents for lunch. Followed by dinner at Steve and Lisa's. A very busy day but wonderful to spend so much time with family.

Lots of Updates

Wow!! It's been a long time since I've updated!! John and I have both been really busy! In April we had a wonderful visit from his Uncle Frank and Aunt Sharon. Sadly it was because of the loss of Aunt Sharon's father but we definitely enjoyed seeing them and spending some very memorable time with them. Callie turned 3 on April 25th. We had a small party for her on the 27th but she decided she was a) scared fo the birthday banner and wouldn't go in the living room and b) anti-social and pretty much stayed up stairs the entire time. Silly kitty. It was still a nice time with my parents, John's mom and Randy stopped by when he got out of work.

As far as the basement is concerned, we are making more progress. John has finished putting in all the stairs and it turned out really nice. He still wants to add some trim but they look great and are so much nicer than the old ones. I'll try and update with pictures soon! Also, we took the leap last weekend and ordered our Pergo floors for the main area of the basement. We had picked out the Applewood quite awhile ago, because we loved the color and the grain patterned that it had, but were waiting for Home Depot to run a sale and for us to have the $$ at the same time and it finally happened. We had to special order it but we should have it within the next couple weeks. To see a sample of what it looks like, click here.

John and I are in the process of finalizing our vacation plans. We are hoping to leave GR to Kenosha WI on July 19. Stay the night there and visit the Jelly Belly factory. On Thursday go to Sheboygan and have some fun there and go to Gibbsville Cheese factory. On Friday we will be heading to my Aunt Genny's house where I hope to do some scrapbooking as well as taking John to see my Grandparents old house, see my uncle Jay and visit the cemetary where my grandparents, cousin and aunt are buried. We'll probably stay there until Sunday and then head back. No plans for the trip back yet, so we are not sure if we are going to go back all in one day or stop 1/2 way. We'll see. We still need to find a few hotels and I need to locate all the local scrapbook stores, but we are at least making progress.

And finally, I have made the decision to go ahead and get my CPS instructorship status through National Safe Kids, which will allow me to train new technicains coming into the field. I spent last week assisting a class and the instructors in that class really encouraged me to do so. I'm very excited but yet a little nervous as well. My paperwork has all been approved and now I just have to teach a 4 day class under another instructor. Looks like I'll be teaching in Howell, MI the week of June 12. Lots of preparation to do for that, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Back from the Shack

Had a wonderful weekend at the shack scrapbooking. I was able to complete 17 pages!! Blogger isn't letting me add pictures so I've uploaded them all to yahoo. You should be able to see them all here:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/burgie11/album?.dir=/6fec&.view=t

You can view it as a Slideshow by clicking on the "View Slideshow" link that is located under the light green bar on the right hand side. Enjoy and thanks for looking.

Another Layout

Another simple LO that I did as a challenge for the Scrap-Room.
Love the way it turned out. Journalling talks about how Callie stole this frog from my collection and how she loved to play with it but was impossible to photograph!

Another Lay out

Did this one for a challenge for my monthly scrapbook club. Love the way it turned out and I did a lot of stuff I normally don't do: I left a large blank space on the title block, I didn't matte two pictures, I used my alpha stamps for the title, and I printed my journalling right on the 12x12 piece of white Basic Grey Paper.

4 down...9 to go!

Now that the tile is in John could finally start on creating his oak staircase. So far he has four steps done and they look great. The difference is really quite amazing and will be absolutely beautiful when completely finished!

We have tile!

We were so excited to have a family friend come and lay the tile in the hallway of the basement. Dale did an excellent job and we are thrilled with the results.

A few more layouts

My good friend Marci came over last night and we scrapped until just after midnight. She made a really cute altered notebook and an awesome paint can for her brother. I was able to finish up two layouts and completely do a third. Here they are:
John and I writing Thank you's after our wedding:


Flowers from John


Me and my sister Christmas Eve 2004. This is proibably my favorite of the night. Layout idea was scraplift from one I saw on 2Peas.

Pictures from Slides