Back From the Mountains!

BJ and I just got home last night from an awesome trip to the Smoky Mountains. We had a really great time hanging out with Jeremy and Jessica and meeting their friends. We also got addicted to Dance-Dance-Revolution! We are so bad about exercising, so maybe this will get us going!

On Monday we headed down to Gatlinburg to shop at the outlets and hike up to Grotto Falls (which was beautiful) with Jeremy and Jessica. Later BJ and I checked in to our hotel in Gatlinburg and had a really nice anniversary dinner at the Peddler in Gatlinburg.

On Tuesday BJ and I tackled a much larger and steeper hike, for which we are now paying! Here's us at the bottom, getting ready to hike.... (for the full effect, turn the volume up!)


Here's some photos of us as we stopped to rock-hop on the way up...





On Tuesday we also headed through the park to North Carolina and the Cherokee Indiana Reservation to hike up to Mingus falls - so total on our trip we visited KY, TN, and NC!

Today BJ and I are getting to catch up on some much needed projects. We're going to buy a tractor (which is more like buying a car than a lawn mower, as it turns out) and I am going to finally finish the bed I've been working on! Right now our leech line for the septic system is being put in, and we're really happy about it! We've had to be really conservative with our water over the last few months (like not doing laundry here at all). This video is about 5 minutes old...

Landscaping & Chad Johnson

So yesterday, Chad Johnson was on Xavier's campus for a photo shoot on the soccer field, so a few of my friends from work and I headed over there to check it out. I guess the photo shoot was for Men's Health magazine or something. Watching the photo shoot was pretty cool, especially seeing all of the professional photography equipment. Once everything wrapped up I was able to ask for an autograph for BJ (on the official NFL hat from BJ's uncle Steve). I was so happy I got the courage up to ask, because I would have kicked myself to have the opportunity and not take it. There were only a few people there hoping to get autographs, so I didn't have too difficult of a time getting one. :)

On a completely different note... here's some new photos of our landscaping efforts...





Yea... roses! :)

Annie the Furball

Annie has some stay furs stuck in her mouth and it's funny. :)



Not much going on here... work and digging in the dirt and working some more! Next week BJ and I are taking off for a much needed vacation to Knoxville to see Jessica & Jeremy, visit Mark and Monica at Crossings, and spend some time in Gatlinburg! :) Surely there will be photos so come!

3 Years from 30

The title says enough - eek! BJ is so sweet! He made me my favorite type of cheesecake from SCRATCH last night for an early birthday present. "Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple" - from the Cheesecake factory. Check out that drizzle!



This is from a couple of days ago, but I love this scene of Annie eyeing BJ's dinner. She's a goat. :)



This is also off-topic, but I have some new shirts! These have been inspired by my recently pregnant and currently pregnant friends (Kate and you-know-who-you-are)! I love you guys!







I also have this one just because its funny and this one in honor of my awesome mother! :)

Hay!

We have hay! And hopefully some grass seed under there as well! Now we can finally get landscaping! BJ gave me an early birthday present of landscape design software - so I've been plotting out our trees, shrubs, etc. :)

Long-overdue Photos

Here's some photos that have taken me way too long to get up here. We have a little bit of craw fish action, bed refinishing action, and cat-under-the-door action. :)

Sooooo ready for the weekend!

This week has just dragged! I can't wait to relax a little!Tonight we're going to try our luck at getting in to see Spiderman 3, and tomorrow we're going to get to visit with our good friends from Purdue Megan and Mike. They live so close but we barely ever get a chance to visit with them. This first photo is from Senior year at "That Dance"! All us girls lived together in one of Campus House's houses. :)

The best memory I have from that year is waking up to a J-House prank (cow pictures everywhere - EVERYWHERE!) and Megan sitting stunned in her p-j's on the kitchen floor. :) We had a really fun year. :)

I Just Like to Smile, Smiling's My Favorite.

I just love this CafePress stuff. With all my shops I am making now about $120/mo. from these silly shirts! Here's one of my latest! :)

Today BJ and I worked our butts off around the yard and garage. BJ got a pile of old wood that was piled up in the yard and cleaned out the garage (we had a lot in there that we hadn't gotten to since the move). I worked on sanding down BJ's old bed - which turned out to be a much more time consuming and strenuous job than I expected (I thought having an electric sander would make things easy). The work is almost done now though so hopefully I'll be able to finish it tomorrow.

Pictures to come!

Global Rich List

Saw this on Amber's blog just now and thought I'd share...

"Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world. Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. But where would you sit on one of those lists? Here's your chance to find out."
http://www.globalrichlist.com

Wiped Out, New Photos, Etc.

As the title of this blog says... we're a bit wiped out. As I write this BJ is sleeping in the hammock in the back yard (and the cats are sleeping on the carpet in the sun - it's the definition of a restful moment). A couple hours ago we got back from spending the weekend with over 50 high school students out at camp. We had a really great time, but sleep doesn't happen much at camp so now we're just taking it easy and coming to grips with the fact that we have to get up bright and early and go to work. :)

When we got back we found that we had two trees delivered from the Arbor Day Foundation, so now we have a new maple and douglas fir in the yard. We can't wait for our yard to get finished so we can create our landscaping around the house.

As promised, here's some pictures from BJ's birthday! We took a gazillion pictures at the game... here's just a few. Here's BJ with one sportscaster moving out of the shot...



Here's how BJ and I compare on vertical jumping skills...



Here's a shot we took from right field. Is it me our does Ryan Freel seem a little uncomfortable with this hug from Josh Hamilton...?



Here's the "Reds" cake I made for BJ...

Happy (belated) Birthday BJ!

Yesterday was BJ's 26th birthday! :) I took the day off to spend with him and dispite a little bit of rainy weather we had a really nice day. We went to the driving range and the pro came out to give us some tips, which was really cool (we were so bad he felt compelled to help us!). After that we headed over to Montgomery Inn for some ribs and off to the ballpark. We were able to see batting practice, which I love! We really put our telephoto lense to use! The game was really fun (except for the port-Bronson part) - thanks Mom and Dad for the tickets! :)

This weekend we're off to camp with the high school for a retreat. I'll post some pictures soon!

Berries & Cream, Berries & Cream...

...I'm a little lad who loves berries and cream!
I have a new shop!

My Autism awareness shop has also been doing quite well. I'm selling about 1 shirt a day!

And the 3 official turkey poses shall be...

These turkeys are so funny to watch! They get all puffed up looking for some turkey love. Here's a photo more that's more zoomed out so you can see just how many turkeys we have around our house! It's like a turkey HERD!



The other day we had some wild storms but also got to see some really cool sky. There was a huge rainbow that I missed getting a picture of, but here's a photo of the clouds behind our house and BJ looking cute as always. :)

For Our Single Friends...

The girls on this site really would think his tractor's sexy! You have to see this. http://www.farmersonly.com. We just saw a commercial for this site. BJ and I are currently getting sucked into the extra channels we get free for one month... my favorite is the Discovery Health Channel... :) I don't think I could have been a doctor but I sure love real life medical shows!

Today I tried out my Grandma Marie's granola cereal recipe, and it turned out great! :) Now we have a ton of yummy cereal! :)

I've had some requests so here's another photo from our house - this is our living room again. I tried to do something with the photo there in the background but BJ teased me because it was so low... :) It's now in a more normal location on the wall. BTW, the photo is one of the family photos I scanned - a tree in my Grandpa Rod's yard when he was growing up. It's such a beautiful photo! Also, I have new blue pillows that I love - thanks Mom! :)

300 Kitties!

I gotta see this movie!

Sick, Better, Happy Times

It finally feels as though we are settling into the new house, even though our to-do list hasn’t gotten any shorter. After being sick from Wednesday through most of the weekend last week, it felt great to not feel sick and be able to enjoy the weather a bit. BJ and I had a nice relaxing day on Sunday, grilling out, taking walks, etc. We also were able to spend time clearing out some of the branches that fell during this winter’s ice storm. Here’s some photos of BJ chopping the wood…





After that was cleared away we were able to get our hammock set up!



Also… since we’ve moved in we’ve spotted squirrel, duckies in our pond, deer, and wild turkey! :)

Not Much New...

Sorry for nothing new lately. It’s been a pretty busy time! Our house (more specifically the entire upstairs) is still in the unpacking stage… Here’s what I’m talking about.



Had a great weekend – I went home to visit with my family and got to see my Grandma! : ) She’s such an amazing woman and has handled everything so well. My mom and her siblings have been consistently with her over the past two months despite the distance. It’s really something to be a part of a family that would go to such great lengths to support each other.

BJ spent the weekend hanging out with Dan and Chad. I’m not sure what all went on but I think it involved movies and steak. :)

We’re still waiting on our new cell phones, house phone, internet, etc. Our cell phone are being held hostage by UPS because they don’t believe our address exists. Ah... the fun of being the first ones in a neighborhood. :p

Happy Birthday Aidan!

Aidan's birthday was this weekend! He's already 1 year old and we can hardly believe it! He's growing so fast!!! :) Kris sent me this picture... he's just SO adorable!!

Love you Kristen!

Cell Phone Saga Update...

Okay, so this is probably a really boring thing to blog about (if so, skip this paragraph), but we've had a wireless breakthrough! This weekend we came very near to signing on with Nextel (the only carrier that we knew who could support us and our country livin') - but decided to wait because the store we went to wouldn't come down in price on any of their phones or match the prices we found online. But then yesterday Trevor stopped by to see BJ and he happened to have Cingular, which we hadn't tried yet (so far checked off our list was Verizon, T-Mobile, Cincinnati Bell, and Sprint), and it worked great! So, were going with Cingular - we can get cooler phones and a better price than Nextel and thus, we now heart Cingular. :)

We had a very busy weekend, and made a point to actually be home on Sunday. We were able to get a lot more done at home. Among other things, we hung our first picture and introduced the cats to the upstairs world. They were pretty siked (I just wanted to say "siked"). :) We also met our soon-to-be new neighbors. We gave them a tour of the house and learned more about them. They will most likely be the next ones to build and move in.

Sorry, no pictures.

Cut off from the world...

So it looks like another 3-4 weeks until we'll have internet and cable at home and 1 week to get a house phone. This has been a really long and complicated process (including much frustration and giving up on Comcast) - so we're happy to at least sort of have it figured out. That's what we get for living in country. :) I guess we're going to get IP video which comes, strangely enough, through the phone line. Has anyone heard of this? It sounds like crazy talk to me. :)

- Jessie

We’ve Moved!

So after much heavy lifting, three roles of packing tape, and a few scrapes later… we’re finally in our new home! We found out that we have a ridiculous amount of stuff. We were so grateful for everyone that was able to come help up load the truck, unload the truck, and clean our old home. Thanks so much to Linda, Carl, Maria, Tom, John, Kevin, Kyle, Noah, Adam, and Blake! We felt so loved and cared for having all your help!

Here’s a little run down of the past four days… On Friday, BJ and I continued to pack up the house and in the afternoon we went to the house to finalize everything with our builder. We did a walk through of the house and got all of our paperwork for warranties, etc.

Here’s our pile of stuff waiting to be put into the U-Haul:



Here’s Annie enjoying the outdoor smells (and having no idea of what’s about to happen):



On Saturday morning I went out to the house where our new fridge was being delivered. Meanwhile BJ went to pick up the U-Haul. It took a while of waiting at the house for the fridge (they gave us a two hour window), and so by the time I got back to our old home, there was a line of cars down the street of everyone there to help us.

Once we were all loaded up we headed over to the house to start unloading. Here’s Tom and BJ moving stuff upstairs (and loving the fact that I’m taking their picture as they lift heavy things):



Our house was pretty much a mess the rest of Saturday and Sunday! Here’s part of the mess:



We did get to see the sun rise and a few deer around our property early on Sunday morning, which was very cool. Here’s out first deer:



Yesterday I stayed home to continue putting everything away. Maria stopped by with lunch and it was great to visit with her (she’s home from IU for spring break). After BJ was done with work we went to Home Depot and went grocery shopping.

Here’s our living room and kitchen, now nearly put together! Thanks mom and dad for the beautiful coffee table!!! We had kept it in the box until this weekend. It’s so fun to be able to use it!





So… that’s where we are now. Now we’re both back to work and getting used to everything that’s new. We’re really looking forward to getting our new cell phones (we get maybe 1 or 2 bars in one spot of our house – and so we have to switch), cable, and internet. We’re also looking forward to getting curtains (because we met our only neighbor and she says she likes to watch people). Hmmm…

Happy Birthday Eric!

Three Days Left!!!

Just three days until the house is officially turned over to us! We have our walk-through with the builder on Friday morning and then the big move happens on Saturday. In the mean time, there seems to be a million little things that have to be done. BJ and I are both taking Friday off, and I’m taking Monday off as well. Hopefully that will be enough days to feel at least a little settled in. :) We have carpat now, which goes a long way in making the house feel actually finished.

I found some videos stills (the one of me here and more) I captured from on old home movie tape… Posted to the right if you’d like to see! :)