Girls Night Out on the Town

For Christmas, I bought the girls tickets to the newest popular Broadway show these days, "SIX"! It's the story of Henry the VIII and his 6 wives, and we've been listening to the soundtrack for months to get ready for the show. It finally arrived, and it was even better than we expected, and we were all incredibly impressed. We had a wonderful night getting dressed up and going out together with our good friends, and it was a great way to celebrate Christmas in June!

Traffic and long restaurant wait times caused us to have a very speedy dinner, and some of us even took it with us for the walk to the theatre...

There was no time to be slowed down by our fancy heels... Although, who am I kidding????? We were going to take them off anyway because our feet were already killing us!

We made it just in time... with pizza still in hand!

We had awesome seats in the first balcony right in the center!

It's been interesting learning about all of the wives, their stories & what their marriages to Henry VIII were like. I just have to say that I'm glad I wasn't married to that man!

It was a wonderful night full of so many new memories with my girls! I can't wait for the next show on our schedule in August with the whole family! Stay tuned...

Summer has begun!

Summer has arrived, and we've already been enjoying the warm weather, the pool & time spent with friends! We had a fun afternoon at the neighborhood pool playing music bingo... and one of us even won a pool float prize!

 

The girls and I have been practicing our hair skills... I'm slowly learning the art of the french braid, and they are having fun trying new styles out on my growing hair!

Some of my attempts haven't totally worked out...

Mine is "just" long enough to begin to braid, and it's fun to play around with curling & straightening!

Brian and I had a fun night with friends at an outdoor Dierks Bentley concert. Rain threatened our tailgating, but it moved out quickly, and it turned out to be a beautiful night!

I was the designated driver, and had to do a double take to make sure I was actually drinking water!

Dierks was an awesome performer!

The dogs have gotten to have some new experiences this summer too, and went to Brian's office in the city for a day! Amazon loves dogs, and even though Luna was terrified of all of the big things in the city, I think they both had a great day with Dad!

Summer has just begun, and we're looking forward to many more fun adventures around here!

Home Improvement Time

We've been saying for years that we wanted the main living spaces in our house painted and freshened up, since it was never done when we moved in 7 years ago. It was finally time to bite the bullet, and after A LOT of research, getting 5 estimates from various companies, and extending the project into light fixtures & refinishing the kitchen cabinets, it was time to start!

Picking paint colors for a whole house is never easy, and I was seeing stars after all the staring I did at different samples for weeks! We had friends look at them, and checked them out in different areas of the house & at different times of day & under different lighting... Everyone got to vote (even though not everyone's choice was picked), and we are happy with our final choices!

Before the crew arrived, we finally had to figure out what we wanted to do with the entryway wall, and Brian did an awesome job adding some decorative molding!

We bought all new light fixtures downstairs to keep with our rustic decor, and I love the new kitchen lighting!

Prepping the house for the painting took days, as I had to empty out every drawer, cabinet, and shelf, and remove all the pictures and decals from the walls. Some came down better than others, but it all got done!

Our guest bedroom became the staging zone for everything from the rest of the house... You could barely walk in there, and it looked like a flea market! Once I get it all sorted out and put away, I'll have to paint that room myself, but it was nice to have somewhere to put everything!

For the 5 days that the painting crew were working at the house, we lived out of the basement, ordered in a lot of meals, and even cooked out in the backyard some nights. It wasn't so bad with the basement space available to us!

The crew came in and removed the kitchen cabinet doors & drawers to take to their shop, and then prepped the house for painting. It looked like a quarantine zone around here!

The playroom wall definitely had the biggest prep to be done, but they did an amazing job!

The oil primer on the cabinets smelled AWFUL, so we stayed out of the house for the day, and the light coat scared the kids into thinking the kitchen was going to look terrible! But, it turned out great in the end!

Brian's new molding on the wall looks great with a slightly different color inside the moldings...

I have loved having the opportunity to deep clean the house with everything off the shelves and moved around... It's taken a while, but SO nice to finally get to some deep cleaning and organizing! I've been dusting, polishing furniture & cleaning everything I can find... The kids even caught me out on the roof one day while I was cleaning windows!

We are loving all the fresh paint on the walls and the super clean house! Since the kitchen is the biggest change for us, let me share some pictures of our beautiful new space with you! 

Check out our before and after pictures of our new, updated space! We love it, and would love for you to come over and enjoy a drink or a cup of coffee with us soon!