4-29-2012 Romantic Weekend...re-do, please?

This was supposed to be our romantic weekend. Mom and Dad take the kids one weekend in the spring for a sleepover and Charlie and I have a romantic weekend all to ourselves. I dropped the kids off Friday with Mom. Charlie and I had dinner and went to the bedroom where he promptly fell asleep. Poor guy. He's been working hard, both on the job sites and in the office to nail down the next big job.

Saturday we woke up and got some necessary work done here. Emptied out the back of his truck. Hauled some firewood for the week. Did a quick clean out of the summer kitchen. Then we got ourselves cleaned up and headed out to Shupp's Grove, an outdoor antique market in Adamstown. We weren't there long when Charlie got a phone call about two potential customers who needed some paper work IMMEDIATELY. It ended up ruining our day because it was nothing that turned into a big brouhaha. When we came home, we had some snacks and took ourselves off to bed to watch a DVD and wind down.

Today we woke today and decided to rearrange some furniture. We got rid of our sofa and love seat by putting it in the driveway for the neighbors to take. We moved our fine Italian leather sectional (a SalVal buy) to the living room. That opened up space in the office/classroom. We moved some of that furniture around to open up the room. Both spaces look much better.

We worked up such an appetite we took ourselves off the Kentucky Fried Chicken to pick up some lunch. We brought it back here and enjoyed a fine dining experience on our river-side porch. The chicken was fabulous and we loved every bite of it! Then we took a nature walk (sluggishly due to the fried chicken) around our property.

The kids are at Knoeble's with Mom and Dad. We're going to leave shortly to go pick them up. Not our ideal weekend, although still not as bad as a year and a half ago when our fall romantic weekend was ruined by the neighbor's hostage crisis.

4-28-2012 How To Use A Sock To Get Beautiful Curly Hair Without Heat | A Spotted Pony

How To Use A Sock To Get Beautiful Curly Hair Without Heat | A Spotted Pony


Can't wait to try!

4-21-2012 Rain is Coming Baby

It has been an absolutely lovely spring thus far. Exceptional in the lack of rain we've had. That's about to change. In the next 48 hours we are supposed to get approximately 3.5 inches of rain. I think it could turn into one of those 'be careful what you wish for' scenarios. We've brought in the chair cushions and tied the dock fast to surrounding trees.

Certainly, some rain will be welcome. The area has had a lot of brush fires and one record setting forest fire. Something we normally hear about in the western parts of the country. Not here.

This morning we ran some errands going to the artifacts bank, dropping off a blueprint, and to our favorite discount stores. Spent a total of $8, which is very good for Charlie. Almost spent $800 at the artifacts bank on some old tongue and groove wood to make a wall partition in the master bedroom. That was a bit too much for old lumber that would take a lot of work before it could be installed.

This past week Ryan and Charlie have been working around the property. they completed the painting of the log cabin section of the barn, as well as the section facing the railroad tracks. They created some smaller doors to the upper level and then moved a lot of the equipment from the lower level to the upper level. lots of purging of items to the dumpster. I tried to peak every now and then to be sure Charlie wasn't getting rid of any of my prized possessions. 

4-9-2012 Oh What a Night!

What a night we had! For reasons that escape me in the clear light of day, we decided to try out the new air mattresses and sleeping bags the Easter Bunny brought the kids. We set up the tent on the new front porch. Everything would have been fine except for two issues. Gale force winds throughout the night and a low of 46, much lower with the windchill, I'm sure.

I would have gladly come into the house in the middle of the night, but I was afraid Charlie and the kids would blow away without me. It was crazy windy. The wind sounded like a freight train as it flew up along the river. It was so incredibly loud!

This morning I took Lily to Shady Maple for breakfast since we were up early enough to beat the crowds and she said she'd really looked forward to it all of Easter break. Now I'm exhausted as is Charlie and Luke. Lily actually slept pretty good in the tent.

Can't wait to sleep in my warm cozy bed tonight.

It's our 10th wedding anniversary. I don't think we're doing anything to celebrate today. We'll celebrate when Mom and Dad have the kids for the weekend. This weekend or in two weeks.

4-8-2012 Easter

 

We had a nice Easter for the most part. No visits with family since we had P&J down last week because J was working this weekend. Kathy is in Utah visiting with George, Denisse, and Baby Brendon.

The kids got candy, juice bags, freeze pops, sleeping bags and air mattresses. Charlie and Luke did some afternoon fishing down at the dock. Caught nothing but enjoyed the sun and mild temperatures. Lily and I had an egg hunt. Lily and Charlie had an egg hunt. Luke wanted nothing to do with egg hunts.

The one thing I wish we would not have done was a sleepover in the tent Easter night. See the next post for the details on that fiasco.

4-6-2012 Cave Exploration on the Eve of Easter

We went to Crystal Cave today. Luke had been there earlier this year on his class field trip and we thought he'd enjoy going back. He seemed to enjoy it, as did the rest of us. I think our favorite parts of the trip were the gift shop and panning for gems afterwards.

On the way home we stopped off in Kutztown for Charlie to check out a hardware store for barn paint. He and I painted the cron crib/log cabin section of the barn yesterday. We're not crazy about the color. It seems a bit too orange to us and we're worried about the side facing the house with the Hex signs on it. We don't want it to fade orange instead of red.

 Lily and I walked a few blocks down and bought a smores donut at 'The Frying Dutchman' Hot out of the oil and quite tasty.

Once home, the kids played outside while I did laundry and lawn watering and Charlie mowed the lawn. We had fabulous steak with peppers and onions for supper.

All in all, a very nice day spent together as a family.

4-5-2012 River Side Porch Pictures

 

 

 

 

4-4-2012 Best EVER Sal Val Buys!

 

4-1-2012 Aprils Fools' Festivus for the Rest of Us

     As has become our tradition, I got Charlie and Lily first thing this morning with an April Fools' joke. I went to the mailbox to get the Sunday paper. I came back into the house all excited and yelled that someone had dropped off a box of kittens in the ditch behind the mailbox. Charlie jumped out of bed to get clothes on and Lily ran down with me to check them out, begging and petitioning the entire way down to please, please, please let her keep them. Oh, I got them good.

     Luke could not be fooled.

     Mom and Dad came down for lunch. We had anti pasta salad, pizza, cheese steak hoagies, and stromboli from Mimo's. All very good. Then hung out for the afternoon. It was our Easter celebration as well as celebrating Dad's 64th birthday which will be April 7th. We did the celebrating today because Mom is working for Dad's birthday and Easter. We're flexible like that.

     Now to do a bit of backtracking. Charlie and our employee Ryan were here last week doing work around the property. They put the dock back on down at the river. Then they built an absolutely lovely riverside porch. They also trimmed branches and chipped those branches into mulch.

     A few weeks ago, Charlie's dad was here for a few days and created a new path from the wood pile to the outdoor furnace. Then the remaining areas which had been ruined by Gradall tracks were graded and planted in grass.

     I'll have to post some pictures of the various projects. we currently have tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinth, forsythia, and primrose in bloom. The flowering cherry trees and Jacob's ladder are just getting ready to bloom. It's cool and rainy today. Hopefully, perfect for all the grass that's planted around the property to grow. I'd much rather let the skies do the watering than me!