Chattanooga Day 1 - Sir Goony's

We had been talking about trying to take a vacation ever since we skipped going away for our anniversary last year, and so we finally got our butts in gear to pull off a "babymoon".  So we woke up and headed to Ikea...  Ok, so Ikea was not our final destination, but what trip through Atlanta would be complete without stopping at Ikea?  After we scoped out lots of things we wanted and ate some swedish meatballs, we headed on to Chattanooga, Tennessee.  

On the way, we were discussing our families' traditional vacation activities when growing up, and I mentioned that I didn't remember any vacation where my family did not play mini-golf.  After a quick search, I found a mini-golf place 5 minutes off of our driving route, and this landed us at...

We both got hole-in-ones (actually I got two)

Then we embraced our inner child and played arcade games, and reminisced about how arcade games were not the same as when we were younger.  An oldie but a goodie is always air hockey, though.  I include this next picture because of the conversation that preceded it.  (I preface this, with the fact that there are few things at which I can beat Tim.)

Tim: "You ready for some air hockey?"
Me: "Yep!"
Tim:  "You ready to have your butt kicked?"
Me:  "Sure."
(My score is on the right...)

I did discover a new arcade game that was quite entertaining...

This game can be quite addicting, and very fun to play when you're not gambling with a million dollars.  However, we did kick butt and won a bunch of tickets that enabled us to acquire some fun loot for the nieces and nephews.  

We checked into our hotel and then headed out for dinner.  One of the best things we did while on vacation was sought out local restaurants.  We found a brochure/magazine in our hotel of restaurants, farmers markets, and other entities devoted to local production of goods and food.  We rarely deviated from using this to pick our restaurants and we were not disappointed.  Our first pick landed us at the Terminal Brewhouse.  The restaurant featured a very sassy menu (example below), amazing pub food, and one of the best root beer floats (made with home-brewed root beer) that I've ever had.

The Terminal Brewhouse

After dinner, we wandered over to check out the Chattanooga Choo Choo, a historic hotel with hotel rooms inside converted train cars.

And so ended Day 1 of our awesome vacation. :)

Popsicle Prayers

...with a preggar pic thrown in.

The hubs and I have been talking about having a family altar for a while.  What is a family altar you ask? Great question...one I had to ask as well.  A family altar is a place in your home that you deem as the center of your family prayer time and devotions.  There is a lot of information on the internet about the history of family altars and what items people include in their family altars.

A friend of ours wanted to get rid of a shelf, and I had a hard time turning it down, since it came at the bargain price of...free...and voila!, the humble beginnings of our family altar was born.

Surprisingly, this post is not about family altars.  It's about popsicle sticks....stick with me (ha! pun was unintended, but punny nonetheless!)  I'm always looking for ways to incorporate our faith into the little moments our day...so much easier to think about than to implement and execute...I'm working on that.  One of the girls in the Bible study I work with, came up with the idea (inspired by Pinterest I'm sure) to have a prayer jar with all of our names in it.  Each week we pick a stick with someone's name on it and pray for that person all week.  I was looking for a container that would serve this purpose in our home and while cooking came upon the perfect jar...or can rather.

 Sometimes I get caught up with wanting things to be perfect before implementing them...so many projects that I haven't done because I haven't figured out the perfect way to do it...rather than just going with the project and developing the idea in full as I go.  So this time, I went for the "it'll work for the mean time", undecorated aluminum can with the undecorated popsicle sticks, with all of our family's names written on them.  The popsicle sticks are supposed to be colored on one end (hence the sharpie-colored end of the sticks above) so that you go through all the sticks before repeating any of them, also ensuring that you get to everyone in the jar.

But the other day, it was pretty outside, and just cool enough (along with a little fan I rigged on one of the chairs) to sit outside and paint the popsicle sticks.  Tim had rigged a clothes line up to dry some clothes, and this worked as the perfect place to hang the popsicle sticks to dry.

 If you have an easier way to accomplish this, let me know.  I just decided I wanted a painted look rather than a colored-with-a-marker look.

Now, I did promise a preggar pic...

27 weeks

And for a close-up of Sprout :)

Sprout is in there smiling and waving...I'm sure of it.

Here was the final project, made with some modge podge and scrapbook paper.  Although, I have to work on my modge podge skills, because after a few moments, the paper crinkled :(  But it still looks cute... from a distance.

Bread Bag

I've started making homemade bread, and this has presented the challenge of storing it so it doesn't go bad before we finish it.  I was reading about various bread holders online (there are several options on Amazon...some quite amusing), and read something about a tweed bag being one of the best storage options.  I mentioned this to Tim, and his response was "Tweed?  I have tweed pants."  That set the following into motion.

He immediately went into our outdoor storage unit and pulled out this pair of tweed pants that he just happened to be saving for such an occasion...who knew?  I didn't.

My husband is a man of many talents.  Did you know he could sew?

He's also very good at removing stitches ;)  (This was one of those 1 in a million moments where I was right and he did it wrong anyway.  Yes, I'm gloating...No, it's not pretty...but it happens so rarely...so excuse my relishing)

And he produced a tweed bread bag for me.  I'll let you know how it works out!

House Hunters

Part of the reason I have been so bad to my loyal fans by not updating the blog is that we've spent almost every spare moment looking for a nest house.  I could show you the Excel sheet of houses we've seen, but  then you might think we were crazy (if you don't already...).  Let's just say there are A LOT of houses that we've looked at.  It's not that we haven't found any we've liked...in fact...we've put offers on four different houses.  Now five.

With the first house, we ended up in a "highest and best" blind bid situation and were outbid.  The second house, we got the bid...but after walking through it with a fine-toothed comb...we realized that the "To-Do" list of things that would HAVE TO be done immediately was really beyond our cash flow at this time and exceeded our willingness to do projects.  Tim refers to this house as the "death by a thousand paper cuts".  We actually felt a huge rain cloud was lifted when we decided (after much prayer) to walk away from this house.  The third house was it...I was convinced.  It was in a neighborhood we really liked, and had a very manageable to-do list...but again was a bid situation...and we were outbid.  Many tears were shed over this one (I'm pregnant, I can cry if I want to).  The fourth house was a shot in the dark.  It had a fabulous yard (which is something we've been really wanting), but was really out of our reach price-wise. We put an offer on it anyway, and weren't surprised when the guy turned it down and we realized we weren't going to find middle ground.  

So that brings us to the fifth house.  This was a house we had looked at, really liked the house, but had sort of decided that the yard wasn't what we wanted.  After the fourth house didn't work out, I couldn't stop thinking about this house.  I'm talking...wide awake at 2 am and can't get this house out of my head.  So when we went to our agent's office to meet him to go for yet another Saturday of looking at houses, I told him I wanted to go see this house again.  He looked at me and said, "now... you guys decided that the yard was too small".  (He can say this to me...the man has spent countless hours looking at houses with us, he knows what we're looking for).  I said, "I know, but we need to go see this house again."  So, we added it to the list of houses to see that day, and it just so happened that the owners were out of town that weekend, so it was convenient to stop by.  It was the second house we looked at that day and every house after it just didn't compare in my head.  After seeing it again, we realized the yard was not as small as we (Tim) had it in our (his) head. :)  

We put together an offer that day... they countered...we accepted...and we're currently under contract for this beauty...

We are still in the nitty-gritty of all the stuff you have to do when buying a house, so it's not final 'til the fat lady signs the closing papers, BUT, I'm feeling confident enough to post a picture.  We had our house inspection yesterday and it went ridiculously well.  It was really fun (for me anyway) to have the inspector walk us through the house and tell us about it in detail, some for suggested repairs and maintenance and some just to educate us on the house.  So, if all continues to go well (still continuing to pray this thing through)...we will be closing in June...and Sprout will have a nest house.

It's Not Good When Your Hairdresser Says...

One of the things I miss most about Athens is my hairdresser.  I had finally found someone that made my hair look good for a reasonable price, and I was sad to leave her behind when we moved.  It's really hard for me to convince myself to try someone new because I may be willing to pay a certain amount for a haircut, but not if I don't know if the person is going to jack up my hair.  So what did I do?  I went to Supercuts.  At least if they mess it up, I've only paid ~$15.

So, I'm sitting in the chair and the lady is chatting me up while she's cutting the back of my hair.  She hands me the mirror and turns the chair around so I can see what she's done.  I wasn't that impressed...at all... but usually I can't decide if I like a haircut until I've gone home and washed and styled it myself, and I wouldn't have known how to ask her to change it...other than to say "can you make it look better than that", so I said nothing.  She turns me back around...and starts to take the cape off!  I said, as nicely as I could..."Are you going to cut the front?".  "Oh yeah!" she says and sort of laughs.  I was quickly losing confidence that I was going to get out of there for $15 AND with a good haircut.  Then I saw it...her license...showing a graduation date of just a month earlier.  I had clearly gotten the newbie.

23 weeks

I was heading to Athens this week and jumped pounced on the chance to visit my old hairdresser.  I sat down in the chair, and she...as nicely as she could... says, "huh...you've got some interesting stuff going on back here."  I. just. laughed.  I hung my head, and said "yeah, I went to Supercuts.  Please work your magic."