photoshop fun

I was able to make this in photoshop so easily with my new paintbrushes from Jason Gaylor's blog Really Cool!

Breathing is an Important thing..

Thus I am having surgery (ugh). April 5th is the big day. I just found out that is Caden's Spring Break from school. I always thought spring break was around Easter. Apparently not. I am nervous, but tired of being tired-no more like exhausted. I am not getting anything done around here, my love for crafting is not even being attended to. I am just a tired lump on a log it seems. I hope this works, they say it will and I have heard good things, but I am tired of surgeries. My poor hubby, Paul, I bet he is tired of them too :(

So, for this reason, my blog will probably become sporatic after the 5th.

sorry, no pretty pictures for this post :( I'll try harder next time...

We're back!

We have been without internet connection for over a week. Being without internet left me with a strange feeling of being disconnected, like I was missing out on what was happening everywhere! I am happy to be re-uniting with my blog-friends!

We have been busy remodeling. Paul started his new job this week. So far so good, he seems to enjoy it. It is weird though, now that he took a job, he has been getting a lot of business for his own business. He is finishing up a big job right now, even as he is working a full-time new job. My busy husband!

Yesterday we tried to get control of our leaves. We have spent at least forty hours on these things and the leaves seem to win. But finally we have a hand on them now. It is looking much better, and wow, our yard looks so much bigger without all of our leaves! We have nearly 3/4 acres, and the former owners left us with all the leaves from what it seems all the years they lived here. In fact, our pool cover was so laden with leaves we had to remove it (another all-day event). Let us just say, that wasn't the easiest thing to do! But we love being home owners, it is all ours, and that makes the work worth it!

We went to the Frederick Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for our annual Butterfly Exhibit voyage. Absolutely Beautiful, it was a bright, sunny day and the butterflies were very active. Here are some of our pic's











Today, Caden performed in the annual Kid's Day at church. This was his first time being on stage. We had the honor to have Grandma come with us. Caden was adorable as always, I think a good time was had by all. The pictures aren't great, but I know grandparents afar would like to see our little ham..here he is...



At one point Caden was playing "air guitar" and jumping up and down, it looked like he was trying to start a mosh pit. So cute. He sang and did the motions to the songs with the other kids, but also marched to the beat of his own drum. Once he saw himself on the big screen TV, it was all over! He did a great job, he was looking forward to this for weeks.

out of service...

our internet is our and has been out for about a week. We will have it back up around Thursday, so we will be updating then...lots of remodeling, butterfly exploring, etc. Fun, fun, fun.

down to the studs

our bathroom has been a bugger. Paul has been working day and night remodeling our main bath. It will be so nice when it is done. Here it is in progress...



He now has the bath tub installed and plumbing rigged so we can bathe. How nice it was to take a bath after almost two days..ahh the little things in life we take for granted. Paul is doing a great job, I am thankful to have a husband willing and able to do this. This will make the house so much nicer. The shower/tub stall were original and strapped backwards to the studs. It was the biggest challenge for Paul to get it out. He cut the fiberglass enclosure into several pieces just to pry it out. Poor guy. Looks like the kitchen will be a lot easier, just because the cabinets will go downstairs and are attached normally. The floors are laminate and nearly new, they are floating floors, so hopefully we can use most of this downstairs as an added bonus. I am so excited with the IKEA design, we chose the more solid beech design with lots of horizontal cabinets. Really quite modern for our town, but we start a trend maybe ;).....The European design seems so much more smart...and economical. The cabinets we were going to order from a cabinet shop were at least double and really had less "bells and whistles" Ok well that is what we have been doing...thanks for listening to the dribble...

Sugar-cago

Yep that is Cadenese for Chicago and that is where we have been. We took our first pseudo-vacation in over eighteen months and we really haven't gone on a true "vacation" since our honeymoon....9 years! Wow. We had fun. We upgraded to a suite with down comforters etc in the Hilton Hotel. It was really nice, we got at a lower price than lesser star hotels through the internet. That is where the story begins, yes there is always a story to our adventures.

I was cleaning up after the first night and picked up one of Caden's stuffed animals from near the bed. The only problem is that I didn't get only his stuffed animal, I got a dirty used condom (obviously from a prior visitor-because there is no action going on with your four year old in the bed next to you). DISGUSTING...
So...Hilton put us up in a real suite with a surprise wine, fruit and cheese, and cookies and milk platter at night. A free meal and free movies, free internet. That was nice, but it still was a really disgusting thing to discover in a four star hotel. The suite had whole city views, two rooms, three tv's, a big couch, it was nice. Apparently, if we hadn't paid online, our hotel could have had the stay rebated etc, but I doubt that, I think it was an excuse. But it was a nice surprise.
We had fun, that is all that counts.