Every year our church has a weekend long celebration called Family Weekend Connection.   It is a fun venue where you bring the dogs and kids and camp in a tent.  We have never done the tent thing before at Family Weekend until this year.  For two years Vivian cried when we left.  She had the mistaken impression that WE were going to sleep in a tent.  HAHAHA…..  Well, I guess I was laughing right up until Steven decided to go ahead and get a tent to put up to see if we could do it for one night.  Well, I did do it for ONE night.   As a child, I was always confused about the story of Jacob, where he propped his head on a rock to sleep.  I did not fully understand until Friday night and that was when the answer to this two decade long puzzle became crystal clear in my brain.  I would have welcomed a rock to put my head on.   Anything!

We borrowed a pop up tent from a friend and I dug out a full size air mattress.  Well, it wasn’t until Steven wrestled the air mattress into the small tent and blew it up, that he realized he put the pillow part at the bottom of the tent where our feet go.  So, we slept slanted with our feet on the pillow! HA!  Everytime Steven got out of the tent, my rear-end hit the ground, and every time he got back into the tent, I see-sawed back up into the ceiling (it was only 2-3 feet above the mattress for movement).  Lots of fun.  After waking up almost paralyzed from the cold and pinched nerves, I declared that I was NOT going to spend another night outside at Family Weekend.  Not that I dislike camping.  Camping is great…..in the summer, or when you are at least comfortable and can sleep.  I did my mommy duty by staying out there one night to appease my five year old.  She had a blast….of course…..

Here are a few pictures from our weekend.  Hope everyone else enjoyed their weekend!

Andrea

Pumpkin Paint

pumpkin painting fwc

Hello Kitty!

Steven helping me with pumpkin painting booth

Angie and Rebecca

Yup, all six pictures of me look like this! I always blink.

Our campfire

Tasha and her dog

Rebecca and Kaylie

Jamie and Caleb

Vivian in her princess costume for the parade. She is not happy about the attention she was getting.

Vivian in the parade

To all of my scrapbooking and crafty friends out there, November is Stampaganza month at Close to My Heart.  What that means is that if you purchase two sets of Acrylix stamps, you get the third free!  Yay!  I am SUPER excited about this.  It is a great opportunity right before the holiday to pick up gifts and stocking stuffers for your crafty friends.  If anyone is interested in placing an order, please leave a comment.  Click on the link below to view the full details on the flyer.

CTMH Stampaganza!

I find it interesting that the word FUN is bigger in my tag cloud than say, Old House, Back Porch, Bathroom….lol.  It just shows that I have been goofing off.  I need to get to work thereby creating more posts on work completed on MY house.

Andrea

PS I tagged this as Old House since technically I did talk about my Old House!

Tomorrow.  Noon.  I will be watching it!

Geaux Saints!

***UPDATE: WHO DAT SAY GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS?????  We are 5-0!

No, not an exciting post.  More reflective than anything.  I felt sick today, so I left Steven over at our rent property putting in the final touches in each bathroom, installing baseboards and finishing up the plumbing….yay for him!  I did help him caulk the baseboards and liquid nailed finishing pieces onto the cabinets in the kitchen.  I am convinced that paintable caulk and paint can fix a multitude of ugly!  I started to feel ill, so I came back over here.  Hopefully he won’t read this post and realize how much of a slacker I am being this evening while he is over there slaving!

These beautiful flowers have been blooming in the backyard of 94 Bungalow (the rent house we are currently fixing up).  They are gorgeous and almost look like roses.  They come from a ten foot tall bush.  I cannot identify them.  They do not have a scent and their constitution is very weak, they did not last one day in a vase.  So, if anyone knows what they are, please drop me a line.

Yesterday, I had the day off.  I realized two things: 1) I seem to never get anything done on my TO DO list, even if I take the day off; 2) that my dog shares my affinity for people watching.

And believe me, there are some interstin’ people to watch on my street!  Viv and I packed up the boxes of Christmas presents that we send to Handumanan Village, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines.  We send gifts to the children and a box of supplies for their school every year.  This year, when I emailed our contact over there to ask what they need, she said: the presents are nice, but send school supplies and books.  LOL….it is funny to me that the adults find the presents frivolous.  They just want basic needs met.  But, the kids LOVE the gifts we send.  Some of them do not even take them out of their packaging.  When some people from our church visited this Spring, they noticed that several of our gifts were on shelves unopened.  They did not want to get them dirty.  It was more like a trophy not to be touched than a toy to play with.  Very interesting.  I hope they get around to playing with them.

Vivian had a great time helping me.  She kept asking me, “Are we sending these to the kids?”  Too cute. Speaking of cute, Vivian and Taavi are getting along better now.  She has completely gotten over being jealous and is actually enjoying him now.  I catch her singing to him sometimes.

Taavi has a little blue and green turtle that we call Louis.  It is his teddy bear.  He loves the dumb, stinky, smelly thing.  He picked it out himself from PetSmart.  Since he would not part with it in the store, I bought it for him.

Taavi is looking more and more like his dad everyday.  Would you listen to me?  You would think I was talking about my son or something.    Fortunately, I am not.  I do not think Steven would appreciate me comparing Taavi’s looks to his.  Here is Taavi’s dad.

When posting these pictures, I saw that Steven snapped this picture of Vivian Thursday.  I wonder if she got a whooping right after it was taken.  She is positively staring daggers!  If looks could kill…

Well, besides a lot of other boring details, I have had a very busy week.  Soon to come will be pictures of the finished 94 bungalow.  We are finishing up, affixing the details and next week we will refinish the floors and clean up.  At that time I will take good after pictures and post the whole album online.

Happy Saturday!

Andrea

Vivian has a funny sense of humor.  She begged me to allow her to eat this apple and then she bit patterns into it.  This one has a goatee, a grin and two eyeballs.

The other side of the apple has a more comedic quality….  Not exactly a Jack-O-Lantern, but, just as cute.

Happy Fall everyone!

Andrea

Ok, it is official, everything I said about our sweet dog is taken back!  Especially when the taking back in question involves shoes!  The first time I found Taavi gnawing on this shoe, I popped him with it and fussed at him pretty good.  I saw him yesterday running around the house with it in his mouth and then today, he got in my closet, AGAIN, and chewed it up.  Thems be fighting grounds.  And yes, I did use incorrect grammar and say “thems”.  No, these shoes were not very expensive, but they were my VERY favorite pair of shoes!

My favorite flat, silver, pointy toe, faux snake skin shoe!

Since this is a post about shoes, here are a couple pics of Vivian two nights ago trying on my new boots.  After Vivian got her bath, Steven found her in our room zipping up my boots.  She was happy to model them for him!

Andrea

HUH? 

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) – Had this custody drama played out in the United States, Christopher Savoie might be considered a hero — snatching his two little children back from an ex-wife who defied the law and ran off with them.

A Tennessee court awarded Christopher Savoie custody of his son, Isaac, and daughter, Rebecca.

But this story unfolds 7,000 miles away in the Japanese city of Fukuoka, where the U.S. legal system holds no sway.

And here, Savoie sits in jail, charged with the abduction of minors. And his Japanese ex-wife — a fugitive in the United States for taking his children from Tennessee — is considered the victim.

“Japan is an important partner and friend of the U.S., but on this issue, our points of view differ,” the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo said Tuesday. “Our two nations approach divorce and child-rearing differently. Parental child abduction is not considered a crime in Japan.”   For the full article, click here.

If parental abduction is not considered a crime, then why is he in jail?  This doesn’t make sense.

Andrea

Ok, I know that it is probably not polite to laugh, but when I saw this picture, I couldn’t help myself….

I mean…..REALLY? 

For the full slide show and story, click here.

Andrea

Ceiling medallion freshly painted

An interesting light fixture

Dinner at Nottaway

Last week, Sunday, I had the privilege of joining likeminded preservationists at the Louisiana Trust’s unveiling of the properties that made their annual 10 Most Endangered List.  The Historical Association of Central Louisiana nominated the CLSH Dairy Barn in Pineville and the Armour Building on Lower Third.  The City of Alexandria Historic Preservation Commission, in short, Melinda Anderson, was responsible for the successful nomination of three other Cenla properties.   At first, I was excited that five of our properties made the list.  However, that excitement was short lived when I realized that it really is not an honor that we (Alexandria) have so many properties listed.  It is actually sad that we had so many buildings to nominate.  One preservationist at the event said “Alexandria, you need to get busy!”.  So true. 

Nottaway Plantation was beautiful.  I enjoyed touring the grounds and the restaurant.  Nottaway just underwent a “multi-million dollar renovation” by sprucing up the main house, building two pergolas, a pool and an assortment of out buildings which host parties, weddings and other events such as the one I attended.  Here are a few pictures I was able to take.  I found it hard to hold my program while juggling my evening bag and large SLR camera.  So, basically, they are what they are.

I had a great dinner and wonderful conversation with fellow HACL members Judge Rae Swent and Dr. Phillip Tapley and other preservationists from across the state. 

Alexandria:  We need to get busy!

Andrea