The Bay 2k13

We decided our Bay trip this year would be during the 4th of July holiday, so we could maximize our time there, and not have to take off too much time from work.  We have gone with Annabeth & J (well, Jarrett is his real name, but during trip #1 to The Bay, Buddy started calling him J and it's stuck!) for the past 2 summers, and always have a blast, so it was a no brainer this year to go with them again.  We've been looking forward to this trip for over a year, and it didn't disappoint.  Well, the only disappointing thing is that this is probably one of our last trips there since Grandma Stella is selling it, since Buddy passed away.  We will certainly miss that place - and have sooooo many amazing memories there.

So here's our trip in pictures:

Happy 4th!  Daniel is blowing up the float while J & Annabeth fight over kisses

J and Annabeth looking cute, pre-sunburn

"Floatin' is all I wanna do..."

Daniel with his chicken leg getting ready to catch crab

J & Daniel crabbin'

Floatin' with my favorite SIL

cuties catching some rays

Daniel & Annabeth working on their acrobatics

Love the porch - I'm reading & Daniel is rocking out some Sudokus

Sunset over Bull's Bay - never gets old

 

Awesome fireworks over the Bay

Me and my main squeeze enjoying fireworks

'Murica

Sun-kissed & happy

Annabeth eating raw chicken legs

Annabeth & J

My sweetheart - say "peppers!"



love her

Playing board games... Annabeth was probably laughing at J cheating

We got INCREDIBLY sunburnt.... so we resorted to applying milk to our sunburn

beauty is pain

Pouring Milk on J's head

I'm pretty sure we are CRACKING UP in every picture because that's what we did for 4 days... laugh! 

Speaking of giggles, here are some Grandma Stella funnies:
-When we arrived on Wednesday evening, Daniel brought with us 7 cucumbers from our garden (since Gma Stella doesn't have one this year at the Bay). Daniel showed them all to her and she said "Oh Daniel, they're beautiful!". She is so proud of him, and I know that means the world to him. 
-Since we arrived after dinner-time, Grandma Stella said, "What would Buddy say if he were here??"  Our answer: "STELLA, when ya gonna serve dessert!" Ahh... made us laugh & cry. 
-The next day she said aloud "You know, I just REALLY want to know what Heaven is like".
-While we were enjoying a good meal, she said, "You know, I really don't believe people in Heaven can see us... or else I think they'd be sad."
-Her "half-heimers" was constantly "acting up" - half-heimers is when you have partial alzheimer's and forget things, haha!
-At one point when Daniel was helping Grandma Stella put up a clothesline she said "I'm going to be like that chef [paula deen]..." and with a twinkle in her eye said "that's a nigger's mess!". Ohhhhh boy.
-She said that she only calls me "Grand-daughter-in-law" so other's can distinguish who I am, but she thinks I'm a real grandchild :)

We had a fabulous 'Murica filled day on the 4th.  The fireworks were beautiful - they set them off from three different places, they were legit (those people spent a fortune), and it was so fun to watch them from the dock. 

We spent the days floating/playing with the ball or tag/relaxing in the water, and our nights were filled with golf cart rides, good food, and board games.  We got sooo sunburnt - only J's burn was on purpose, though.  I tried my hardest to stay lathered up, but this pale girl doesn't get a reprieve.   It was a bittersweet trip because Grandma Stella it's likely one of our last trips.  The happy thing for us is we are returning TOMORROW to take his brother (and Ian & Mr Sink), so he can enjoy it and have some good memories before it sells.  Looking forward to lots of floating, reading, and making more memories!  Oh, and getting a little bit fatter :)

One more thing - we missed Buddy.  A lot.

xoxo

dining room painting & other updates!

In my last post, I told you that we are making an effort to be healthier, and joined American Family Fitness.  Well, things are going fabulous.  I've gone to several other classes, a few at 6am (that's quite an accomplishment!), and we are really enjoying it.  Daniel & Matthew are doing a great job with their Couch to 5K... Daniel even did some running while we were at the Bay (an even bigger accomplishment than a 6am class).  Tonight I am going to try Zumba (read: look ridiculous)... I'll let you know how that goes.  I'm only down a pound, Daniel is down 6 (he looks at a gym and loses weight), but we are getting healthy, and that's what counts.

We finished the "main" painting in the dining room, and now we all have left to do is prime/paint the trim white, and put everything back in place.

winning brownie points

looking good!

We are finally able to hang the dyson!  love, love, love

I have a new soap pump in our bathroom.  My dear friend, Kristin, helped me out (she had the right "hole punching" tool.  I love it!



mason jar soap pump - so cute!

Last Wednesday we went to The Bay for the 4th of July, and we had so much fun & made so many memories, I'll have to dedicate an entire post just for the trip!

Monday was Daniel's first furlough day - 1 down, 10 to go.  That's 11 weeks with a 20% pay cut.... thanks government.  I'm trying to be positive about the situation - last year Daniel didn't have a job at all, so 20% should be easy-peasy, but it just stinks.  Sometimes we feel like we just can't get ahead.  Oh well, you never know what could happen - they could shorten it, we could get back pay, etc.  We just keep thinking positive thoughts, and every now and then get a little mad.

So-long, Walmart

A few weeks ago, I was offered a different position with TMA in accounting.  Since Walmart is on the slower side of things right now, I gladly accepted.  I've been down in accounting for 2 weeks now, and have really enjoyed learning new things and a whole different side of the advertising business.  On Monday night, we had a summer party with the Walmart team at Brad's house - and we had a great time.  There are several other people also transitioning off the Walmart account, and Brad said a few words of gratitude and thanks.  Surprisingly, I was one of them!  (I'm too low on the totem pole to think that would have happened.)  He said the kindest things about me - how I was irreplaceable, I was the team/agency's Concur guru, and how much I'm missed already.  Such a treat - I'll miss my Walmart team immensely, but I'm thrilled to be in the same building and have already had tons of visitors in my new spot.

Laughing at being the team's "Concur guru"

Me and my handsome guy

On another note, we harvested our first cucumber!  Last night, we had a very healthy dinner, which included our very own cucumber.  It was soooo delicious - tastes just like Grandma Stella's!  I'm looking foward to a summer filled with home-grown cucumbers.

Here she is.... just prior to harvesting

And finally, on Tuesday night, we joined American Family Fitness right down the road for us.  Daniel has started a "Couch to 5K" with his brother, and I went to a 6am Body Pump class yesterday morning.  We have been working hard at being healthy (read: live a long time, not be super skinny), and this is another step in a fabulous change of our lifestyle :)

Dining Room Makeover & Jalapenos

We’ve had a great week/weekend.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to workout (I’m totally bummed because I was doing so well!), but that meant I had time to relax!  On Wednesday, I went to Mike & Ginny Hughes’ apartment to notarize documents, and since the documents weren’t quite ready, I spent an hour there enjoying good conversation and a fabulous view!  It was such a treat, to spend time with such amazing people.  Then, we went to Daniel’s mom’s house for dinner– that was delightful, especially since Grandma Stella came.  She’s always good for lots of laughs.  After dinner, the poor college student, Annabeth, did a slip ‘n slide – fully clothed – for $20 (from her older siblings).  That girl is crazy, but obviously needs money!

Getting ready to get wet

...she slips and slides

Friday night, our favorite DC gal, Susan (well, tied for favorite with Sarah), stopped in for a quick visit!  She was on her way to sunny Myrtle Beach, and I’m sure is currently soaking up sun, or maybe even deep sea fishing.  We ate our favorite Mexican, Don Pepe’s, and of course had too short of a visit.  Good thing for me, she’ll be by on her way back home this weekend :)

We celebrated Matthew turning 2 on Saturday morning, and on the way home from the party, I decided we needed to go ahead and bite the bullet and paint the dining room.  I solidified the paint color – “Palm Leaf” – picked out by Daniel, put together a list for Home Depot, and off we went.  By the time we got home, we were both exhausted, took some cat naps, and went to bed early.  We woke up on Sunday to get some of the painting started, and so far, I LOVE how it’s turned out!  The color is beautiful, and looks amazing with the slipcover fabric for the chairs.

"Before" - a rather ugly, light minty/sorbet colored green

Before

Before - and ready to paint!

My hardworking husband painting the trim, and yes - he does it by hand!

working hard

Voila!  Two walls are Palm Leaf, and looks great next to the chair fabric

This past week, we harvested our first jalapeno!

check out that bad boy!

On Thursday night, we cut it up & made ‘Jalapeno Popper Chicken’.  We both took a bite out of the raw pepper, and oh.my.gracious – sooooo hot!  As in lips-were-burning-3-hours-later-hot.  I also told Daniel, since he was cutting the pepper, he needed to wash his hands really good.  Well, not surprising, he didn’t listen to me, and rubbed his eyes a few hours later, and yep – his eyes were burning.  After that, he STILL didn’t wash his hands, and rubbed his eyes again.  Silly boy, listen to your wife!  But the chicken turned out amazing :)

Daniel is making the big cut!  (and wants to document every part of the gardening experience)

you can probably smell the spiciness from here!

Since we had several jalapenos to harvest, Daniel canned a jar of pickled jalapenos.  We are looking forward to popping that can open in a few weeks and trying them out!

cooking the jalapenos in vinegar, salt, garlic, oregano

sealing that bad boy up

finished product!

A few weeks ago, Grandma Stella offered me her sewing machine – how sweet!  I said of course I want that, I’ve always wanted to learn to sew, but haven’t made the investment in a machine or the time into learning.  We picked it up last night, and also enjoyed a lovely dinner out.  I’m looking forward to learning to sew after the dining room is done!

Beautiful sewing machine cabinet - 50 years old, and the machine herself!

We have a busy week ahead – a Walmart summer party, dinner with Daniel’s family, starting to workout again, and painting the dining room!  Can’t wait to show you the finished product.  Next week, we are going to The Bay for a few days, it's always a memorable trip with lots of belly laughs... it can't come soon enough :)

Father's Day Fun, Foot Injuries, and a Growing Garden

This past weekend we celebrated Father's Day with all of the fun fathers in our lives. 

The weekend started out interesting on Thursday evening - we had a line of strong thunderstorms come through the area & we lost power.  Normally, I could kind of care less - we don't need power, it's nice to sometimes have a night with nothing to do by candlelight, and I leared after Hurricane Irene to not keep my freezers stocked full of expensive meat.  Well, scratch that last item, because we have been stocking up for a few weeks now to prepare for Daniel's furlough (11 weeks - 1 day/week without pay - 20% pay cut).  For dinner, we went out for mexican with our neighbors, and to hopefully come home to power.  Nope, nothing.  We decided if we still didn't have power in the morning, we would take the food to his dad's house to salvage.  Daniel went to a hockey game with his brother, and I read on my kindle for a little bit & went to bed.  I woke up at 5 am sweating - yes, sweating because it was hot & we didn't have any AC... which meant the power wasn't on yet.  When I finally got up & got ready (in the dark), I was about to walk downstairs to pack up our meat in coolers, and VOILA! - the power was back on!  Allelujuah!  We scraped by - all our meat was saved, we only lost milk, yogurt, & ice cream.

Friday evening we ran a few errands picking up Father's Day gifts and enjoying a nice romantic dinner out - at Wendy's :)  Saturday, we woke up - got some housework/yardwork done.  I had a great workout, and Daniel installed our new hammock in the backyard!  We have the perfect trees for a hammock.

I supervised with my kindle

Then I got to enjoy the fabulous hammock - pure perfection.  It's shady, breezy, and relaxing.

It was so hard to get out of that thing, I was so comfortable!  But alas, we had to get ready to head to his Dad's to grill dinner & take him to a Flying Squirrels game.  We had a great time - yummy porkchops, perfect baseball weather, Rita's Italian Ice, and fireworks.

Beautiful tribute to a fallen Chesterfield soldier - red, white, & blue balloons released.

Ending the evening with a fabulous fireworks display.

Then, that's when our night went from fun to funny/traumatic/nearly deadly.  Okay, that's a bit dramatic.  Anyway, at the end of any event, there is always a swarm of people/traffic leaving the venue.  My claustrophobic husband doesn't like to sit still anywhere, including traffic.  As soon as he gets his family into our 4Runner, he gets into the car, his sister shuts her door, and he's off!  An important note: I'm not yet in the car.  I'm standing next to it organizing the contents of a bag.  As soon as he starts to go, his family says "whoa!" - knowing i'm not yet in the car.  Daniel stops the car.  He stops on my foot.  Yes, my poor left foot now has a 5,000+ vehicle on top of it.  I half-yelled "back up the car!" - Daniel just looked at me so I really yelled "you're on my foot! back up the car!"  So back-up he did.  Ouch!  My foot instantly bruised, a few blood vessels were broken, oh and it also had a tire track on it.  See exhibit A:

the bruise is hard to see, but the tire track is easy to see

I could walk on it fairly well, so we decided to wait until the morning to see if I should go in for an x-ray.  I slept on it fine, but was still nervous about all those bones on the top of the foot, so we went on over to Patient First.  Luckily, nothing was broken.  Two toes may have some fractures, but nothing major.  So the prescription was rest, relaxation, elevation, and ice.  Naturally, I went straight home and did all of this on the newly installed hammock.  Perfect timing.  Daniel felt/still feels terrible, but it was an accident, and the only thing we can really do is laugh about it and make jokes.  It's a good story :)

At one, my family came over for pool time + our annual shrimp boil.  We had lots to celebrate - Father's Day & my fabulous momma's birthday.  We had lots of fun at the pool:

feeling unsure about the pool, but looking super cute

lounging around with uncle daniel

After a few hours of sun, we headed home to start boiling our shrimp!  We had a great time - always a fun meal that everyone enjoys!

quick snooze before dinner

celebrating these cool kids

nom nom nom.... love corn on the cob

me & my really great husband (despite the foot meets SUV incident)

eating corn on the cob and mowing the lawn.... like a boss

Kelly & Derek... about to dig in

And now onto the "star of the show" (if Daniel were writing this).  Our garden is HUGE!  We harvested our first jalapeno (tonight we're using it for jalapeno popper chicken - lots of pics & a post to come!), we have 15 cucumbers growing, and lots of tomatoes, too!

look at that cucumber!  can't wait to eat it

HUGE cucumber plants

Well, that's all for now!  Chat with ya real soon :)

We've had a great few weeks - relatively boring, and not so busy - just the way I like it!  We've gone to the pool a few times (and got the first sunburn of the year), went to the movies - at 10:40 PM - and saw Now You See Me (definitely a great movie) spent some time cleaning up the house & yard, worked out, and slept.  Yep, that just about sums it all up.  This weekend is Father's Day (and my momma's birthday), so we have lots of family fun planned.  Saturday, the Sink clan is going to the Flying Squirrel's baseball game, and Sunday, we are going to the pool and having a shrimp boil at our house :)

Freshly picked hydrangeas on my night-side table - they're gorgeous!

Abby ready to swing

Having so much fun

and full of giggles

Grandpa teaching Abby how to splash in puddles

Such a sweet girl... looking exactly like her Momma

Look at those cucumbers!  And to think, we didn't know if they'd make it

Look at that bad boy!  Can't wait to pick those cucumbers & eat them



And we have tomatoes!

Our tomatillo plant is SO tall!  No fruit on it yet