September House Tour

Okay okay, I know it's now October and I'm just getting around to posting our first house tour shot in September....sorry! I'm blaming my slowness first on the fact it took a while to get internet and next on our travels, but now I can officially welcome you to our first home tour. We plan on filming a short tour every month to document our works in progress. (And no making fun of me....there was no rehearsing involved!)

House Tour #1 from Krista on Vimeo.

Home away from home

These days we've been finding ourselves in the home improvement stores a whole lot more than we did before. Luckily since it's still summer temps in North Carolina, most of them allow puppy dogs....especially well behaved ones!

She totally digs the cool cement floors.

Now you tell me that having a dog in not all like having a kid.
I swear the motion of the cart makes her calm.

On another note, back on Pecan Avenue when we're not working on some inside project we spend a lot of time on our big southern front porch taking in the neighborhood (that's a friendly term for people watching). Mostly we watch all the antics that go on at Bonnie's house - a woman whom we've yet to meet but have heard a ton of stories about.

Wouldn't I love to have a shirtless lawn boy to boss around too!

Kind of makes me think of someone else who likes to walk around with his shirt off....

We miss you Zach. Wish you were here...with or without your shirt!

9 to 5

Now that we're finally moved in our permanent home, it's time to start the settling process and get back to real life which unfortunately means work. Looks like the vacation is over.

Last week Ben officially started his new job at Quality Stone Veneer, his dad's company which was started the same year little Benji was born. Here's our handsome bread winner on his first day of work, posing next to his shiny new truck. So far he likes it, even though his 9 to 5 has been looking more like 7 to 6.


As he rolled north up Highway 77, I got started on some work of my own. Now I may not be bringing home any bacon yet, but don't ya'll be thinking that I'm sitting on my duff at home watchin' soap operas and drinkin' sweet tea all day. I've got plenty to do and it looks like this....

and this...

and this.

And when all of those boxes are broken down and out of sight, then I'll think about getting myself the kind of job where I can also earn some greenbacks! Since I wasn't exactly in love with my last job, I really want to find one that I like....maybe not love, but at least somewhat like. And since I know the square root of nobody in Charlotte and haven't heard boo about anything remotely related to the field of Speech Pathology, I'm going to have to do some research to help me find "the one". In the mean time, the holiday season is approaching and that means my old friend "retail" is going to need some holiday help, which sounds like something I just might enjoy.

Moving on, I think I may have mentioned before that this little old house of ours is a fixer upper. It's certainly livable by most standards, but that doesn't mean that every surface doesn't need touched. Yes, it's true. There isn't 1 thing in this house that is going to stay as is. At the very very least it all needs a nice coat of paint, and more than likely, quite a bit more. If you know me at all, you surely know that my #1 passion is home decor, but I won't even be thinking about decorating this place for a long long while. I'll clean it up, unpack our old things, settle us in and help with the renovations, and when it's no longer looking like a war zone, then I'll put my finishing touches on it. Of course knowing that it's better to wait is absolutely KILLING ME, I keeping telling myself it's better to save our money than waste on hasty decorating. Most definitely though I'll find myself a few DIY projects to work on until I get the husband's go-ahead on the bigger projects. Lucky for me, my new neighborhood has 3 or 4 antique and second-hand stores withing walking distance, so surely I can find a few diamonds in the rough in one of them!

Oh & did I mention that my home making duties now include laundry since these bad boys arrived last Friday?

Can't wait.

Stay tuned later this week for our first of many house tours (if I can figure out how to upload a giant file)!

High 5!

Imagine my surprise when I opened up my inbox the other day to find an email from Go! Overseas informing me that From Colfax to Xela was voted one of Guatemala's top travel blogs!! Who knew?

Now go check out the others right here!

PA: Part 2

The drive to Lancaster from Clarion was a really beautiful one. Autumn was in full force just a half hour or so east of Clarion and it made me so anxious for the leaves to change in my neck of the woods.


It's about 5 hours between our parents home and a drive that I normally dread, but this time around it wasn't bad at all. Maybe it had something to do with the way I've adjusted to being in the car!

When we got there the farm was looking beautiful.

A year or so ago, my in-laws did some major renovations to the inside of their old farmhouse and this was going to be our first time seeing it. W.O.W. It looked so amazing! Definitely a place where I can envision the whole family spending lots of time together. Even the barns got all spiffed up! (Sorry I didn't take any photos of the inside of the house this time.)



With acres and acres of grass and even a creek to play in, Mia was in doggy heaven. And even old Taffy (a 13-year-old Golden) seemed to perk up with all the puppy energy. (Oops, I didn't get her photo either.)

Although she loved her freedom, she didn't love the resident ram so much!

We spent most of our time playing with these 3 little cuties! Goodness, how they have grown since we last saw them. Although they didn't really remember us, it didn't take us long at all to win them over!

Chloe, Addie & Isaiah

On Sunday after church and before meeting up with our old friend Chris, we did manage to squeeze in a quick trip to the Pottery Barn outlet. Our mission was rugs and beds and we didn't come home empty handed. We landed a huge sisal rug (9 x12) for a killer price. Now hopefully it will fit in our dining room!

Glen & Ben wrapping up the rug for the long drive back.

And of course we found time for a dip in the pool before it gets closed for the season.

(Well, truthfully it was little too cold for most of us!)

Somebody loved her first dip in a real swimming pool!

Mia may have even met someone who loves the water more than she does.

He's a wild man,
jumping off the diving board with Cisco!

The whole trip was so fun, even thought it went by a little to quickly.
Most definitely the best part was getting to know was getting to know our nieces and nephews much better.

Although Charlotte doesn't quite feel like home yet, we certainly love having our other homes much closer by and can't wait to visit more often.

It's fall!

It may still be roasty toasty back in Charlotte, but not here in Pennsylvania where we are now. Yup, that's right. I think I may have forgotten to mention that pretty much as soon as we unloaded the boxes from the truck, we loaded our pup back up in the car and hit the road again. We just can't get enough driving, can we? Pretty ironic coming from 2 people who have shared 1 car for the past 5 years and pretty much kept it parked all weekend long. Sadly, in order to live out some dreams, we've had to increase our carbon footprint when it comes to travel (but to balance it out we really lessened it in other ways).

Anyway, back to the point. It's chilly here in PA and I'm sort of liking it, despite the fact that I couldn't locate my cool weather clothes when packing my suitcase! My hometown of Clarion is best known for it's Autumn Leaf Festival and the signs of fall are everywhere. Last weekend we took a boat ride down the river where we spotted some of the first signs of the changing leaves. In a couple of weeks the banks of that very same river will be covered in a quilt of reds, oranges & yellows. I hope I can come back to see it. It's been a long time.

Here's a bit of what we've been doing on the first leg of our PA trip.

Cruising the Clarion River

One of us wasn't happy until she got in the water.

Playing ball with Uncle Ryan

Cooking up some brats

Color coordinated family

Got our cracked windshield repaired!

And we played lots with little Sadie Boo....

...who is so quick she looks like this most of the time!

Pennsylvania Part II begins tomorrow!

Here goes nothing!

Friday morning, September 3rd we signed our lives away.

We are officially now proud 1st time home owners!

Here it is!

Let the DIYing begin.