Painted Bedroom!

Yikes, have I been meaning to post here for a while now.

I think most of you know already that Rob and I bought a new bedspread (thanks to a birthday giftcard from his parents) and painted our bedroom. I take full responsibility for the color choice :) I took a before and after picture of the room so that you all could get an idea of the before and after (as best as you can from a picture.)

I think it's a pretty awesome transformation. All of the rooms in our house were painted white (and were dirty) when we moved in, and painting them really gives the room a whole new feel. We still have our bathroom left to paint and the office, but otherwise we have been doing a whole lot of painting since moving in in early March :)

I've been busy at school preparing for Homecoming, which is in two weeks. We will have a carnival, a tailgate dinner, the Homecoming game and then the dance all on Friday night. My student council seniors are working a dunk tank booth at the carnival, so I've spent a lot of time with them reserving the dunk tank and twisting other teachers' arms into sitting in it. (Too bad I have to be the supervisor taking money and can't be dunked myself!) And...Rob was able to get approval from work to fly a helicopter, with me dressed as our school mascot, and land on the field at half-time of the game. I'm going to be escorted out of the helicopter by a few of our pilot friends and the superintendent to deliver the crowns for the Homecoming royalty. Rob and I both (as well as a lot of people at school!) are ridiculously excited for this. I am working with my student council kids to videotape it, and will hopefully be able to figure out how to post the video on the internet after it all happens. I'll keep you posted on that front :)

Rob and I have also been busy selling a lot of old stuff we'd been wanting to get rid of since our move. We've sold almost everything we'd hoped to on Craigslist and have a good amount of money to put toward new bikes! We are going to buy the bikes next weekend, and take them with us to Sedona (after Homecoming) to celebrate our second anniversary. We've reserved a hotel in one of the nice resorts there and are planning on doing some biking, having a picnic lunch and relaxing in the cooler weather. I really hope they have leaves turning and it feels a lot like fall. Either way, I have a feeling it will be a much needed and relaxing getaway after the craziness at school that week.

It's hard to believe that it's almost October and that we've been married for nearly two years now! The high temperatures here are still over 100, and while it's been cooler in the mornings, it really doesn't feel like late September weather at all. Last weekend we had record setting temperatures and on Sunday (when the high was 111), our air conditioning broke. Ugghhhhhh. Luckily, we had a homeowner's insurance plan that covered the cost and it was fixed by Monday evening. Sleeping Sunday night was definitely uncomfortable; it had gotten up to 90 degrees in our house.

That is more or less, the excitement here. I know I've been bad at updating here, but will work really hard at getting the helicopter land video up not too long after it happens and pictures from our trip to Sedona posted as well :) Rob and I both hope all is well with everyone, and wish you would send us some of your cooler weather :) Love, Sarah and Rob

Home Improvements!

We are back in the home improvement mood. Really, the next project in line should be to install a garage door opener, but it's seriously hot in our garage. We did make it out there this weekend to put together shelves and get some of our junk organized, but installing the actual opener is too big/long of a project to tackle until the weather gets cooler.

We've been seeing a lot of crickets around the house lately and while I'm doing a little better at staying calmer around the bugs, I'm still not particularly fond of them. Our bug people are coming back out to spray their hardcore poison tomorrow and we really wanted to have everything clean before then. We also felt like it would be a good idea to get some of the boxes in the office that we sort of plopped down and never organized, out into the garage. Now, the office is much more organized and a bug spray will do some actual good in there.

Here's a picture of our new garage shelves:

We also added solar lights along the path that leads to our front door. There are no outdoor lights on the front of the house, so it gets really dark out there. These lights help a whole lot and the solar power seems to work really well also. Here's a picture of them:

Our latest improvement is in the kitchen. We added handles to all the cabinets/drawers. It was a really small change that I think is making a big difference! The drawers, especially, are much easier to open, and everything looks so much nicer. Here's a few pictures:

(Full kitchen and then close-ups)

We bought a new comforter and paint for our bedroom, and I'm hoping to tackle that project next weekend. I really want to remember to take a before and after picture to post up here. So far, we haven't done anything in our bedroom other than install a ceiling fan. We'll have to take the fan down to paint the ceiling and start from square one. It will definitely be a project I think.

In the process of organizing all the stuff we've acquired, we put a good amount of items on Craigslist to sell. We made $70 today selling old things! I'm adding that money to birthday money, book buy back money from the classes I took in June and the coins we've been saving. Our plan is to buy nice, new bicycles! The weather will (hopefully) be cooling off soon, and I think they will be great!

We'll keep you posted on the bedroom painting and bike buying progress :) Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! Wish we could have been home to cook-out with everyone! Love, Sarah and Rob