20th anniversary

Today is my 20th anniversary!!!!
Wow, its so crazy to think that Dan and I have been married for twenty years! We have actually been TOGETHER for 25 years!!!!!!! That's more than half my life! Such a beautiful thing! I am so happy and have been in such awe of this occasion for the past couple weeks as the day has approached. It is so wonderful , but also so hard to grasp my head around, because it seems sort of surreal. Not unreal that we would last, just unreal that 20 or 25 years has actually passed since our first date that Wednesday night to the JV football game. Wow, all the things we have seen, done, experienced, and grown from together! One week after our wedding we packed up a moving van with all our clothes, hand-me-down furniture, $6000 in our bank account (half of which came as wedding gifts), and a truck with a monthly payment, and moved away from my family and our friends to start our lives and careers in Vegas. Wow, that was such a hard time. Not because we didn't love each other, because truthfully, our love, was the ONLY thing carrying me through that first year. I would cry myself to sleep at night because I missed my friends and family so much, and I was so overwhelmed and scared of messing up at my job. Unfortunately, I didn't know Dan was such a light sleeper and he heard me every night, thus thinking I was miserable in our marriage. Till finally one day in a bit of an argument, he tossed out the fact that he heard me every night! I stopped still in my tracks because I realized all this time that he was listening to me cry he must have thought I was unhappy with him, but that was the farthest thing from the truth! He was the ONLY thing that gave me the strength to push through and carry on! We did clear up that misunderstanding, and I got more comfortable in my job, and I made some new friends, so eventually I didn't cry myself to sleep every night. But what a way to start a marriage lol.  Yet, through communication, we made it through!
I have so many smiling moments when I think of our history together (we have so much of it, since we've been together more than half our lives and we've known each other since we were elementary students!)
I smile when I think of our first jobs, and how my boss, Bob, never saw Dan in anything except basketball shorts, till one day he stopped by our office after an interview while still in his suit, and Bob literally put the person he was talking to on hold for like 20 minutes(!) when he saw Dan walk in because he was so shocked to see him in that realm, that he was blown away by this 'other side' of Dan and he wanted him to work for him!  I smile at how even when we were first married and picking out our apartment, Dan always tried to give me what I wanted. While signing papers on a different apartment he realized I really liked the other one better, so he stopped the paperwork and we drove back to the first place and moved in there instead. I smile at the memories of our first 'baby', our dog Alexus, and how she was such a big part of our family. I smile remembering when I was pregnant for the first time and every person he would meet he would tell them within the first 5 minutes of conversation "well, you know, my wife is pregnant with our first baby" and he was beaming so big you couldn't have concealed that excitement for anything! I smile when I think of the plain, regular, humble beginnings that we came from. We started our marriage like most people, with hand-me-down furniture and college decor in our apartment, and we always lived within our means and we were always happy. Truthfully, until we had kids, 10 years into our marriage, we had only had 3 real fights in all that time!   (Now after kids, they are too numerous to count ha ha, because changing the dynamics from 2 to a family definately changes each's expectations of each other. But we always talk and work it out and know that we are in this together for the long haul and NOTHING will break us apart!)
Its hard to believe that 20 years later, we are now building our dream vacation home together! Who would have EVER thought that Dan and Rene' from little ol' Bellaire Michigan, would someday be STILL married after 20 years, and be in a position to have two homes?????? I'm sure no one who knew us did. Heck, we couldn't have even imagined this. But, we give all the credit to God. He knew what he was doing when he brought us together, and we continue to honor Him and give hime the glory for EVERYTHING in our lives!

Twenty Years.
Amazing.
Awesome.
Wonderful.
In today's society we unfortunately don't see it much, its more common to have friends who have been divorced than to have friends who have been married as long as we have, especially considering we really aren't that old :)
I am super happy about this day and I love my hubby more than ever. I think one of the most cherished things I have in our relationship is the memories of 'where we came from'. That where we are today is not where we started, yet we did it together with God in our lives and we are now in a new place. We look forward to all the other new places God wants to take us in the future as well :)

Happy Anniversary Honey!

An evening at the Spa

I know its been an awefully long time since I've blogged, I've actually thought about doing it several times and meant to, but then never got around to it. But something that happened last night made me take the time to sit and write about it, (because miraculously I didn't take any pictures) so I have to have some sort of "memory catcher" for the sweet occassion.
Last night my hubby was golfing so it was just me and the girls, who are now 6 and 11 yrs old, by the way. My oldest, T, tells me we should have a spa night. I agree , so she gets it all set up while I am washing the fruit/veggies and putting away the groceries. When I am done I head back to my bedroom where I find my youngest wearing her robe, and my big white fluffy robe (just like in the spas) is laid out on my bed. There is a sign attached to the bathroom door that instructs me to "put on the robe and have a seat. We will come and get you when it is time"       :)  so I put on my robe and sit on the bed next to W. A minute later, T comes out of the bathroom wearing a cute apron (she is the spa technician) and ushers us into the bathroom spa. I smile as I see that makeup is displayed artfully across the windowsills behind our garden tub, and that the tub is filled with bubbles and warm water. She instructs us to sit on the edge of the tub and soak our feet (this actually feels really good!) While soaking she does my hair. She offers me a magazine to read while sitting. She wanted to do my nails but since I had just paid to have them done recently I touched them up myself, while my youngest painted our dog, Lucy's toenails pink! She is a beagle, and it is pretty cute! she was a good sport too! After this I (for the first time ever! which made T REALLY excited) let T DO MY MAKEUP!  For those of u who don't know me, I NEVER wear makeup. Lipstick is it. Recently I tried to start wearing it (I wore it in high school), but realized it is just not for me and I hate it. So anyway I sit there while she puts on really thick silver eyeline (top and bottom), bright fuschia lipstick, clear mascara, and baby blue/silver eye shadow. lol. I think the neighbor kid was scared when I answered the front door later that night still wearing it lol (she kept staring at me lol). Anyway, it was a fun evening and I was very impressed with the lengths to which T had gone to make it a truly spa-like experience  :) great job sweetie! they both think we should make this a ritual everynight Daddy isn't home for dinner ha.

Romantic getaway with my hubby

Last night my husband and I enjoyed a nice romantic evening out with just the two of us. We had an enjoyable dinner at one of my new favorite restaurants, Ridge Grill. Then we followed that up with an away football game to cheer on our local school. The game turned out to be really cool. The stadium at this school is nicer than the college one we had! It was neat, almost felt like I was at a U of M game or something! Pretty neat.
I have to admit, going to the game was not my first choice. I wanted to go see a movie and dinner (our typical date night). But there were no good movies out and Dan really wanted to go watch the football game so we did that instead. I'm really glad we did, it was fun :)
We ended the night with a stay at a local Bed and Breakfast. It was fun ;)
I had bought a Groupon for this place way back in the spring intending to surprise Dan with a getaway for father's day. Unfortunately the busy schedule he kept this spring and summer didn't allow me to get anything planned as a surprise. The Groupon was going to expire next month, so I finally had to nail him down (hee hee) on a date we could use it. So it didn't wind up being a surprise, but it was still an enjoyable (kid free) evening :) Here are some fun pictures I took...

This is the first course of the breakfast they served us. I have never eaten these pastry things before. In fact, I will admit they have never drawn my attention as something I would even consider liking. But, wow, were they good! And the whipped cream was homemade, yummy! We also had croissants and bisquits and a breakfast casserole dish. It was all tasty.

Here is what the breakfast room looked like.



Me and my sweetie...

Me and my goofball!

I didn't take a picture of the room, honestly it wasn't too impressive, but that's because I'm more of a hotel or condo person, than a B&B afficiando. But we had fun, nonetheless, and it was a nice little romantic interlude for me and my hubby :)

Labor Day Camping Trip

This past weekend was Labor Day. We took our 5th wheel camper and headed to our favorite spot, Roaring River, for a long weekend of camping. It was really nice. I can't believe its been a YEAR since we had the camper out and went camping! After going, we were all planning our next trip! Once you get back out there you remember how much fun it is and how much we all enjoy it. It was funny, as soon as we got there, the girls seemed to be on a mission to do EVERYTHING the first evening of our arrival : 'let's go get ice cream, let's go fishing, let's go swimming, who wants to go for a bike ride? Mom, play badminton with me. It's my turn for a game, mom, play catch with me"  ha ha.


me and T with a badminton racket special effect, lol



T playing 'bounce the ball in the air'. I don't know the real name, but its pretty fun. These  disc like frisbee things act as trampolines in your hand and u bounce the ball up and try to catch it without dropping it. I have our camper 'packed' with all sorts of games for us to play while camping.

  They eventually settled down and pulled out the paints I started keeping in the camper and created some lovely masterpieces while sitting under the trees outside and painting to their hearts' content :)


Since we were there from Thurs to Mon, we did lots of unscheduled and relaxing activities. There is a little shop in a nearby campground (walking or biking distance) that we visit every time to buy ice cream cones and sit in their comfy rocking chairs on the porch and enjoy the view of the tree covered hill and eat our ice cream. We did this a few times (of course).





These rocking chairs are so comfy. We love sitting here with our ice cream. Only $1 for a big scoop too! :)  Of course T brought a book to read during our ice cream break :)

 We even went for a whole family bike ride with grandpa and grandma too (they camped next to us this weekend). That was really fun as well, except my husband is a goofball and was doing wheelies on his bike.


Grandma and Grandpa with W



 Wheelie-Dan

Dan and his dad fished every day, and the girls joined them two days. The first day the girls went I stayed in bed, intending to walk down with the dog a little later and take pictures. But I started reading a magazine and ended up staying in bed. They came back before I was done, because they had each caught their limit already! Dan said they had lots of fun and did really well. T cast and caught all her own fish! W reeled in the ones Daddy caught :)  I was able to go with them the next morning where W again maxed out, but T only got one that morning (and was a bit pouty to boot). Here are some pictures I took during that fishing experience...


So cute, W, with one of her fish.




W bringing in Grandpa's fish with the net.




I like this picture.




T having daddy help her get her fish off the line.



 T fishing, and W 'talking' to her fish.

The first two days we got there it was still 100degrees! We have never camped when it was that hot before (too hot) which is why we always go in the spring and fall instead of the summer. But this summer has been incredibly hot, so even Labor Day weekend was hot. However, Sunday and Monday it cooled down to 50 at night at 80 during the day, so it was MUCH nicer! More like true camping weather so we were actually able to have a campfire and sit around it. I was sitting by it Sunday night after Dan had gone inside with the girls, when two little bandits (raccoons) came up to our campsite looking for snacks. They were so cute and funny, they didn't even see me sitting in the chair by the fire and they were only about 6 feet away! After I went to get my camera though, they didn't come back :(
I took Lucy, our dog, on some great little hikes (W even joined me one day with a promise of ice cream afterwards ha ha). I have learned that I really like hiking! Really great workout up all those hills and lots of fun to be outside! Here are some pictures from those hikes...

 This is a really cool rock formation called the "kitchen". When you climb up the crevase (near the middle right of pix) you come to a little flat spot, that u then jump down into a hole that is completely boxed in by these huge boulders (that collapsed about 20 years ago, creating this current formation). History has it that during the Civil War, soldiers hid out in this hole. Its pretty big, about 10ft x 10ft x 6 ft.  Pretty neat.

 Relaxing on the 'roof' of the 'room' or hole below, that I discussed above.

 Such a cutie! Always the poser too, check out her leg!  lol

 The view is so pretty and the rocks are just amazing.

 Another really cool spot. These huge rock islands are in the forest. They are about 20 feet tall. W is sitting on the edge of one. That's a smaller one to the right side of the photo.

 So fun, and such a pretty picture. I like all three of these next pix, so I had to include them all!

 One of those 'islands'. Pretty neat, eh?

 Our hiking trail. W posing again (of course).

The girls got all decked out in their "Laura Ingalls" gear the minute we arrived and grabbed their toy bow and arrows to play till their hearts content (that is my favorite thing to watch....my kiddos being creative and using their minds for play! love it!) T was especially creative in her outfit, but when I took pictures she immediately said "don't put that on facebook mom!" so she probably wouldn't appreciate me posting a pix here either :(  but the outfit was adorable. She had an apron around her waist and some sort of bonnet thing on her head and a belt held her 'knife' and arrows, then her bow was slung over her shoulder. Very fun looking!  She did however shoot her arrow into a tree and it landed flat on a branch and got stuck there so she tried to get it out with a broom while standing on top of the trailer. She didn't have any luck so Dan THREW the broom into the tree to try to get the arrow out, only to have the BROOM get stuck in the same position! ha ha  He ended up climbing on top of the trailer and shaking the branches till they both fell down. lol.

hee hee

Any trip to Roaring River wouldn't be complete if I didn't drive over to the Tanger outlet mall in Branson (only an hour away), so Saturday I went there. It was fun to wander through all the stores all by myself. Even though I had 7 hours there, I still found myself rushing at the end to make sure I got back in time for dinner! Its crazy how I can shop forever!  I didn't go overboard, there wasn't THAT much stuff that struck my fancy this time, but I did get the girls a few things, and me a few things. Plus I got a few pretty pieces of costume jewelry. I typically don't wear much of that kind of jewelry, but I always like it on other people, and the right piece can really 'make' an outfit, so I am venturing out and trying some new things :)
Lucy, our dog, loved our trip. She gets to go with us on camping vacations, so these are her favorite trips :)  she was well behaved and as happy as ever!

Lucy watching us fish :)


P.S. that book W is holding called "A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee" is the greatest book ever! great bright pictures, and a really cute story!



The girls and I usually like to walk through the stream behind our camper in the spring. But at this time of year it was all dried up, so there were only a few spots to play in the water at (besides the regular fishing river of course). Here are some pictures of the girls catching baby crawfish and tadpoles. T even caught a tadpole with legs! That was pretty cool!






W and I went to the playground, where Lucy got in on the action and even went down the slide! Here is a little video of that, and a photo.

Here are some more pictures in general.


Ahhh, the relaxing peace of a recliner under the trees :)



W just having fun entertaining herself with dirt and water at the campsite :)

There happens to be a fish hatchery at this State Park, these next pictures were taken in that area. There are also several natural caves and springs.

 Look at the beautiful color of the water here at the mouth of the spring. This spring feeds the whole hatchery (I believe) and its located way back under that crevase in a deep cave. The water is really cold here.

 The spring is behind them, and you can see the rock above it (and them) how its split open. Really pretty. There is also a fun, short trail/hike above this point.

 At the spring/cave entrance.

The hatchery area. Dan is pointing to a big fish in the water. The spring feeds into this.

Well, if you stuck with this post, you got to the best part of it... my poem!


While camping this time, I got out my pen and paper and wrote down this poem :)

An Ode to Camping

Camping.

Fresh air and cooling breezes,
Camping.

Marshmallows and allergy sneezes,
Camping.

Crickets chirping,
Raccoons lurking.
Camping.

Masked bandits on the prowl,
Lucy senses them and gives a growl.
Camping.

The sound of a diesel-engine truck,
The fun of playing in the dirt and muck.
Camping.

The stars overhead at night.
The feeling is always so right.
Camping.

S'mores on a campfire,
Pancakes on the griddle,
Sitting by the fire,
Writing this riddle.
Camping.

Playing games and riding a bike.
Going fishing and taking a hike.
Camping.

Uno is a favorite game we play.
Round after round, every day.
Camping.

Holding hands, skipping down the road.
Laughing and giggling like its a secret code.
Camping.

Eating ice cream on the porch.
Campfire lit up like a torch.
Camping.

Rocking chair rocking.
Mommy's at the outlet mall,
Not very shocking :)
Camping.

Lightning bugs caught in a net.
Tadpoles and crawfish, the girls love to get.
Camping.

Nighttime is for gazing at stars overhead,
Morning time brings 2 little girls into our bed!
Camping.

Its an American tradition.
Its a family vacation.
Camping.

Its all its cracked up to be,
and its relaxing and fun to me!

Camping.

finished mudroom! woohoo!

Wow, the day has finally arrived (well, almost, but its close enough for me to post pictures). The only thing missing from our new mudroom is drawer pulls and some decorating (ie pictures on the wall). But all in all, the mudroom remodel is finally done. We started this at the beginning of the year, and like any project that you are doing yourself while also maintaining a fulltime job, and a life... it took awhile to complete. But that is par for the course, and its done now, and I am really happy with it. I utilize it every day and absolutely LOVE having a mudroom again (I had one growing up). Its also the best place as a 'stop over' station for boxes that need shipped, or bags that need returned to a store. No longer do those things need to sit on my kitchen table or counter, they are hidden from daily sight in this room, yet in a convenient "don't forget to take me when u go out" place that I will see as I exit the house :)

If you haven't read the original posts, or have forgotten all the changes, you can take a look at posts on 2/18, 3/6, 3/8, and 3/23. They show the 'before' shots and how much this all changed. The only 'before picture' I didn't take was of our garage bathroom (probably because it was so nasty I didn't want a permanent record of it ha ha), but I do have an 'after picture' of that below.

Well let's get started, this first picture is showing some cubbies and coat hooks, the door to our house is on the right, and on the left is the door into the walk in closet that now has an amazing amount of room for all our stuff. Love it! I will love it even more once winter comes and we are using all those cold-weather clothes.



Interir view of walk in closet. Drawers for hats and gloves. Shelves that I haven't even used up yet!




Girls jackets on the bottom left side. I even moved all Dan's dress pants and shirts out here from my closet into this closet, and we STILL have extra space! (He rarely wears them, so they don't need to be in our closet all the time. His closet is the smallest closet in the house (the girls' even have bigger closets than him!poor Dan), so that is why I had them in mine for a long time. But they were crowding my closet too, so now I moved them into here. Perfect!)




We even have a tall hanging rod area I haven't even started to use yet! I love growing into a space instead of already being grown out of it (like the old little closet under the stairs in our laundry room where all this stuff used to TRY to fit). I have my recycling bins in here, and now our lunch pails and insulated bags/coolers are all handy and neatly placed on the top shelf.




Mine and Dan's jackets are on this side of the closet. I even reorganized my pantry and moved some big bulky items (crock pots/roaster pan/cake pedestal/punch bowl) out here. Easy to reach them, yet out of our way. Perfect place for them. It was very crowded before in my pantry trying to move stuff to get to these things in the back or stacking them so high, yet fearing they'd topple on my head when I tried to get them out.



This is the girl's cubby area. They each have a side to hang a coat and keep their packpacks and school stuff. It has so greatly helped to clean up my kitchen. I hated having their school stuff spread all over our kitchen counter for 9 months of the year. This is much nicer. They are still getting in the habit of unpacking their bags and then putting them out here, but they are doing pretty good.  We had a garage fridge that I decided to move in here in order to save money. It was white, but I loved that fridge. It was a GE Profile and the best fridge I ever had! Loved everything about it. We bought it new for our first house in Vegas and I really didn't want to get rid of it since it worked perfect. It was just the wrong color. Well, so we decide NOT to buy a new one and keep the white one in here. The DAY we move it in here... it stops working right! The freezer still worked but the fridge was 58degrees! UGH! So, I wind up buying this fridge instead, which is nice. But I am so dumbfounded that the other one isn't working anymore, that I really can't believe, nor do I want to believe it. And since the freezer still seemed to work , I decide to keep it and move it BACK to the garage and just use it for water bottles and the freezer part. Well... shortly after deciding not to let the delivery guys take it and dispose of it for free... you guessed it... now the freezer really doesn't work either :(   The freezer is like a fridge so we are keeping water bottles in there (easy to grab when we are outside or as Dan leaves each morning for the gym), the the fridge part is basically unusable because its too warm. The ridiculous thing, is that I still don't really want to part with it! Can you believe it!?  The fridge is 17 years old, I think I got my money's worth, right? But I still like the darn thing! If it worked, and was stainless on the outside it would still be the perfect fridge!  The interior shelving is just the best, AND it NEVER froze any of my food in the fridge (like the one does that I bought to replace it years ago for my kitchen). I tell ya, I am a big fan of GE Profile appliances! I have two dish washers and love them too. Anyway, back to the mudroom. This is the 'mudroom' fridge now,which is nice, because when I go out here to grab stuff, I'm still technically "in" the house, so my feet or socks aren't getting all filthy from walking on the concrete like I used to do when I'd run out to the 'garage fridge' to get something. Its much more convenient, plus since its in an airconditioned part of the house, it probably doesn't have to work as hard to keep up. Sometimes in the summer the garage fridge seems to stumble because its so hot.

I mentioned that we had a bathroom in our garage that we remodeled too. My husband loves working on cars, so when we built this house we built a bathroom IN the garage so he wouldn't have to traipse through the house covered in grease to use the restroom. Consequently, this bathroom has not seen many cleaning products lol. Its sort of been a 'guy's john' and I've stayed away from it. I'd go as far as to say it was almost as bad as some truck stops. I'd also use the sink in there to wash out my paint brushes so it was definately 'utility' minded. It is located 'within' the area that became our mudroom, so it only made sense to remodel this as well and make it into a nice house bathroom (yet still located very close to the garage so it still serves that purpose). It is now beautiful. Its probably prettier than any other bathroom in my house just because it has all the 'new style' woodwork/colors/faucets/ etc. It even has granite! My kitchen doesn't even have granite (yet! it will someday). So anyway it turned out pretty nice. Here it is...

Well, that's all for the remodel. We ordered the drawer pulls so maybe this coming month we'll get those on, then we will 'officially' be done.  Ta-da!