9/17/08

Many people spend Labor day weekend having one last cookout, enjoying time with friends or traveling to see family.  This year we spent Labor day having the biggest clean out in Blandford family history.  

It all began with my white shelf.  Currey has hated this thing since he put it together.  I bought it my second year at ACU and Currey and Wes Jones put it together.  It was $20 at Wal-mart and not incredibly sturdy but it was great storage in our kitchen that year.  The following year I moved to a house and used it for books and all my frames and decor.  Somewhere in the move the knobs that hold the shelves in place went missing so we used wooden rods to stabilize the shelves.  

It then made the trek to Illinois where it had the same role at my new apartment.  By the time Currey and I got married and the shelf came to Moody it had seen MUCH better days.  The back was no longer attached but I could not part with this "piece" that I had for so long.  When we moved to Bridgeport Currey begged me to get rid of the nasty thing as I had more than gotten my money's worth.  But I saw it as extra storage and insisted it made another move.  When we left Bridgeport we got rid of our dresser (something that cost far more than my shelf!) and decided to get fabric boxes and use my shelf as a type of dresser.  This comforted my inner pack rat as keeping it for this long had finally served so purpose besides hold picture frames.   We made it over a year and I will admit that it was one of the worst ideas I ever had.  The boxes didn't fit well and it was a total hassle.  I took the Friday of the long weekend off and that morning I uttered words Currey thought he would never hear.  "We HAVE to get rid of that shelf!"  And those few words created the biggest mess of our married life.  

Getting rid of the shelf required that we get dressers.  But the dressers wouldn't fit where the shelf had been.  So since we were rearranging anyway why not move the bed, which required us to move the desk, which required us to move the bookshelves.   And the bookshelves were so full of books that we decided we needed to go through the books to see if there were any we could get rid of.  And now since we have dressers we can take some clothes out of the closet.  Shouldn't we go through our closets?  It's been awhile.  I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the idea.  And this was the end result!

It was a HUGE project that ate up most of our weekend but it feels so good to be cleaned out and much more organized.  I'd say that my $20 investment paid off over 6 years!

9/14/08

My best friend from ACU got married in Austin last weekend.  It was an event that we would not have missed for the world!  Currey and I decided that since we were leaving town anyway that we should take a few days to enjoy the city, especially since we are thinking about moving down there.  So here are the details of our trip with a few pictures.

We got in late friday night and headed straight to bed as we were meeting my college roommate for breakfast the following morning.  She has recently moved to Austin and I had not seen her in almost 3 years.   We had a great breakfast at Guero's and then walked down congress to the capital.

We really enjoyed our time with her but had to head to Johnson City for the wedding.  We were running late as we got a little lost but this afforded me the chance to see Celeste before she walked down the aisle.  There are hardly words to describe my relationship with Celeste.  We met at the end of freshman year when I was her leader on a freshman retreat.  We ended up pledging the same club at ACU.  We wound up walking together during a fundraiser with club and our friendship blossomed from there.  She and Adolfo starting dating shortly after Currey and I did.  Since our boyfriends were both far away we shared many evenings together.  We loved date nights at Chicken Express, doing our Target browsing and calling our boyfriends from Starbucks routine or doing our grocery shopping together.   Since he was closer, Adolfo was able to visit more often than Currey.  They were always so sweet to include me in their weekends together.  I had several wonderful dinners cooked by Adolfo and they taught me how to play dominos.  My experience at ACU was enriched by my friendship with Celeste.   Aldolfo is equally precious and the perfect man for Celeste.  We were SO glad to celebrate their love and marriage with them.  The reception was fun and so them!  We enjoyed celebrating!

The reception site

The Mariachi

The only non blurry picture I got of them and yes I realize you can't see Adolfo

Celeste and I

Currey looking very GQ with his pocket square

After the reception Jeffrey came in from Waco to hang out with us.  We had not seen him since Christmas so it was a treat to see him.  I love that he and Currey are close and get along so well.  Jeffrey is still hillarious and we laughed the whole time he was with us!

Look at what Baylor has turned him into!

The boy's being resourceful as we did not have a bottle opener

The next day we got up got up and headed to Kerbey Lane for breakfast which was outstanding!

We spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out around austin.  We then headed to dinner at Shady Grove.  Sarah Ruth joined us again and it was a great evening.  

We dropped Jeffrey back at his car and headed to church at Austin Stone.  It was such a refreshing experience.  The church is huge and meets in a high school.  As the preacher was speaking we were so encouraged by his heart for hurting people and the churches willingness to do something about it.  It was an outstanding message and we were filed with hope as we continue to contemplate a move to the Austin area.  From church we headed to the Johnson's in Wimberley. They are friends of my parents from church who graciously allowed us to stay at their house a couple of days.  They have a precious guest house that we got to use.

The next day we headed into Austin for a wonderful lunch at Rudy's.  Oh how we wish there was decent bar-b-que in Illinois.  

We then headed into Wimberley and did some shopping.  It was so much fun!  We then went back to the Johnson's.  One of the most fun things of the trip was that Janice taught me how to sew!  Currey just got me a sewing machine (that's another post!) which is very exciting, but I didn't know how to use it.  I want to start quilting and Janice is an amazing quilter who gave me lots of great tips and several supplies.  We worked on this:

And yes...I made that!  I am so excited that I was able to start a project and I'm already working on my next.  We enjoyed great conversation and wonderful food while with the Johnson's.  It was a much needed vacation and we loved every minute of it.  If you made it all the way through I'm impressed!  Sorry it was SO long!

8/5/08

Our sweet friends the Jarot's are adopting a little girl from Vietnam.  2 weekends ago they had a huge event out at a farm to celebrate families.  It the whole thing was free but they took donations, had a silent auction and collected tips and the coffee bar and from the musicians.  It was such a fun day of celebration! 

The first 2 hours were carnival games for the kids. 

 

Currey and I were in charge of the bouncers.  

And Currey and some other Starbucks Folks put together a GREAT Iced Coffee Bar.

We had a great picnic dinner followed by Square Dancing.

The evening ended with a campfire and making s'mores.  It was a great time spent with friends.  We have been really encouraged by Nate and Lisa to be creative in our fundraising.  They have been a huge support to us and we can not wait to meet their baby girl!