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| Tuesday, May 30, 2006 |
| Memorial Day Weekend |
We had another busy weekend.
I had the day off Friday, so I finally went and got my name changed at the SSA office. I was surprised when I only had to wait about 40 minutes. I'm all official now. I had planned to go to the DMV to get my license changed but I was starving, so I went home and waited for the fence guy to come to give us a quote. He quoted us a bit higher than we thought, so we got the name of a local fence company off of one of our neighbor's fences. We'll call them sometime this week and then go from there.
On Saturday, we went shopping at Lowe's and got 2 new outdoor plants, 2 indoor plants, and 8 bales of pinestraw. I planted all of the indoor and outdoor plants in various containers, planted my gardenia next to the back door, watered everything, and put down pinestraw around all of my new plants while Ken mowed the grass and sprayed the whole yard with weed killer.
Then, we gave all of the girls a bath, which is a huge job in and of itself.
We came inside, and I Swiffer'd the downstairs and dusted while Ken vacuumed the carpet. Then, he steam cleaned the living room, the front room, and our bedroom while I vaccumed the stairs and all the rooms upstairs.
I hung up about 20 pictures all around the house, after using the studfinder, which Ken couldn't use since it kept going off. Hahahaha.
I cleaned all of the bathrooms and then we moved the white cabinet that was in the downstairs bathroom into the master bath next to my sink.
I also treated the dining room table, and it looks much better. There are a bunch of nicks in the wood, so I've got to figure out how to fix those -- probably around the same time I have all of the chairs recovered.
We finished the rest of the yardwork yesterday. Unfortunately, the weed killer didn't seem to work, so we might have to call a lawn care company to come out and take care of our weeds, as well. Boy, it never ends.
I'm getting so spoiled. I had a 4-day weekend, and now I have 3 days of work and then a 3-day weekend. Can't beat that.
Speaking of spoiled, here are some recent pics of our girls (oldest to youngest) ...
Mollie
Jessie (waiting by the front door, as usual)
Macey
One of Ken's friends asked him when we're going to have kids, and we were like, "Kids? We already have three!"
And you can definitely tell that we haven't been married that long because I actually remembered yesterday that we had been married for a month. Give me a few more months, and I'll be like "April when? What day? How many months?" |
posted by Keli @ 5/30/2006   |
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| Monday, May 15, 2006 |
| yardwork this past weekend |
We were very busy in the yard this past Saturday.
Ken had a tennis match in the morning, so we got up and ate breakfast and then he went to the Greenville Country Club while I went to Lowe's. I ended up getting all perennials so that I won't have to redo it every year. Once I got all of my plants loaded and had the guys load up my cow manure and top soil, I went back home and got to work.
I pulled up 1 huge liriope plant and dug up 3 more - they've been there for 3 years, so their root system was out of control. I also dug up 2 juniper plants, because we had way too many. Once I finally got those dug up, I tilled up the clay with my hoe, poured cow manure compost down, and then watered it. While that was sitting, I dug up around the mailbox and planted a couple of arid condition groundcover plants.
By that time, the ground was fairly soft next to the house, so I got to planting.
The Plan:
2 assorted Azalea bushes (back)
3 East Friesland Sage
3 Fleabane
4 Lamium
Under the Mailbox:
Coral Reef Sedum Groundcover
Next to the Bushes on the Left Side:
Soapwort
Window Box:
2 Orange Gerbera Daisies
Coral Reef Sedum Groundcover
Unforunately, we have red clay, so I had to dig the holes, put cow manure in the bottom, soak it down, put the plant in, fill it up with cow manure, and then top if off with top soil. We must have carried away 4 trash bags of nothing but dirt/clay.
I also trimmed the big bushes on the left to make them not so much of an eyesore.
I still have to do one more window box, plant the rest of the groundcover in the back, plant my gardenia bush next to the back door, and hang the Boston ferns on the front porch - but I should be able to get that done tomorrow night.
Ken cut the grass, oiled up the bikes, did some trimming around the house, and dug 2 holes for me.
Here is the only before shot - this was taken early last year:
After:
You can't tell much of a difference now, but I think it will be a really good change next spring.
After I dug up all the liriope and juniper:
Anyone want some liriope or juniper bushes?
Our Boston ferns:
The groundcover I planted on the left side:
One of the windowboxes:
The back patio (I don't like where the chimenea is right now,
but we have to find a good place for it):
The whole house:
The mailbox:
The trimmed bushes:
And just because it rarely happens,
here are a few pictures of food I've made lately.
Penne pasta | summer veggie salad:
Cookies!
BLT Salad with Sundried Tomato dressing (tonight):
Yes, it tased as good as it looked:
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| posted by Keli @ 5/15/2006 |
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| Betty Crocker? Martha Stewart? You ain't got nothing on me! |
I'm rather enjoying the housewifing duties ... but don't tell Ken I said that.
 Last night, I stopped by Target to get the new'ish Swiffer Sweep+Vac, and although I haven't used it yet, I've heard very good things about it. We've either got to find something to get up dog hair or ban them to the garage for life. I also got a whole box of Swiffer Dusters, and some Tilex Daily Shower Cleaner. Well, none of this is really surprising since it's broadly-known that I rather like shopping.
The surprising part of it all is that I made dinner (a yummy pasta salad), walked the two fat dogs for 30 minutes, pulled weeds for an hour, swept the porches and walkways, and then came inside and made chocolate chip cookies! From scratch!!
 I just have to take a minute to give a shoutout to my Kitchenaid standing mixer. This is by far the best thing ever invented, and I don't know how I ever lived this long without it. Okay, so it's no secret that I was once a fan of the tube-o-cookies and box cakes, but never again! From now on, I'm doing it all from scratch.
So anyway ... that was my evening. Ken was running up and down the stairs the whole time.
In other news, we are going to be getting the back yard fenced in hopefully soon. This is going to be a very happy day for us, because we will no longer have to worry about |a| kids tromping through our yard |b| the neighbor's dog choking himself on his chain every time our dogs are outside, and |c| sneaking over to pick up any poop that "magically" appeared in the neighbor's yard.
We are also going to work on the front and back yards to rid our acreage of weeds. We have been blessed with both broad-leaved and grassy weeds ... lucky us. Once we get that under control, I am planning on turning the right front of the house into The Land of the Annuals. No more grassy plants with purple berries. For now, we're going to leave the shrubs that are in the left front of the house, but I would like to eventually turn that into a butterfly sanctuary. And I'm also planning to put some kind of groundcover around the tree that's in the front yard - jasmine? periwinkle/vinca? I also have to have lamb's ear somewhere, because that's one of my favorite plants.
So that's the plan.
And Ken doesn't know about the plants, so he's going to be sweating a little as he's reading this. Don't worry, honey, I'll pay for it.
On that note, I better get back to earning my keep. Be back later - hopefully with more honeymoon pictures. And I promise I'll post some wedding pictures as soon as I have them in my hand!
Attention all who attended the wedding with cameras:
If you had a digital camera
Can you please email me any pictures you have whenever you get a chance?
If you had a film camera
May I please borrow (or have?) one set of your prints?
I will be happy to return them to you after I scan them.
Thank you!
And now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming ... |
| posted by Keli @ 5/11/2006 |
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| where is it? |
Sorry about the lack of a honeymoon recap past the first 2 days. I've been busy around the house and just haven't had a chance to get all of our pictures uploaded. I will hopefully be able to have everything finished and posted sometime this weekend.
Thank you for your patience!
♥ |
| posted by Keli @ 5/11/2006 |
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| Wednesday, May 10, 2006 |
| honeymoon recap - part 1 |
Monday, May 1, 2006
We left for the airport around 3:30pm and checked in with no problems about an hour before our flight left. The flight to Atlanta was a smooth 23 minutes, and then we were off to Albuquerque, which was a 3 1/2-hour flight from Atlanta. We gained 2 hours, so we were both exhausted by the time we landed in the surprisingly large Albuquerque International Airport. We took a shuttle to our rental car place, and got checked out of there in about 15 minutes in a styling Chrysler Sebring. ;) We finally got to the La Quinta Inn around 10:30pm, and I think we were asleep in less than 30 minutes after check-in.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Ken got up first and went to the lobby to see about wireless access to do some work. I got ready and met him for breakfast at 8:30 – 2 bowls of cereal and a cup of hot chocolate.
After breakfast, we checked out and headed out to the Petroglyph National Monument, which was really cool. We saw a bunny rabbit and several lizards but were disappointed to see no snakes. The carvings were super cool, and we were amazed at the huge boulders peppering the mountains.
That hike took about 45 minutes, so we headed over to the Rio Grande Zoo. Honestly, it was the best zoo we’ve ever been to, but it was packed with school groups – they must have had some kind of festival or something, because there were at least 100 schools there. Unfortunately, their constant screaming and yelling kept most of the animals under wraps, namely the polar bears, but we still had a lot of fun.
::pictures coming soon::
After the Zoo, we stopped by Duran Central Pharmacy in the Old Town for lunch, upon a suggestion from our handy Frommer’s guide. It was totally worth it! We had authentic Mexican cuisine, and my stomach has been reminding me of it all afternoon. ;) I had something called a Torpedo, which was a potato burrito with green chile. Wow, it was hot! Ken had the bowl of red chili, and it had a very distinctive flavor – a thousand times different than the chili we make at home. Overall, a very good choice for an authentic Mexican lunch.
On the way to Santa Fe, we decided to ride the Sandia Peak Tramway. Unfortunately, it was closed, so we just hiked around the base of the mountain for about an hour, got some amazing pictures, and enjoyed the scenery.
We left the Sandia Peak park area around 3:30 and drove up I-25 to Santa Fe. Man, I was just overwhelmed with the views out there. First of all, the surrounding mountains are unbelievable. We’re used to rolling green mountains, so the desert brown mountain ranges and mesas in the distance are just too cool. Due to lack of internet access, we didn't have any directions to anything, but Ken has this amazing sense of direction, so we found Las Palomas in about 20 minutes. It is unreal! I’m so glad we decided on this casita -- it wasn't fancy, but it was really beautiful. Wood floors, authentic New Mexican furniture, Southwestern-themed decorations and rugs, large living room with comfy leather sofa, flat-screen tv, and a small kitchen with stove-top, microwave, dishes and small refrigerator. There was also a fireplace in the living room, a beautifully tiled bathroom with Jacuzzi tub, and our master bedroom complete with a huge bed with feather pillows and comforter. Total A+! It may not be the right hotel for those who are looking for a fancy schmancy spa-type atmosphere, but we loved it.
Our veranda:  The living room:  The other side of the living room / kitchen area:  (we never used that fireplace)The master suite:  (that a/c was a lifesaver at night!)We had a skylight in the master bedroom, but I forgot to get a picture of it. The bathroom: 
So, as you can see, nothing super fancy -- but definitely comfy and cozy.
After we checked in, we relaxed for a little bit and then walked down to explore the Santa Fe Plaza. We stopped in a few stores, bought some postcards, an easy-to-use map of Santa Fe (and surrounding towns), and then had dinner at the Plaza Café. I had an unbelievable grilled chicken burger with cheddar cheese, guacamole, tomatoes, and onions. Yum-o! Ken had a New Mexican burrito with green chile, but it may have been a little too hot – even for Mr. Asbestos Mouth. For dessert, a sweet tortilla “pillow” (soapapilla) smothered with honey. I probably gained 20 lbs in just one week. Mmmmm.
We spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the hotel to get ready for the next day's adventure. |
| posted by Keli @ 5/10/2006 |
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| Monday, May 01, 2006 |
| we're back as Mr. and Mrs. H!! |
I don't have a lot of time, because I need to finish packing for the honeymoon, but here's a quick highlight video that Ken worked on yesterday.
Ken & Keli Wedding Video
And now, we're off to Santa Fe! |
| posted by Keli @ 5/01/2006 |
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