Stuff We've Been Doing via Instagram

Enjoying some Redhawks baseball with a cold one and a hotdog.

Watching a whole lot of Olympics and then making 104 "gold" medal sugar cookies.

Watching Stephen play indoor soccer.  Who wants to sign up their 18month old for soccer?  I couldn't even imagine that would work.

Our summer weakness at least once a week.

Humble Pie Pizza.  Deep dish Chicago style pizza.  This took me three days to eat.

Late night driving range to practice our swing.  The two older guys next to us were both entertaining and annoying.  They talked, analyzed, and took pictures of their golf posture for an hour.

Walked around the Myriad Gardens Saturday afternoon and got this great shot of Devon Tower.

Bathroom Update- Tile

We last left off at the end of May when we were texturing and painting the bathroom and it was all prepped for tiling.  Then we were out of town for I think 5 weekends straight.  Then it got hot and we just didn't want to tile.  Then I finally said "okay, for real, we have no plans for this weekend whatsover, I don't even have any chores to get done....so, let's tile."  And tile we did.

In roughly two days (spanned over two weekends), this is where we are.

We've also just recently tiled the floor of the bathroom where the toilet will go.  Our tile guy, who set all the cement board and re-sloped our shower floor, is going to be coming over Tuesday or move our niches just a tad upwards so they line up perfectly with the grout joints and then seal them up watertight.  After that is done, we'll be able to tile the rest of the walls, do the mosaic band and insert of the niches, and put the shower floor in.  Then we grout, seal it, put the toilet back in, get shower curtain rod and we're done!!!!! For now.  At least it will FINALLY be back to a useable bathroom.

We'll save up some money for a new sink countertop and frameless custom shower door.  We also want to eventually strip the sink cabinet and repaint it white.

Registry

A few weeks ago Younghouselove did a post about the top 5 things they were glad they registered for at their wedding and things they were glad they didn't register for.  I thought that sounded like a whole lotta fun so I'm going to take a crack at it, too!

Ideally I would write this post in September since that will be our 5 year wedding anniversary.  But I'm impatient and figured that while it's on my mind, I'll just post it now.

Five Things I'm glad we registered for:
1. Laundry Hamper
2. Weber Grill
3. Crockpot
4. Really nice Berndez pots.  Actually, we didn't register for these, but they're really nice.
5. Throw Blanket

Five Things we registered for and wish we hadn't
1. Coffee Maker..hardly ever gets used and is taking up space
2. Pryex glass storage containers (all the round ones) I've never used them, and they are still in the box in the very, very back on my cabinets.  But I figure someday I might need them, so I'm holding on to them
3. Root beer float mugs...again never used
4. Martini Shaker - never used
5. Black fabric napkins - why black?  I think I've used these maybe four times in five years

Now, we lived in an apartment for  a year after we got married, so it wasn't really practical to register for any home decor or furniture.  But here's a list of things that we've bought since we moved into a home 4 years ago, while we still try to figure out our "style"

Things we've bought since our wedding
1. Entertainment unit
2. Proper dining table and chairs.  A bit big for now, but I still like it.
3. New Ninja blender...it's ridiculously awesome
4. Nice bookshelves and leaning shelf
5. Front porch bench and lounge chairs for the backyard.

So, what are 5 things you're glad you registered for? 5 things you wish you hadn't?

Olypmics!!!!

The opening ceremony is tomorrow night!  I'm so glad I have Tivo so I can record it, since I'll be at a baseball game.

In honor of the games starting, I decided about two weeks ago that I wanted to make Olympic Cookies.

Simple sugar cookies with a ring of icing.

Easy Peasy!

Tin Roof....Rusted!

Name that song.  But for our house it's more like  Shingle Roof....Busted!

On 5/29 we got hit by a hail storm.  We had gone to see a movie and on our way home it was on the radio that some large hail was heading straight for us.  We barely made it home just in time to move junk around in the garage to get both cars in.

Shortly after, I think our power went out and our house was hit with hail.  It was so loud and sounded like the house was being hit with a hundred paint ball guns and hammers.

Yeah....getting artsy pics of shingles!

About a week and half later, we were finally able to get up on the roof and assess the damage.  

And we saw for ourselves that the hail gods answered our prayers!

After the insurance checked out the roof damage, it was totaled!

But our deductible was high, and it's SUPER hard to get a good upgraded roof without having to pay the deductible.  Oh well, at least we're going to get some nice shingles and ventilation which is BADLY needed on our house!

And yes, this is a hole in our roof.  Yay for hail!

At the Dump

Last November we tore down the shed on the side of our house and jackhammered the concrete slab it was on.  We were able to haul away most of the stuff except for the last bit of concrete.

We were going to just put it in our trash bin over the next few months....but we never did.

So, a few weeks ago, we also decided we were going to cut down a tree that is technically in our neighbor's year, but growing over into our yard and our roof.  Since we have to get a new roof and it's constantly littering our yard with twigs, we cut it down.

 About halfway done here.

All done!  We really just got all the branches off from one trunk.  It was getting pretty hot and now we had to deal with the massive amount of branches.

We dragged them all over our backyard so they were easier to manage and cut into smaller pieces.  Then we moved them to the side of our house to hang out until we could haul them off.

Since the transfer center doesn't take concrete, and the concrete place is only open from 8-5 on weekdays, we decided the best course of action would be to take the branches and concrete directly to the dump.  

It was an interesting place.  Really smelly...like, not trash smelly, but chemically giving off some kind of gas smelly.  There were about 4 truck loads dropping off trash while we were there, so needless to say, we worked quickly to get out of the way.

The dump is kinda depressing if you really think about it.  That's all our trash just piled in between layers of dirt which will take forever and 5 years to decompose and some of it may never decompose.  It was amazing to see just how many plastic bags and recyclables  were strewn about.  And clothes, too.  If you can't give them away, you just throw them away, but how long does that take the decompose.  Do they?  I'm not sure.

And of course, our little adventure to the dump would not have been possible without borrowing my parents car and the Knights trailer.  Yet another reason why it's so awesome living near parents and a reason we just can't move away yet!

Outtakes! I'm sorry in advance....

I see Molly's underpants!

He's either saying "Cheese" or squinting at the flash...

Not really an outtake I guess, just a cool, mid-air, jump shot!

Write your own caption for our thoughts.... 

Being a goof.

Sorry Brian.

and sorry Liesel!

This was on purpose.

Molly decided to photobomb and Dad is doing is best 'taken by surprise' mugshot.

And I save the best outtake for last.  At least they are all looking at the camera!!!