Deforesting Our Mini Forest

Although I spent most of the memorial day weekend with friends and family, I also got some much needed projects done. One of them was removing a forest.

Let me explain. We have a maple tree next to our driveway. Every year we see lots of whirlybirds or helicopter seeds all over our yard fall from it. This year, the rain and early spring weather started producing a lot of mini maple trees.

I have let it go a bit too far. So I decided to get up early one morning and get to work taking down our mini forest. This is my before shot. I realized after I already started so that is why you see the patch of weeded garden in the front.

And this is what it looked like after the mini forest came down.

Ahh, much better. Let's take another angle shot.

Our garden is still a work in progress but it has come a long way from this jungle when we moved in...

Who else tackled some gardening this weekend between hot dogs and hamburgers?

J&K Wedding Weekend Part 2

After the delicious rehearsal dinner, I was even more excited for the wedding day. Since my hubby was the best man, I decided to go hang out with the boys at the grooms parents house in the morning. They were calm and collected and playing some fun yard games.

It was pretty hot out on Saturday so we made sure they took shade/"hydrating" breaks.

We also brought the pup since this is a dog friendly zone and he had some fun swimming and playing fetch.

After all the games and relaxation, it was time to suit up. I have to say I really loved their suits. They were gray and green and looked and fit great.

Of course- being boys, they had to have a little fun with the photo shoot.

But off to the wedding. The ceremony was outside at a place called the Phoenixville Foundry. It was a beautiful day.

The bridesmaids dresses were really light and pretty and the flower arrangements at the wedding were simple and elegant.

After the wedding, we all met up for cocktail hour inside. Here we are all dolled up!

 

The cake was delicious. If I am correct, I believe it was an amaretto pound cake with raspberry mouse and buttercream frosting. YUM!

 

My camera did not take great pictures of the food, tables and dancing so when I get those pictures from my friends, I will make sure to share them. Overall it was a great event and a ton of fun. Congrats Jim and Kate! We love you guys :)

J &K Wedding Weekend part 1

I am very excited to be writing this post. Two of our good friends, Jim and Kate, tied the knot this past weekend and it was a very exciting extravaganza. We have known Jim for awhile. We went to high school together and a group of us have remained pretty close. I am pretty proud of that since it is not always easy. When Kate came in the picture, Jim became a whole new man and quickly they became a great team. We started the wedding weekend out with a wonderful rehearsal dinner.

It was at the Kimberton Inn. Its a very picturesque location. I failed in taking any outside shots. Here is a close up of the beautifully decorated tables.

We were all very excited to start the celebrations and the photo taking so we snapped a quick shot of the boys before dinner.

psst: Grooms on the left

I wish I took pictures of the meals. They were delicious. I got the lamb and Tim got the chicken. I also had a delicious hot fudge sundae where the fudge tasted like brownie mix! They were delicious. We of course took some great table shots as well of all of us.

Afterwards we started have some fun photo sessions. Let's be honest. We all don't dress up nicely that often so its nice to take advantage of it.

The happy couple!

what a ham!

This last picture of the night for us is a tradition. Our friend Jim has what we call, "Jimmy thumbs". It was a staple in many of his pictures throughout the years. So anytime he is around we like to capture that memory and reenact the "thumbs". Kate was nice enough to oblige at the rehearsal.

It was a great night and only a small sneak peak at the great wedding the next day. Tune in tomorrow for shots from the pre-wedding hang outs, the wedding and the rocking reception!

Do you have a memorable rehearsal dinner you've been too? I remember our food being awesome at ours. (however I could have been just excited to eat a sinful meal after dieting for our wedding) I will definitely remember the pretty tables and awesome fudge in the sundaes at Jim and Kates.

Quality vs. Quantity

Over the last couple of weeks I have not posted as often as I usually do. Usually I try to post what I am working on three days a week. These past few weeks have been a whirlwind and to be honest, I have let house projects (not to mention chores) and other activities fall to the side.

I realized I started to feel guilty for not posting as often and tried to come up with something to write. Then I decided over the last week that I would rather write quality posts rather than quantity. For me this blog is not only a way to document our adventures but also a way for others to try something new as well. I don't want to fill it with something I don't care about. And since things have been crazy with Tim and I, I haven't had a chance to upload (and edit) pictures to show you what we have been up to. But that will change as things wind down for us. I just felt like I wanted to address my recent lack of posts.

It is not because I am not enjoying the blog or I am burnt out from coming up with ideas. Its because May is a very very busy time for us and I want to make sure that what I do write about is meaningful to us. So I leave you with that. I am in the process of editing a lot of our pictures and hope to get those up soon but in the meantime I will leave you with a picture of our pup having a play date with his little buddy Twitch this past week. If you can't tell, Twitch is about 1/8 the size of our pup. :)

Our 84 hours with a kitten

So last time we left off I showed you a sneak peak of the surprise we found under our shed.

It all happened Tuesday night. Tim and I were hanging out on the couch with the living room window open since it was so nice out and I heard a squeak. At first I thought it was mice or something so I freaked out but after Tim listened he realized it sounded like a cat. So he headed outside to our side yard with the shed and saw a little kitten between the shed and the house. We then spent the next hour trying to get it to come out/ see if there were any others. No luck on both fronts. Finally we decided we needed to try in the morning when it was light out because it was probably scared to see a bright flashlight holding human coming after it.

Wednesday morning while I went to work, Tim was able to convince the little kitten to come out. He brought it inside and set it up with a towel, some milk and some loving. *update: We did figure out that the kitten was old enough to have wet cat food so we set them up with that and it was a very happy camper. Then he sent me this adorable picture.



James was not really amused.



According to Tim, our pup did not understand why we had to rescue the kitten and why it was in our home. Still he was pretty gentle and pretty much just ignored him/her. Or at least tried too...


I think although James acted tough, the kitten was pretty hard to resist.


Anyways, Tim and I both knew that we wouldn't be keeping the kitten. It is hard to explain but if we were ever going to multiple our pets, it would be in the same pet family. That way out routine would remain relatively the same; only multiplied. Does that make sense? No. Oh well, here's another cute pic of the kitten.

 

We looked up the SPCA in our area to see about dropping the kitten off so it could get adopted. They were closed so we knew we were in for the night. This made up slightly nervous since a young animal tends to whine a lot at night...especially in a new place. We loaded a box up with warm towels and put it next to our bed. Luckily the kitten stayed in there all night and didn't make a peep.

 We decided that morning to try and find a good home for this kitten first. There is nothing wrong with the SPCA but we wanted to offer our friends and family a chance at getting an adorable and loving addition to their home before it went to a shelter. So we did what anyone would do during this century. We posted it on facebook. 

Before we knew it, people were sharing the pictures and blasting it out to their friends and family so this little one could get a good home. It was pretty amazing to have everyone helping. And it paid off in as little as 24 hours. Our friend Tracy's coworker was looking for a new kitten (since she recently lost her last one) and thought it was fate that Tracy showed her our pictures. Before Thursday night was over we had found a home for our little Pipsqueak. 

All in all it was a little adventure that had our attention and our hearts for 84 hours. We are excited for his/her new home and are happy that we will get to have updates every once in awhile from our friends coworker. 

 

Have you ever found a stray pet? Did you keep it? Did you find them a good home?  I told Tim that if this was a puppy we REALLY would have been in trouble. :)

Look what we found under our shed all alone...

I will have more details tonight but I had to share our newest development in our household this week. Let's just say that it has taken all of us by surprise...

Making the upstairs shower usable again!

After all that work we did grouting and sealing the shower upstairs, it was looking pretty bare... pretty and shiny but bare.

So we headed out in search of a fun curtain and shower caddy. We used to have a brown shower curtain and it made everything much darker so we stopped at Walmart and grabbed a lighter and colorful curtain.

taken with my iphone and tweaked on instagram to hide the camera phone issues

*Side bar:You can see the original trim color in the door color vs. the new white trim that I recently painted. See how much darker the old trim was? I gotta get on those doors next.*

Since we wanted our decorative curtain to fall right on top of the shower ledge, we also grabbed an extra long clear shower curtain for the inside of the shower. That will actually be the functional one that keeps all the water in. It is working out pretty well so far.

Finally we hit home goods to choose our shower caddy. We had to keep in mind that Tim and I both have larger bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash so we measured each shower caddy level. We were left with this one.

It is a little more decorative than our usual taste but I like that it ties into the shower curtain design and it fits all of our shower supplies. Finally we can use our shower again.

Have you guys done any fun small projects lately? This may be small but its a big deal for us to have our shower upstairs again.

Highlight Reel: Weddings, Trips and Memories!

As I end this week of Highlight Reels, I look back at all the rest of my personal posts. (Not like they aren't all personal but memories and thoughts that made me stop and think)

I started the year proclaiming some New Years Resolutions, as well as some home goals, and even a word challenge for the year. Guess the new year struck a cord in me? :)




Of course we had some fun touring our families Christmas Craptacular,  seeing (and tasting) the sites of Nashville, checking out the Annual Art Auction at Drexel,  and celebrating the last seven years with our wonderful dog, James.

Then we really wandered down memory lane with some special wedding tips on Flashback Fridays. We tackled the venue, got thrifty with flowers, checked out the details, traditions,  and one of our awesome honeymoon activities.

All of these memories were so great to relive. Hope you enjoyed it as well.

For other highlight reels, check out ones on food, home projects, outdoors and crafts.