Catch up photos! A LOT of catch up photos!

All right, so these are not really in order, but they are not too badly off... The visits to the capital building, etc., were before the wedding, but hey. Maybe I'll adjust them later on. There are A LOT of photos so if the page is only showing a few, click on the "June 2006" link on the right and that should show them all along with the lengthy posts.

Be safe and well.
Justin

And let the photos begin....

Now here's trouble.

Ohhhhh....

another....

Our friend Belinda's koi pond, which I have yet to get right... Don't you just love this lil guy??

a couple tests with the new camera

One of the roses in the yard.. this is one of the first shots with the new Olympus e500

Here we are.. repainting the living room.. um.. white. Well, WE see the difference a little, anyway.

Our wonderful new lightswitch cover and the new blue in the bathroom

Stace's desk... Before she got ahold of it

The finished project after adding the bracketless shelves and staining the bookcase

gearing up to paint the office

Lee and Stace

The Irwin family

This is the full area. Massive.

A shot of a corner in the church where Lee and Melissa were married..

A lily pond in the gardens

the front, with Thomas Jefferson

an interesting fountain

another

One of the many memorials outside the capital

The capital building in Jefferson City

Some interesting color and lines

The old trainstation in Kansas City
The WW1 War Memorial facing the trainstation and downtown. There is an elevator to the top. Quite the view, I am sure.
Stace, conquering the memorial.
Then there was this guy... I suppose we all have our crosses to bear. 

Jamie and Stace hanging out at the lake
Stace's parent's back porch, which is how I think we'll end up doing the sideporch...
Jessie, Stace and John with Linsey, Carrol and Dave dancing
Jessie, "raising the roof"...

The Pages Inbetween

Justin: While Stace takes a second to recount the Missouri trip, let me interject with some other goings on since the last update…
We bought a new couch back in March. WHOO HOO! Now don’t get me wrong, the futon couch (and NO, not a Wally World special, thank you) is still very much loved by all who have experienced it, however it is indeed showing it’s age of what, 10-11 years and is on its way to that Big Living Room in the Sky.
<sniffle> You will be missed, old friend.
So, back to the new couch. We found it at Rooms-to-Go and are enjoying it greatly, though the new pillows are limiting our snuggling ability as they cut into the cuddle area. But it is very comfortable and flows well with the hardwoods. We are deciding on either getting the little love seat or one or two single chairs to go along with it… That is still up in the air.

What else... OH! My good friend Josh has moved to Alpharetta from Madison, WI, where he has been for several years now. Josh and I went to college together and he lived with me here in Charlotte for a couple of years before becoming a Cheesehead. I am looking forward to spending more time with him now that he is much closer… though I will admit that I am going to miss closing down Madison bars, hiding from stuffed Buffalo, and bagging it in front of the open sliding glass door. Good times.

Taking the good with the bad, my uncle passed away last month. He was a wonderful man, a mentor to his community, a favored pastor, and a good father and a good friend. His passing inspires me to believe that no matter your name for that “Better Place” after this physical life, it must exist for he is surely there. We love you, Uncle Dave.

Well, also rather recently, my father has joined the Red Cross. After Katrina he worked with the Red Cross as a volunteer helping victims that were moved to Knoxville and evidently made quite the impression. He is working in a crisis management role and is one of the angels who work with victims of a disaster to help get them sheltered and taken care of. Not too long ago he spent about a week in Western Tennessee after a string of tornadoes ripped thru and devastated many towns. He seems to enjoy it very much and I imagine it is very rewarding.

The rest of the family is doing well. My nephew continues to grow and to amaze, my sister and my brother-in-law seem to be doing fine. Oh, he is going back to school, so that is a good thing. He wants to teach, which watching him with Hayden and the bible school class shouldn’t really surprise me as he’s well suited for it.

I bought a new camera! An Olympus Evolt e-500. I was stuck between that and the Canon Digital Rebel XT – still not sure I made the right choice, but it is a great camera and as soon as I get past the learning curve I’ll hopefully have something interesting to share.

I think that’s about it… There were no camping trips to speak of and other then some paint going up in the house, nothing else has been done… I’ll look and see if we posted any pictures of the new colors. We painted the bathroom a lighter blue and the office a nice foresty green. I put up black bracketless shelves and we’re generally pleased. Actually I guess we are too pleased as that is where we spend the most time these days. Geesh. What nerds!

Be safe and well,
Justin

One long week in one long year

Hello all!!!
Not sure where I've been for the past few months considering the fact that I'm on the computer every day. Part of me didn't feel like writing on the blog dedicated to our house because we haven't accomplished much in the past few months. Blame work and travel and general indecision. But here we are nearing the anniversary of our move in date and we're starting to get our ducks in a row for major renovations - I guess it just took a year for me to start thinking a little smaller (I originally wanted to blow the roof and add a second story) and for Justin to start thinking bigger (he's so darn logical). So it's been a long year and a good year - there's no better way to get know someone than to share a bathroom with them....or to take them home. Which leads us to our long week...and now Justin knows me much better now!

We flew to Kansas City on Saturday June 3rd and began the whirlwind tour of Stacey's homeland. Justin was shocked by the number of restaurants I pointed out as we were driving through KC considering I still stress over my weight. But I love KC food! We walked around the Liberty Memorial which has great views of KC and after checking into the hotel, we headed out to track down my cousin Megan as she wasn't going to be at the wedding. I finally got to introduce her to my boyfriend which is amusing - she's 16 and both her and my 17 year old cousin have been dating their boyfriends longer than I've been dating Justin. And then we went to meet my friends Heather and Jeff and their new baby, Gordon VanDam. First off, he's the largest three month old baby I've ever seen and he's absolutely adorable!! And then we left the adorable baby with daddy Jeff and went off to grab Mr. Andy (my other best friend!!) and we headed to La Bodega for some tapas and sangria. YUMMY! Then it was time for Buzzard Beach, my favorite hangout in KC, and the sight of many Andy, Heather, Stacey nights-out. It was a beautiful evening and we had fun and laughs and I was so excited that Justin got to meet these two very important people. We were alternately mushy and funny and poor Andy got hugged more than he would have liked. It was a great night.
So around 8 in the morning we kind of wake up and start getting ready to go do brunch at the Classic Cup (fabulous eggs benedict!). Lynn and Chris meet us there so I can meet another new baby!! They have six month old Afton is about half the size of three month Gordy and is very curious (I like that in a baby). We took turns holding him so he could see different views of the Plaza. I call him baby Jaques because he looks like he's holding his breath underwater - one day he will explore the bottoms of the ocean - I"m positive about that.
After brunch and a short walk around the Plaza, we headed out to Lee's Summit to my sister in law's family's house to pick up my brother and meet his new puppy Louie-Louie. Cute little Jack Russel but he made me miss the Oscar dog - there's just nothing more cute or cuddly than a pug. But that's just my opinion....
We then headed to Pleasant Hills to see my cousin's new house - actually they've lived there for a couple of years but I still hadn't seen the house so it was new to me. :-) It's a great house with a great yard and we had a nice visit on the deck. Although poor Justin got the seat in the direct sunlight and started developing a nice sunburn. And then after five or so phone calls from the folks wanting to know where we were, we decided to head down to Jefferson City.
Honestly, I was so tired by the time we got there that aside from being very happy to see my parents and a quick tour of the house, I don't remember much about Sunday night. But Monday, I remember well, because my mum put us to work. Yes, on our vacation, we painted the kitchen so it would look good for the Scottish folk (and by we, I mean my dad and Justin). Then while we were waiting for it to dry, Justin goes outside and fixes the retaining wall on the side of the garden - major brownie points with the folks! Good job baby! And Justin has decided that he wants to replicate my parent's sunporch in our house which is a good idea so we have a direction to our remodeling now.
I have to stop at this point and tell you how beautiful my parent's house is. My mum should have been an interior decorator because the furniture and the colors blend perfectly and they've travelled and collected great knick knacks so the house is very personalized and interesting. The French bedroom is my favorite. They collected a headboard and footboard, two side tables and a wierd bird clock that would look horrible anywhere else but in that guest room, it's perfect. It made me want to come home and start re-decorating immediatley.
So that's the first three days of the trip. Hope I haven't bored you but everything was so wonderful about the trip and getting to introduce Justin to my friends and family meant so much to me that it made my trip!
SO tomorrow we will move on to days four and five or what I like to refer to as "The Lake trip".
Pictures will be posted soon!!!

The Ides of June

Justin: So it’s June. Mid June. And it’s hot. Everywhere. There’s no escaping it, you can only endure it with preferably a cool drink and a humming air conditioner. As most of you know, Stace and I just got back from Missouri as we attended her brother’s wedding. Everything was beautiful – the bride, the groom, the wedding party, the church, the reception hall, Stace; everything. Who knew my baby could be girlie??? WHO KNEW?? I was shocked! Stunned, even. Actually, I think most people were. She had on heels, make up, a dress… GIRLIE!

Don’t worry, there are pictures coming.

We had a great time, all in all. The week flew by and now that we’re back it almost seems we never left. Of course now we’re weaning our pug from the hamburgers the sitter was feeding him and daydreaming of Scotland. Hamburgers… who feeds a dog hamburgers? And he’s supposed to go back to regular dog food? Hell, I wouldn’t either! It’s sad really, he follows us everywhere just incase we’re hiding one from him. You can just see the desperation in his little buggy eyes.
Oh, and did I mention the sitter had carpeted floors?? Burgers AND carpeted floors?? I’m surprised he didn’t slash our tires when we came to pick him up. He’s miserable.

Well lets see how good I am… Over the course of the week I met quite a few people: <ahem> Heather, Jeff, and their son Gordy, Lynn, Chris and their son Afton, Megan, Sherrie, Mark, Lee, Melissa, Josie, Connie, Brian, Jamie, John, Lindsey, Carrol, Katherine, Kathy, Dave, Dale, Terry, Jessie, Jim, Judy, Coy, Sarah, Paige, Jessica, Nichole, Catherine, Chuck, Dana, Emma, Jeannie, Cheryl, Gary, Corey, Erin, Jason, Charlie, Becky, Mary, and Aunt June.
If I misspelled your name, I apologize.
So it was a busy week. We worked in Stace’s parent’s kitchen and garden some, traveled back and forth from Kansas City to Jefferson City a couple times, visited a winery, ate at some great places… good times all around.

Stace is threatening to actually write up a summary so I’ll break it off here with a heart felt THANK YOU to everyone involved in our trip. It was very nice to meet you and I’m looking forward to going back.

Be safe and well,
JJ