Check out this stain!

Wow - what some sanding and a few fresh coats of stain can do to original 50 year old hardwood floors. Even Willy enjoys them :)

After I got back from Katie's bachelorette party, Jimmy and I stayed at my parents house with the 6 dogs while they were in Austin at a conference...so that week the guys from Quality Hardwood Floor were in and out of our empty house sanding and staining the floors.  But we headed to the lake for that weekend with Jimmy's family (you guessed it - that post is next!) so they moved our furniture back into our house that Saturday - so a week later to be exact - and we got to come home to some beautiful floors.  Check them out!

Living room (don't worry - I now have a colorful rug and some more colorful pillows - we had to get rid of the "pee rug")

Finished stairs!

The entry way and hall way - love it!

The office - I hadn't put the rug down yet!

Our master bedroom - without the bed put together.  

Guest bedroom!

And the dining room - guess what?  A new table is coming soon to this dining room near you in September!  And I'm thinking of a china cabinet makeover :)

That's it - so what do you think of the darker floors?  I think I'm in love.  And it's pretty funny to watch the dogs run around and slip on them.  Do not worry - we got an extra strength coat of stuff on top of it so the guy assured me there would be no scratches!

Bachelorette party - Oklahoma style

All right, as you can tell, I'm slowly but surely catching up on some important things - with random posts sprinkled within.  However, I'm not sure anyone reads this blog anymore - but that's ok, I will keep posting ;)

So in the midst of temporarily moving out of my house, Lauren, Keri and I - along with some other fun people - headed down to Collinsville, OK to visit Katie for the weekend and celebrate her bachelorette party and make sure she had a great time!  We arrived late on Friday night so we could be there early to get everything set up and ready for the rest of the party's arrival on Saturday.  So after some shopping for essentials - food and some alcohol - we were ready to get the party started!!!

Keri is getting the party started with some delicious summer beer!  My mom didn't know their was alcohol in it and had like 5 glasses, so you know it was good!  There were also some yard games and Lauren and her mom spent some time in the baby pool :)  It was hot people, they had to do something!!

It did get a little too hot, so we headed inside to play some beer pong on Katie's island.  Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do in this kind of crazy heat.  And even Krista joined in the beer pong fun with water (she's pregnant- and a super cute pregnant girl at that!!)

After we all got ready, we were all set for the lingerie shower to shower the bride to be with some new lingerie and embarrass her.  We did - and it was fun!!  How cute is she decked out in her pin and the bachelorette koozie!!

Ok, so here is just one example of how we embarrassed her.  With boobie tassels.  Trust me - there were other much more embarrassing items given to her, but Lauren and I had to get her these.  I mean we grew up talking about Katie's boobs :)  Not in a weird way, but they were just so big!! (especially compared to ours!)

We caught a few pictures before we went out of the whole group - which included Katie's college friends that were Chi-o's with her, Lauren, me and her sister, Keri!   It was so great that everyone was able to come down!!!

We then headed to dinner at this random place I picked and found online, Baxter's.  It was interesting - the food was ok and the drinks were flowing, but it was the other patrons.  There was some anime conference in downtown Tulsa....so if you know what that means.  That included people dressed up in some interesting costumes.  Anyway, then the limo came and picked us up at the restaurant and it was HUGE!  The bachelorette was really excited!  And so were we :)

I will spare you with the details of the drama that occurred at the first stop.  Long story short, with the limo company I booked - we were supposed to all get in free to these 2 clubs in Tulsa and the limo company made all the arrangements.  Well, apparently that didn't happen, even if I called the Wednesday before to confirm.  So I was ANGRY when they wouldn't let us in.  We had to pay 1/2 the cover for each person, but did get in our own space and then they brought us this super awesome bottle of champagne with fire - so that was fun.  Still - the limo company received a not-so-nice phone call from me.  Which then turned into another phone call, as their customer service sucked, until she told me that she was going to give me the money back.  And then I checked my credit card statement, and guess what?  She didn't - so the saga continues....GRRR!!

But anyway, it was fun after we got in and we had a great time!!!

Love this girl!

We then went to another club that was interesting - you could also smoke inside it, which was gross.  There was lots of dancing - see that guy in the background of the picture below (right by Katie's hand), he was rocking it by himself all night and was hilarious but a pretty decent dancer.  But we did make Katie get up and dance like 3 times around the stripper pole, and then she got down, understandably, but it was still fun!

The bride and her bridesmaids :)

After we had enough of Pink...Katie said "let's go to the casinos"!!!  Haha, surprise, surprise :)  While some of the folks didn't like the HEAVY smoke (it was almost like walking into a fire), they went to get the cars and drive them back to Collinsville while we stayed and all wasted our money on blackjack.   Katie was on a roll for a while, then Lauren was...so we got a few beers, Katie started continually yelling ".....every body's a winner..." and getting lots of stares - and it was pretty fun.  Honestly, I don't think we could have planned a more fitting ending to Katie's bachelorette party.  It was so fun and so Katie :) 

Love you girl and so glad we got to be such a fun part of the events leading up to your special day!

Temporarily moving out

It's hard right now to look at these pictures...as it seems like forever ago that we had to literally move out of over half of our house!!! When we made the decision that we were going to rip up the carpet upstairs and refinish all the hardwood floors and did a "trial" tear up of our upstairs hallway on our anniversary, I had already started dreading this whole process. Refinishing hardwood floors? Awesome. Moving out of the upstairs and middle level of our house (over 1000 sq ft)? Terrible.

But sitting at our kitchen table right now admiring the new floor color - I'm so happy we sucked it up and did it - because I LOVE the floors (which is good, because if I hated them, I would have been a little bitter of this whole process, right??)

Let me start by showing you what exactly our house looked like mid-process. That will make you appreciate this change a little bit more - because we all know that every home improvement project takes some work, sacrifice and a disruption in your everyday life. Wow - that makes home project sounds awful, however - when it's over...it's all worth it.

So what was the process? Well I showed you our college bed as we started to pack up our house and move what we could. Then the weekend that I left for Katie's bachelorette party - that post is coming soon - Jimmy was there for our floor guy to come test colors and then guide the movers to move all the big furniture to somewhere else in our house. Somehow, they found extra space in the family room downstairs, the garage or the basement. But when I walked in that Monday night, this is what I saw. Wow!!

Our downstairs family room:

What the basement "entrance" looked like....not much of an entrance

Oh and here's our kitchen - as you can see, there was not much cooking going on that week. But at least they blocked it off from the dining room in case there was dust stragglers...

Want to take a nap?? Try the garage...

So here is what they had to do first: sand down the floors. This is in our living room, which already had hardwood floors, but we refinished them along with the upstairs floors so they could all match.

And the stairs - ah the uncarpeted stairs! I was super pumped for these. We still need to paint the steps white underneath - but still, much better!

They were obviously kind of in between on this job..

But boy oh boy, the first time a dog threw up on those floors - I couldn't have been more excited to just have to wipe it up and then clean the hardwood floors vs. sitting there scrubbing the dirty gross carpet and having the smell linger.

Hmmmm- odd that is the thing I get excited about, but it's true. Ok - finished pictures to come!!!

Blogger collages

Ok I have been playing around with a few different online photo album and collage making websites - and this is what I have come up with.  Load them to picasa web albums and then use picnik to make a collage?  However...I think I am missing something!  I have seen SO many cute photo collages on some blogs I follow and after looking at this the last couple days I still feel like I haven't found what I like!!!  AH!!

HELP!

In the mean time, here are a few of the collages I played around with of Milly and Willy.  Toby desparately needs a summer hair cut so he did not let me take pictures of him!  Dog dad Jimmy, did you hear that??  Your son needs you to take him to get his hair cut!!

How do you post pictures to your blog???  

Finances and marriage

To tag onto the last post that somehow was construed from talking about a lovely evening movie with the Carter family to me talking about Jimmy's impulse CostCo lawn chair purchase, I remembered this funny Jimmy moment and had to post it.

But let me start from the beginning of this wonderful story. When you get married, one thing everyone tells you that you need to talk about it your finances. So I took that quite literally, especially because we each had several different accounts at different banks/financial institutions individually and two together for our house and wedding. I had it all figured out less than 2 weeks after we got married and set an evening after work for us to go to the bank together. But before we went, Jimmy insisted that he wanted to know exactly what was happening. The way I operate is in Microsoft applications (Excel, Word, PowerPoint). So what better than to put together a PowerPoint presentation for Jimmy?

It was titled "Money Discussion" and was 7 slides that (in my mind) clearly outlined our current state with a similar look of a process map and then the movement/actions needed of the checking accounts (what stays open, what closes), savings accounts and finally retirement accounts....with a future state look as well. I thought it was highly sufficient for the communication problem at hand because I knew I couldn't just verbally explain it to him. So when I sent it to him, I instantly got a text message saying "you are crazy, but I love you" (or something of the sorts....). Still to this day, I claim to not be crazy, but we just communicate differently because apparently he STILL did not have a grasp on the movement of things. And then and there my friends is when it was subconsciously decided in our marriage I would handle the money for the most part. I know what goes where, when, how to set it up, etc. And I'm happy about that - I'm a financial analyst for goodness sake, so this is what I love.

Because of that, when I say things like "We don't have money for that" or "We're broke Jimmy!! (insert loud screaming)"....even if I know for a fact we are neither of the above at all because we operate off of just one salary and everything else goes to one of the savings accounts - Jimmy takes it rather seriously. Which I didn't really think about...but I get it now. He trusts me to keep track of these things, so when I get overdramatic and state "AH- we are poor", he takes that as the honest truth. However, after I realized that, I tend to tone down my overdramaticness a little to keep him sane. But one thing I do keep close track of is our spending and try to save wherever possible. So one day I made the statement to Jimmy that went like this:

B: "J, why did you buy X, Y and Z yesterday??!!! AHH!! You always just spend so much money on stupid stuff! I feel like every morning you wake up and your one goal of the day is try to spend as much money as possible to make me mad!!!"

And there you have it folks. The statement that will haunt me forever. Obviously that is not his main goal. Obviously I'm overdramatic (how many times can I say that in this post). And obviously I don't think that is his goal. But you better believe that Jimmy will not let me live that statement down. So when he bought that Tommy Bahama lawn chair at CostCo and tried to convince me to buy 2 of them (But Brittany, they have a cup holder AND a place for your cell phone), but I firmly said no....his response is always:

J: "There you go again, ruining my main goal of the day - to spend as much money as possible"

I cannot even tell you how many times he uses this statement against me. I'm not going to lie, it makes me laugh every time - as he continually reminds me of how ridiculous I can be.....but ah! Sometimes it drives me crazy.

So recently, he found something else he wanted. They are called Thundershirts and they are for your dogs. They are like little coats/shirts that you can buy that you put on your dog and it's supposed to make them have less anxiety and barking through a constant, gentle pressure. Do we need them know? Would it be nice to get them and see if it worked so Milly wouldn't bark at Toby all the time or Toby wouldn't be terrified in storms?? Absolutely. Is it worth $35 each + tax and shipping, um nope. That's a new outfit for work or a few dinners to Salty Iguana!!! They are cute though...

And I'm sure you can guess what Jimmy's response to me was when I said "no".

Yep...."There you go again, ruining my main goal of the day - to spend as much money as possible".  Sorry Jimmy - I'm trying to pinch some pennies and save for our future children's college education :)

However, if you are in the market for these Thundershirts and don't have a mean husband or wife like me that says "no" all the time....these do come with high recommendations on their effectiveness.........

Oh marriage. Gotta love it! I will say that Jimmy is back at home finally after traveling for work, and we sure missed him - so glad he's home!
 

Outdoor movie fun!

Once upon a time....

...I started this blog post and never finished it :)  So here we go!  A few of my nieces and nephews were insisting that Jimmy and I watch Tangled.  Since it was a newer Disney movie, I had never seen it and since it's a Disney movie...Jimmy had never seen it.  Did you catch that?  Yep, I think this might have been his first Disney princess movie.  In the mean time, I have gotten him to watch Beauty and the Beast.  Next up hopefully Aladdin.

Anyway, Jimmy's oldest brother had a projector and hooked it up to his laptop, hung a sheet outside on their house and TA DA an instant outdoor movie theater!  They had us over for some CostCo pizza and drinks and then we cooked some smores outside and played fake restaurant while we waited for the sun to go down.

A few things: (1) I got to see one of the fake owls that Tim has in his garden - apparently the Carter boys swear by them.  Odd, but funny.  (2) I got served fake macaroni and cheese (several times), nachos and a burrito.  And they were all delicious! (3) I loved the movie!!

Onto the pictures!  We brought over some chairs - one that Jimmy just HAD to have at CostCo that night.  It was like a $25 Tommy Bahama chair that he was obsessed with and wanted to buy two of.  I put my foot down and only let him buy one, but then I ended up sitting in it the whole time before Norah kicked me out :)  Here is the chair when I had claim on it - with sweet Kenlie!

And our matching braids!!  No, we didn't plan it!

Miss Katy swinging on the swing in her ADORABLE outfit!  So cute!

Haha Ben and Maren on the swing - they might be a little too big for it, but looks fun!

And this is when Kenlie took my camera and snapped some shots.  Apparently she convinced Maren and Ben to do a photo shoot!

Another Kenlie shot (note Jimmy in the background waving, as usual - always wanting to be the star of the picture!!) of the whole group waiting for the movie to start!

And we have the movie!

....and a gun :)

...oh and a matching princess dress.  Love it!

...and some cousins that love each other!

....and ADORABLE baby boys!

And some very happy grandparents enjoying the movie!

Check out these girls - front row seats!

And this is when Norah highjacked my chair!  She couldn't get enough of it!

...or enough of Max!  She used to be afraid of him because he was so big, but all her fears went away that night. They were best buds!  She even kept asking me where he was when we were at the lake a few weeks later :)

In her seat, enjoying the bowl of popcorn.  She shared with Max - don't tell!

Oh - and I forgot the best part about the chair according to Jimmy.  It folds up into a backpack.  OH MY GOSH - how awesome, right?  Wrong because I couldn't make it through any door and when I got stuck, people laughed at me.  Haha.  It was funny though.

So it seems as though I have truly made the whole point of this post about some chair that Jimmy insisted we get at CostCo...not sure how that happened, but it did.  Well, I still think it was a waste of $$ even though it's kind of comfy.

Overall, Tangled was a GREAT movie!!  I loved it and the songs and everything.  I might even buy it.  Watching that movie made me miss being a kid or just means I need to hang out with these kids more often.  And that would be just fine with me :)