Ah, the end of the holidays.  We’re still hanging out in Waco – parked at Midway Park on Lake Waco, but spending most of our time at DD Lara’s house.  Everyone’s back to work today, so the house seemed pretty empty – just us, the two dogs and three cats.    So I guess empty is a relative term.  How about the house is empty-ish?  We’ve really enjoyed our time here, though it’s been less than a traditional “holiday” season.  We’ve had some ups and downs, but I’m happy to report that the Ups out weighed the Downs.

Ups -

Christmas with Lara!  It was a quiet day, just the three of us.  And since we’re all “watchin’ what we eat”, we had to (sadly) forgo our traditional Conrad Sticky Buns.  But we did enjoy some yummy eggs Benedict Florentine that helped make our morning special.

We finished off the day with a lovely Christmas dinner at friends of Lara’s – and since we were there last Christmas too, it’s like we’re family. It was a good day – sometimes it’s hard not to be with the WHOLE family on Christmas, but we were with family, and in that regard we are blessed. Hope your day was filled with hugs and kisses and calories, and special reminders of the birth of our Lord.

But Christmas was only a small part of our time at Lara’s. Gary, of course, had a long list of chores he wanted to accomplish and Lara and I decided that we needed to have some project fun of our own. So we decided to tackle painting some furniture that she had collected over the years.
The first was a pink dresser that originally had magazine pages decoupaged on both sides and the top. Quite the design element. Once we got the paper scraped off, it was clear sailing to a pretty fine and functional dresser that now is the happy home to part of Lara’s yarn stash!

Then there was a plant stand that seemed to need a little refreshing -

But I think our favorite “re-do” was a little cabinet that had been in the family for probably 20 years and when we got it it needed to be refinished. By the time Lara got it, one cabinet door was broken and soon after the other door bit the dust and so it was definitely in need of some refurbishing. We not only refurbished it – we re-purposed it!

And in case you don’t instantly see the re-purposing, it’s now the cats’ private eating station. Safe from the prying eyes (and appetites) of the two dogs that share the house!


Pretty sweet, eh?
But of course, Gary never stopped moving. He had three big jobs he wanted to accomplish – build a better gate to the alley, re-screen the screened in porch, and spruce up the garden enclosure using the old wood from the deck.
The gate turned out great -

And well, the garden “upgrade” is quite impressive!
I don’t actually have an “official” before picture – but here’s a shot when he built the boxes and enclosure last fall.

And here’s a glimpse of it from October of this year when Gary was working on the fence -

And here it is now -

Now if those Brussels Sprouts would start producing……

We kept finding other little jobs for him to do, like lowering closet rods and adding shelving and building dog bowl decks,

so the screening is still a work in progress. But all in all – he’s been one busy dude!
And there has been one other major distraction –

And this definitely goes in the “Down” category!
What started out as a suspicious “sewer-y smell” turned into a cracked drain/sewer pipe under the house. Ugh. And Ugh again.
Lara’s house is “post and beam” construction – with about 8 inches between the dirt and the floor joists.

Gary did his best, but Lara had to call in a plumber.

The house was without plumbing for 48 hours – and folks were getting pretty creative in finding places to shower and (ahem) pee. We even had a little gathering here at the campground, cause hey, we can flush! And there’e a bathhouse for multiple showers! The plumber and helper (who also happened to be one of the housemate’s new fiance!) spent Friday in the dirt under the house (literally), and by the end of the day all drains were working. Phew. There was always the risk that the back bedroom floor would have to be removed to do the repair, so to get everything back on track without floor damage was a huge relief. Thank goodness for determined (and small) plumbers!

We’ll be in Waco until Friday morning when we head down to Giddings, TX and Camp Tejas – our January project. But we still have a bit of fun to look forward to before we leave. Like helping Lara celebrate her birthday tomorrow!
And then of course, there’s the porch screening to keep Gary happy for the next couple of days!

2012? Really? Have a Happy, Healthy, and Blessed New Year, everyone!

Where does the week go????!!! Our project is going great, but before the weekend starts, I wanted to share about Last Weekend. We’re doing Back-to-Back Waco Weekends, and I hate to get too far behind! It was a pretty full weekend – with lots of fun stuff going on!
First on the agenda – Building The Ultimate Bed.
Lara has a pretty small bedroom (with the smallest closet in the house), and has spent the last year or so searching for a platform bed with lots of storage underneath so she could get rid of her dresser and maybe even find some extra space in her closet. She finally decided on The Ultimate Bed, with a total of 16 (!) drawers! Six on each size and four small ones running down the middle that you access from the foot of the bed. Quite amazing, really.
There was only one small problem.
It came in 9 boxes with 35 pages of instructions.
Really.

We got started on Friday night -

building the drawer units.



And while it’s true that Gary did the actual “building” (after all, he’s the expert with the power tools), he couldn’t have done it without Lara and I. We kept the screws organized and kept track of the bazillion parts that were needed. And occasionally we were the “could you read those directions again? Do they make sense to you?” helpers.


Clementine was a big help too!
After the drawer units came the actual drawers…..

The sections were joined together and the center drawers were added.

And finally, the mattress platform was installed.

And by noon on Saturday -

Lara had her very own Ultimate Bed!
Just in time for us all to get our rain gear on to go the the Baylor-University of Texas Game!

We got there early and enjoyed watching the warm up

and we got to see the Baylor “Line” -

which is actually anyone (it seems) who has a gold/yellow shirt on running on the field to greet the players as they come out.
There was lots of team spirit

and it did rain off and on for the entire game

but in the end, it was a great game!

And, yes, Baylor WON!

The Big Event this coming weekend is Lara’s Second Annualish (did not happen last year due to the fact she had no kitchen) Cookie Baking Extravaganza! Definitely seems like a worthwhile reason to hustle back to Waco, doncha think?

Did you have a good Thanksgiving? I hope so! Ours was wonderful . Our grand girls (ages 4,7 & 8.75) are getting so grown up!

We enjoyed every minute of our time with them.
But this year, I must confess, the two little boys, Noah (15 months) and Weston (4 months) certainly stole the show! Or, if not the show, certainly the camera! Noah was totally enamored with little Weston, and was right at his side at most every opportunity.

Noah seemed to instinctively know that he and Weston needed to stick together with all those girls around!
And of course, we did have Denali around to further add to the fun!

I did not have the camera out too much (well, except for excessive pictures of the little boys), but I made sure that I got a family picture. There really aren’t THAT many of us – only twelve – but trying to find a time that both little ones were awake, and the girls were in the house and all adults were accounted for took a little doing. I finally just started directing people to the sofa.

 It’s a start – Abigail, Weston and Hayley

 Good, there’s Ellie joining the group.

 Yes! Papa Josiah is in his rightful place.

 Yea!!! Aunt Lara has arrived!

 OK, there’s Pops and I’m convincing Noah that he wants to join the crowd….

We’re getting close – up to 10!

 At last – we’ve all made the picture! And it turned out pretty well, I think!

I sure do love these guys!

We’re back at work today at Charis Hills Camp, but I wanted to share about our very fun long weekend in Waco. I’ll pretend that we went to Waco to celebrate my birthday, but the reality is, we returned so Gary could finish up that fire pit! So let’s start there -
So this is how things looked when we left back in October -

By the next weekend, the fire pit kit had been delivered

but it was still a long way from the backyard – and from actually being usable.
We just let that ol’ fire pit just sit there for a day or so while Gary continued on the prep work and the hearth.




One of the smartest things he did this weekend was take out a section of the fence in the back so he could drive the truck (and all those pavers and bags of sand/gravel/cement) up close to the deck. Man, those babies are H-e-a-v-y!


Once he got the three hearth rows down, he tamped them all into submission….

checked to make sure the opening was a good size for the ring

he started building up the sides of the pit.

What I don’t have pictures of is him putting mortar between the blocks in the hearth or how he cinched each level of the fire pit stone to make sure it was perfectly round and good and tight. But here it is – with one happy homeowner waiting patiently for the burn ban to lift!


And just in case anyone down the road wonders about it -

It’s signed, sealed and delivered!
But the weekend wasn’t ALL about the fire pit! Lara did have some of her friends over for a little birthday pot-luck for me on Thursday. (Of course, it might have just been a ploy to get those fire-pit pavers to the back of the house….). As often is the case, sometimes the most unusual items become the most interesting of the night. In this case – Lara’s Yarn Swift and Ball Winder….

Who knew? And it wasn’t even the kids who started wondering what those “things” were for!
Here’s our group picture from the night -

A fun group – and a fun evening!

By Saturday the construction project was over and we spent the early part of the day running errands. I know that Gary loved the trip to Lowes (mostly returns!), Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight. But I LOVED our stop at Kohl’s where Lara and I left Gary in the truck to go in and look for a new top for me. It’s my birthday after all! What started out as a simple shopping trip, soon turned into the “reveal” portion of “What Not to Wear”, and I walked out of the store with….drum roll……a new dress, sweater (basic black), dark dress jeans, a classic long black skirt and SIX tops. All for $156.00. Ok, I know that’s probably TMI for some of you – but SOME of you are delighted to hear of our shopping prowess. You know who you are! Lara and I had such fun, and since I can’t think of the last time I had so much fun with my own personal dresser, I had to share!

The weekend ended with a safe trip back to our spot north of Dallas, and we were blessed with this beautiful sky as the day drew to a close.

Yes, indeed, dear friends, it was a very fine birthday weekend. Calls from the family (even a Skype call from Ohio!), mushy (and silly) cards from my precious sisters, and time spent with Lara and the gang in Waco. Very Very Fine.

I have five very wonderful and very precious grandchildren. Five! I’m in love with them all. Today, since it’s her 4th birthday, I thought I’d share a bit of why our little Maddie has such a special place in my heart.
1. She and I are share “birth order”. We’re both the third daughter and after a lovely reign of being everyone’s baby, we were usurped by a baby brother. Not that we don’t love that baby brudder, mind you, but still. It is what it is.
2. We almost share the same birthday. Today Maddie turns 4. Tomorrow I turn the “new 40″.
3. In a family of dark haired beauties –

she’s a little blue eyed blonde! And that, my dear friends, comes directly from her daddy’s side of the family. And we take full responsibility for that!

Happy Birthday, precious little one!

How quickly you have become

the little imp that melts our heart!
We wuv you.