Weekend Fun!

What a weekend!  We packed so much into a few days, but in doing so, my camera seemed to stay in one spot...my purse.  Bummer.  Anyway, here's a little bit about what we did...

On Friday we headed down to Mount Pleasant to meet up with our good buds, Ryan and Jessie.  We crashed at their place and our pups, Whit and Cubs got to hang out!  Then, Saturday morning Jessie and I headed to Alma to meet up with a bunch of our alumni buddies to play in the 2nd annual ACVB Alumni Tourney.  Like last year, it was a blast!  We played all day long and laughed about all our memories from our college years.  It's such an amazing opportunity for us to all get back together.  We had a blast.  But I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we are all still feeling it (2 days later, ha).  Well worth it though.

This is last year's pic, but it was all I could find!  Love you girls!

Sunday morning was filled with working around the house.  After all it was super rainy outside.  JW added some trim to the guest bedroom and bathroom downstairs, we put on outlet/light covers, and began to set up the bedroom downstairs.  Although it's not complete, we're ready for visitors!!!

Please ignore the naked box spring...I forgot our bedskirts are all light green.  Time to pick up one that matches our great duvet cover from Ikea!

Then, around noon we realized the rain had gone away and the sun was out and....it was WARM!  I mean, so warm, I busted out the sunscreen!  So I lounged on the back deck for a bit while JW did a little yard work and we made plans for dinner over our fire pit!  It was a success.  I wish I had pictures...but again I was slacking.  We even ate dinner outside with my bro and his fam and our good friend Court and her 'baby doggy' Brady.  We finished up and got inside just before the rain continued.  At which point, we had a few dance parties to "the King Louie song" and "Bare Necessities" and were entertained (as usual) by the nephews.  Then it was time to eat chocolate chip cookies.  Braden really liked them -- can you tell? :)

So that was our fantastic weekend.  Today is my last day of spring break before resuming to the normal life of teaching again.  But I just did the count and there are only 41.5 more days of school left till the end of the year -- WOOHOO!

"Up-cycled" Patio

Our new patio and deck are done!!  But, before you check out the new pics, keep in mind that when we moved in, we had a wooden deck that wasn't properly supported and wasn't too pretty either.  The boards were starting to sag and overall, it was pretty blah.  Also, you need to keep in mind that ALL the stone for the patio came out of our house!  YES, the previous owners had installed outdoor flagstone pieces inside of the house!!  In addition to making the transition for stone to carpet areas totally uneven, it stubbed toes and did not look too hot.  Perhaps if we had a grand log cabin...but, we don't.  So, one of the first projects in the house was tearing out the old floor.  We stacked all the stone outside for our "someday patio".  And now....for the reveal (I know I know, the suspense is killing you)...

We HAD to have a fire pit :)  This makes my husband happy to no end.  The best part?  The stone was free, the pavers around the pit were from the side of our garage, and so we paid for labor and the metal ring.

 We also installed "Trex" decking.  Because it was such a small area, we decided to spend a little extra on a deck that we wouldn't have to stain every year!  We went with last year's model so that helped us save a bit of cash too!  You can also see that we put stones and landscaping fabric around the house (one of the whole reasons this re-do started was to dig down and protect the foundation...it's a wood foundation, so we figured we couldn't be too careful).

 Our first bon fire was a success!!  Now we just have to get some more wood together so we can have a few more before the snow flies...which could happen any day in good ole Northern Michigan! :)

And last, even Whit-bug loves the fire!!  Check out that gray chin, she's not a young pup anymore!

Anyway, needless to say, we love it.  And for our friends reading this -- come on over and enjoy a bon fire with us!! :)