Deployed Spouses Night Out

I haven't been able to make a lot of our units events due to work or being out of town, but I'm thankful I've made almost all of the girls night outs. This month we went to Wine and Design and our small group painted some beautiful moonlit poppies. 

I was aprehensive with mine while it was in progress but I ended up loving how it turned out!

Even more adorable was the fact that a couple was in our class and they got engaged! We knew ahead of time via email so we wouldn't spoil anything and it was so special to witness. The guy was brave and did a different painting from the rest of us of a gorgeous sunset with two wine glasses. He sat next to me with his fiancé across from him so she didn't see him write Marry Me in cursive (impressive to do with paint) across the top of his finished painting. He brought it around to her side to examine her finished painting then asked if she liked his. Her jaw dropped in surprise and he suddenly had a ring in his hand! So so adorable! I was hoping Wine and Design uploaded our group picture to their Facebook page but I didn't see it yet to share with you!

Either way, some art, wine and good company was a perfect night out. I even hung my painting in our bedroom!

Next week I'll be attending the unit Spa Night (with yoga and smoothies promised) on Tuesday, the SpouseBUZZ Spouse Experience Wednesday and some homecoming banner making Thursday. 

That's right readers, homecoming banner making time! I got our first official window notice today and I'm super excited! Not too much longer now!!!

Edited to add photos from the Wine and Design Facebook Page!

 

 

PCS - Part 4

The last post on our PCS/house, I promise!!

So after the kitchen and dining room we have our office. Not a desk in the middle of the living room. Spoiled, I know.

 This beauty is a solid cherry desk that we got on Lejeune Yardsales for $80! That sucker was heavy, trust me I helped Ryan get it out of the truck and drag it in here, but it was so worth it. I love it.

 Our old plywood rigged desk is now our printer area. We just, you know, have to get ink for them to work.

 My book case and our old bathroom drawers complete the office. Check out those gorgeous carpets too!

Another view of the desk with Ryan's Iwo picture, my diploma you could see in the first picture.

 Our hallway then leads to the bedrooms and the rest of the house. It is so nice to have wall space to hang pictures on!

 We have a laundry room!!! The washer and drier are awesome. After almost two years of driving my laundry to the barracks and spending three hours waiting on it, it is so nice to be able to throw in a load and go do something else until it is done. And only fold one load at a time! I know I will complain about laundry in the near future but for now it is a novelty. And I have a real vacuum! Man, I sound derranged don't I?

 This is our guest bathoom. We have our beautiful new floors that don't make me shudder to look at. Ryan installed towel racks and we used all the stuff from our apartment to furnish it.

I finally did a crafty pintrest project! Based on this pin I made that frame for our mirror. It was a pain in the butt but I am so glad I did it, it looks nice in my opinion! Ripping the tiles apart from the $10 sheet I got at Home Depot was the hardest part. I had to use tweezers to pull the glue off the back to separate them. Once I did that it was pretty easy. I used silicone adhesive and just stuck them up. The top was a little touch and go but thanks to a binder clip it set easily. Pin Accomplished!

 Now this is the spare bedroom. We painted it Shamrock, fittingly, and are currently sleeping in there. In the future it will be a spare room and way down the line maybe a nursery, but for now it works! Even with the random shelves.

 Another painting by my Poppa hangs above the bed. I sleep all curled up against the wall, something I have not done since I was living at home way back when!

 My lady bug photograph is hung in here above Ryan's dresser.

 And a real Genie drawing from Disney is near the door. He is my all time favorite Disney character voiced by my favorite actor Robin Williams. I was so glad to get that thing out of storage and hang it up! Ryan wasn't too thrilled but he is a wise man and let that one slide.

 Our master bedroom is still a work in progress. We ordered a whole new bedroom furniture set which will arrive in "2 to 8 weeks" so Rylie is still living in there for now. We also have french doors getting installed later this month instead of the beat up sliding doors.

 We painted it Blueberry Twist and love how the dark blue came out. It took two coats, same with the spare bedroom, but it worked out nicely in the end.

 The master bathroom is also a work in progress, it is going to be Coca Cola themed! If you are friends with me on facebook you saw I spent an outrageous amount of money on a shower curtain, so I will post pictures of it all once it is complete. Apparently Coca Cola fabric is discontinued, so any shower curtains or fabric curtains are very pricey. Good to know. What sucks is that I used to have a shower curtain back in college that gone thrown away during our many moves. REGRET.

The floors are MUCH nicer now and I will walk on them barefoot. I also will be tile framing the mirror this week, with a special Coca Cola touch. So far I have a shower curtain, hooks, a tooth brush holder, a mug and two vintage signs for the bathroom. Still looking for a trash can and maybe a few other touches. We have bright red rugs and red and white towels too.

 Also a big fan of our closet. Plenty of room. We share it, half and half (ok maybe 60-40). Command hooks were my friends for the belts and my purses and I also have a shoe organizer hanging that you can't see here. Love it.

 From the master bedroom you go into the backyard. Rylie has claimed this as her domain and we haven't done too much work yet. Stefan suited up and killed all the poison ivy and poison oak for us (I am highly allergic to it and couldn't even go near it) and my dad trimmed back the stuff growing on the fence.

 It is mostly pine needles, not a lot fo grass until you go on the side of the house. We plan on fixing the fence up, getting some of the pine needles up, and maybe a patio set in the future. A garden next year is also in the works. For now Rylie runs around and can be out of the way while we get stuff done!

 She does love playing back there. It is full of her favorite toy.... sticks. I spent so much money on toys for her and the dog is happiest when she has a stick. It's like buying a kid a pricey toy and they play with the box. Lesson learned :P

Poor pup pup. She does not like the cone of shame. She keeps catching it and trying to bite it off. Her coordination was not the best before but it is worse now. In the house she scrapes all along the walls, walks into furniture, takes us out at the knees and gets whiplash getting stuck. One more week pup! I promise!

And that friends, is our new home. I hope you enjoyed the tour and I can't wait to post more updates along the way, especially with the master bedroom and bathroom!

PCS - Part 2

Even though we had a long day of driving and spending more money than either one of us had ever done in our lives.... we still had a lot of work to do. We unloaded the cleaning supplies and got to work. My dad had to go back to Western North Carolina but Ryan, my mom, Stefan and I got to work. We put Dippy, my mom's old golden retriever, and Rylie in separate rooms and started scrubbing. The house sat empty for a good six months and before that the owners got divorced, leaving the husband here on his own. I think the guy just stopped caring before he left because some things were GROSS. The bathrooms were so gross I refused to take a "before" picture of them. Ick. Press and peel vinyl was tearing up, the toilet and bath tubs were ringed with grossness and it was just not pretty. The oven was so caked with grease (and it is SELF CLEANING) that when we cleaned it the house reaked for hours. There was also the general dirt of six months sitting empty, so we were busy. We knew all the stained carpets had to be replaced in the bedrooms before the furniture arrived and we had to paint before the carpets got replaced. The list seemed pretty long!

 The living room became home base for all our cleaning supplies and the trash bags, we used a lot.

The dining room was our eating area during the day and the bedroom at night, as you can see from the air mattress.

The office.... looks dark but I was hurrying to get the pictures and it isn't that bad I promise!

The spare room, very stained carpets.

The master bedroom, worse stained carpets and stained ugly powder blue walls. And gross drapes. Those are gone!

But that first night we just cleaned our butts off. Ryan and I set up our air mattress in the dining room as the wood floors were cleaner than the carpets as you can see! Then things moved quickly. We had to order new carpets and have them in before the furniture arrived Friday and we had to paint the bedrooms before the carpets were replaced! We ran out and got our paint and then ordered carpets and vinyl for the bathrooms and laundry room. While we ran all over town my mom and my brother helped clean and set up the rooms with frog tape so we wouldn't make too much of a mess. Then the painting began.

 The kitchen was going from white to red, so priming had to happen and then red paint... I was nervous about it but it came out GREAT!

Check out that frog tape!

Rylie slept in the master bedroom, actually she still does. Spoiled little thing she is!

Stefan helped keep Rylie entertained and took her on long walks, which we ALL appreciated!

The menfolk painting... so cute!

I was definitely not looking my best.... oy!

We decided to do an accent wall in the living room, gray popped out at us from the fireplace and we ran with it. It looks awesome.

Painting with one hand behind his back.

In between the painting we made many trips to the store in various pairings. My mom and I hit up Walmart and the boys hit up Lowes and Home Depot. And we switched. For those few days a lot of fast food was ingested, my tummy was not happy with me. Finally we cracked and got some sandwich stuff and fruit to enjoy and give our digestive systems a much needed break. We'd start early, by 8 or 9, and work all day until hunger made us stop. There was one night we were at Applebees at almost 11pm getting dinner! We'd then pass out and repeat.

But it was worth it!

The floors looked fantastic once they were in Thursday and Friday. Then Friday our furniture arrived...

More boxes! Luckily everything made it. Yes my bathroom trash can got packed with trash in it (I swore I emptied it but I was wrong) but everything made it pretty much unscathed.

My mom and I tackled the kitchen, and while I am grateful the movers who packed us up did so with care, there was a dead forest in my kitchen. Even the SPONGES were individually wrapped in three full size pieces of paper. Overkill gentlemen. Overkill. But it was fun to play in!

Once we unpacked and settled a bit, it started to feel like home! My dad came back on Friday and he and Ryan spent the weekend getting the yard and garage door in order. My family took us out for a nice dinner to celebrate our new home (and both our anniversaries that were coming up) and then they were gone. It was a busy busy week, but we got a LOT done!

After pictures will hit tomorrow!