Just so everyone knows, we added some pictures that we found to our Chicago Post. It's towards the end of the blog. :)

Recipes

Hi everyone! So I need some help. We're trying to get healthy at our house, so if you have any fantastic healthy recipes that you love please leave a recipe in the comments. I've tried some things that are good, but a lot that are not the best tasting... so I figured if the recipe came from people we know maybe we might have better luck. I'll try to put some on in the comment field a little later that we did like so that you can all get some new recipes too! Thank you... and please no sea food. :)

Laundry Room

Okay, so the UGLY picture is a picture we took before we bought the townhouse. This weekend we put a bunch of time into the laundry area of the basement. I painted all of the walls a light peach color, and also painted the floor white. We put this clear apoxy stuff over the paint on the floor because I guess it makes it waterproof and not get scratched as easily. We are going to have the wall color and floor color in the laundry area be different colors than the rest of the basement so that it feels like it's own room. So after all that we put these great shelving systems in. We're hoping that all of this will make the laundry area a lot easier to work in and be a pleasant place to be (rather than a dingy basement). Over the next couple of weeks we intend to paint the remainder of the walls and the floor in the rest of the basement. And then I really need to get back to working on the main floor and upstairs. There are tons of tedious little things that we need to do all over the house to make everything look finished. If anyone wants to help... I would take it. Or I'll just pay Briggs to help... he's always willing to help out for a little bit of money.

And then the picture of Oj... well isn't he special. He was trying to ruin my picture by being a nerd. So I figured if I put a dorky picture of him on the blog, just maybe, he'd never do that again. Probably won't work, but I have to try.

So a few weeks ago I added some flowers and some mulch to my flower garden. I am proud to say that the Daylillies in front of the fence are actually starting to do better, but already the plants in front of the window are deteriorating. I definitely did not inherit a green thumb... I think I would do much better in the desert with Rocks!!! (I just have to make Oj get a job somewhere like that... maybe St. George or Vegas.) Cross your fingers for me, but don't get your hopes up!

So this is pretty much what we do all of the time... lol, just kidding. We just hate taking pictures of ourselves, so they're nothing special. We're both going on diets though... so maybe in a couple months we'll put some nice pictures on. Sorry

Okay, so this is (from the left) my little sister Megan, my cousin Athena, and Oj's little brother Briggs. The thing in Athena's hands is what they are using in the other pictures. I think it's called a rip stick, and it's sort of like a skate board... but it only has two wheels and you can pivot it to turn and stuff. I really don't know much about it. So these are pictures of the kids actually using it. Athena and Briggs are just learning how to use it, but Megan's a pro rip sticker.

This is a bird house that Oj got me. I learned a cool trick though.... if you don't put bird seed in it the birds don't poop on it. :)



















This is my sad little garden. They are supposed to be blackeyed susans... maybe next year. But if you look around the edges you may be able to tell that there was a nasty little gofer running around in there.

I know that we haven't really posted anything for a while... so here's what's been happening!

Oj finished his summer semester of school yesterday, so he finally gets to take a break, although it is only a couple weeks long. Even though he could have slept in this morning, he woke up promptly at 6:30am (I think, but I was sleeping... so who really knows). It was somewhat strange leaving the house and him still being home. I think while Oj is out of school we will go fourwheeling because he LOVES to do that... especially when his brothers can go.

Anyhow... last week my mom, grandma, little sis - megan, and cousin - athena came out to Nebraska to visit me. The real reason they came is because my grandma had a high school reunion in Lincoln, NE, but they couldn't resist spending the week at my house. It was really nice to have them here and to have the week off from work. We did a lot of things while they were here... we went to the Henry-Doorly Zoo that is near our house, we went to a water park our in Fremont with Debbie, Briggs, and Dawn, and my mom and grandma helped me a lot in our upstairs bathroom (it needed a lot of T.L.C.). I really appreciate their help, especially because I know Oj doesn't really like doing that stuff. I promise when our house is done I will post before and after pictures... you'll be impressed.

My plants that I planted in my flower gardens aren't doing so well. I think that they just have a hard time because we moved them from Sue's yard to ours, and they have to transition. I don't know for sure, i don't really have a green thumb. They are perennials (I think that's what they're called when they come back year after year, right?) so hopefully next year they will come up like they're supposed to. My mom also bought me some bulbs and seeds that the girls and I planted that will hopefully come up this summer, but they'll come up next year for sure. I sure hope they do, because I want to have a pretty flower garden.

So... that's about all we're up to. I will be taking a Biology class starting Sept. 02. I'm excited to take it, but it goes from 6-10pm, so that will make for pretty long days! I'm going to post a couple of random pictures also

this is a picture of our new house that we moved into a month ago. As you can see we no longer have a big, beautiful tree to keep our house cool.
Today I dug up the grass and made two flower gardens. My friend Sue from work seperated some flowers that she had in her yard and brought some over for us to plant.
I'm so excited to finally have a flower garden.



The ones below the window have not bloomed quite yet, but they are called black-eyed susans. The ones in front of the fence I can't remember what they're called. But I like them. :)

Last night i came home from work after a big storm and our big, beautiful shade tree had been blown down. Omaha had quite a bit of damage... 190,000 people, including us, were without power. We had 90-100mph straight line winds... but the storm only lasted about 15 minutes. Even still Omaha got hit hard, and still isn't fully recovered.