Home Projects

Since the flood, I have gotten to re-decorate everything...kinda fun :)

One weekend, AJ's mom, Kelli, and I decided to take on a project that she saw on HDTV.

What we had to do was find lots of cool fabric. With the help of AJ we made wood frames then used a staple gun to wrap around the frames. It was hard figuring out what shapes or how big to make them. I think they turned out pretty cool. I have a long wall behind our couch in the family room so it fit perfect. I am still in the process of making one more on the left next to the yellow one.

I have had one of those sayings to put on your wall for a while (before the flood). Luckily for some reason I waited to put it up. I am glad because it would have been ruined!

After I painted one of our bedroom walls orange, I decided it was time to put up the saying. Kelli came over one night to help (I can't do these projects on my own:)

"Together Is A Wonderful Place To Be"

Having a Great Dane

Did I ever think I would say yes to AJ for getting a Great Dane!? Never did I imagine saying yes.

We really thought Roy needed a friend- someone to play with when he gets bored, and of course someone to get in trouble with :)

AJ has always told me he wanted a Great Dane named Bob. I had partly given in now. We decided another boy dog was not the best idea. On the way to go look in Algona (they only had girls anyway) my mind was made up that we weren't just looking. I knew I would fall in love and bring home a puppy.

When you think of a puppy, you usually think small or tiny. A Great Dane is never any of those words. However, she has HUGE paws and is super super cute with floppy ears:)

So we got there and just played with all the puppies. Aj's sister, brother-in-law, and niece came to check out the pups (thinking they might be interested as well!).

We ended up picking one out. Nateria, Rob and Grace left without one ;)

Somehow Abby was the name we ended up. The name AJ wanted was Bob, but that didn't quite work for a female and I didn't want to name her Bobby ;)

I ended up sitting in the back of the car on the way home holding my new pup!

Abby was born on my birthday, July 1st. She is not even a year old but is over 110 pounds, and can rest her head on our island in the kitchen.

She is so gentle, calm and cuddly. She LOVES kids and babies and follows them around to be their bodyguard. She is the BEST and Roy is very appreciative that we got him a sister :)

A Busy Year

It has been one year now since AJ and I have lived in our first house in New Hartford!
So much has happend to us in this past year.
I got a job teaching Special Education for grades 3-6 at North Cedar Elementary in Cedar Falls. I absolutely love it! AJ is very busy with all his work for his business and fixing up our house.

Within a year at our house, this is all that has happened:
1. Lightning struck a light pole in our yard and it traveled through the house managing to fry our 2 computers.
2. A tornado came through our town as well as Parkersburg- took out 3 of our best and biggest trees as well as a few shingles! Our house was caked with mud!!




3. While I was visiting Katie in Texas, the flood came. We had a little over 2 feet of water (and mud) in our house. Yes, that was the worst of our little disasters!
We have completely remodeled since we lost pretty much everything. One of the worst parts for me was losing my shoes and purses...hard to replace :(



More will come later on how all of these obstacles have changed some of my loookings on life!