NEW NEWS

Well, I've been neglecting my blog.  The biggest news is that I am now married!  It's so hard to believe. 

 

Since I hadn't posted on here before the wedding, I'll try to catch you all up in a few posts. 

So many things have happened.  First of all, on April 30th, I married Daniel, my amazing husband.  I loved every moment of planning the wedding, making decorations and even paying for things for it.  But nothing could beat actually BEING in my wedding.  It was the magical day I've always dreamed of.  The only part I would re-do was when Dan "accidently" pushed the piece of cake into my nose at our reception.

Our amazing photographer captured some truly wonderful shots and we've loved looking through them.  I'll include some of them in this post. 
My wonderful sister and brother in law paid for a limousine to take us from our wedding to the reception, which was held at Shady Maple Smorgasbord.  It was a wonderful wedding gift and we love some of the pictures that came from it!

Some of these may be out of order and such, but at least my blog viewers can see part of this wonderful day of my life!

 

I remember always thinking that when I got married, I would have the traditional rice thrown as we would leave the reception.  However, the place where I wanted to have our reception does not allow rice-throwing due to the massive amount of cleanup.  Bubbles were my last choice, but they were the one that was accepted at the reception.  I'm glad now, because I love how the pictures turned out.  Plus, I didn't spend the rest of the day picking rice out of my ears and vacuuming rice up off of our truck seats. 

After the ceremony, the limousine driver took us to Poole Forge park, where we had our "after-wedding" photos taken.  It is a small, but beautiful place with historic buildings and a covered bridge. 

 

 

 

 

I was so happy that my whole family was able to come to my wedding, and be a part of it as well.  My dad was able to perform the ceremony, my sisters were all bridesmaids, my brother was a groomsman, and my niece was a flower girl.   

Dan mentioned to me that he's always wanted to sing as a couple at his wedding, so we made it work!  He picked out the song, and we learned it by singing it three times a day each day.  As it was, I kept forgetting the words to my verse!  I'm just glad that I got it right on our wedding day. 

Since we were having a morning wedding, we took group pictures before the wedding at 9AM.  It turned out to be a beautiful, cloudy day (apparently, a perfect day for taking pictures). 

 

 

We also took "first look" photos. 

 

 

Like I've said previously, this post is WAY late (nearly 7 months late), so after this post, I'll do my best to slowly catch up on my life currently. 

Until I post again, enjoy the wedding photos! 

 

 



New kitchen ceiling

When Dan and I bought our house, The kitchen ceiling was in the worst shape. The floor was covered with chipped paint and lath and plaster from the ceilings and walls. It was quite a task to undertake redoing all of the walls and the ceiling, but we got it done in one day surprisingly! Dan is really great at that!

 I helped a little bit with the drywall mud. I never knew that drywall could be so heavy! I helped Dan put it up and he put it in place. It was pretty heavy. I have just a few blurry pictures to show, but it was a relieving day when we were able to finish it all. Short post, but there are more exciting things to talk about in the coming posts!

Remodeling the Bathroom

Well, it seems so hard to believe, but it is nearly April!  In just thirty days, I will be married! 

 

Since time seems to be flying now, Dan and I have been working very hard on the house.  When we originally filled the radiators with water, we found that the bathroom radiator pipes were completely busted.  So when Dan's father came up to visit a month or so ago, the two of them fixed those pipes.  They re-piped the entire bathroom and remodeled it. 

 

When we first bought the place, the bathroom was set up very strangely.  It was almost awkward to walk into.  But since Dan and his father re-did all of the pipes, it is so nice now! 

 

Here are a few pictures. 

We painted the walls a cheery, china blue color.  I really like it. 

We also rearranged the tub.  Now it is straight ahead when you walk in, instead of to the right.  

 

Dan worked very hard to re-pipe the bathtub.  We had to buy a plumbing system for clawfoot tubs.  He was working on putting that on in this picture.  

 

When Dan's dad was here, he built this vanity for us.  I love it.  The white brightens up the bathroom.  

Together, they made a large shelf we can put towels on.  Part of it will eventually have doors, but those haven't been finished yet. 

 



 

 

 

Dan was working on the shower curtain holder.  It was kind of hard to put up.  I helped a little bit.

 



 

Except for small detail work, like cabinet doors and drawers, the bathroom is finished! 

 

The kitchen ceiling and walls will be my next post, since we are nearly finished with those.  :)

Until next time!

Renovations

Good morning!  We have been keeping very busy with trying to fix up our house!  We started by buying blinds for all of the windows...

Since I have never lived in the city before, it was strange for me to see people constantly walking by JUST outside my front door and window. 

 

I am so thankful to have such a hard-working and skilled fiancé.  It seems like he is able to fix everything! I scraped the chipping paint in the living room, dining room and staircase.  The kitchen was more than just chipping paint, the entire wall was coming down as I was scraping it.  When I finished that, Dan went through and put drywall mud in all of the holes.  I took quite a few pictures during the process.  :-) 

 

 

 

 

OH! And we also are blessed to not have to buy a stove, refrigerator, washing machine or dryer!  They all were in the house when we bought it, and after a lot of scrubbing and cleaning, they all work!

 

The refrigerator was the hardest to clean up.  But this is the stove. 

 

 

 

Dan also worked very hard on the radiators in the house.  We had to go get some "new" used ones and Dan fixed them all up and installed them.  

 

 

 

 

Another little thing I get to brag on Dan about...

He repiped the whole house and got the shower in the basement working.  I can't wait to post new pictures of the upstairs bathroom before and after!  But I will save that for ANOTHER post!

 

 

As a sidenote:  There are only 54 more days until I get married!

Big News!!!!

I have BIG news!  It's late, but I'm posting it anyway.  On the last day in December, Dan and I closed on a house!  We'd been looking at this house for more than a month.  We loved it, and the price was good.  There were a few complications with the many different people involved in the sale of it however.  This house has some history too...

But everything finally worked out and we were able to get it for a little cheaper after finding out that there were quite a few problems with it. 

 

 

 

Both the front door and the back door had been kicked in multiple times, so the very first thing we did was go to Home Depot and get a security door and a set of locks.  

Here are a few pictures (blurry because they are taken with my phone) of the bathroom, hallway and some radiators. 

 

We love this old clawfoot tub, and Dan is in the process of remodeling the entire bathroom right now.  But we have decided to keep the tub because it is so vintage!

 

We had to replace five of the nine radiators in the house.  We finally got them working, the house is warm and there aren't any MAJOR leaks.  We found the major ones the hard way, by trial and error.  We filled the system with water and thennnnn found a HUGE leak in the upstairs bathroom.  The kitchen ceiling was raining!  We (and when I say we, I mean Dan ) fixed that though.   

 

There was a refrigerator left in the kitchen when we bought the house and I told the realtor that I was going to clean it out and see if it worked.  She thought that was disgusting and could hardly believe that I was going to do it.  I spent a whole day cleaning it out (there was old food left in there from the previous year, so you can imagine how gross it was).  When I finished cleaning it, we turned it on, and now we have a refrigerator that was free.  I'm sure eventually we might get a new one, but we can save that money now and use it on fixing the house. 

 

 

We also have a washing machine and a dryer downstairs in the basement that work!  We accidently spilled water pipe glue on the washing machine, so now it is a lovely permanent purple color...

 

This was a picture I took of me "helping" Dan to fix the water pipes in the basement.  All of the copper pipes had been stolen from the house, so he replaced all of them himself.  I'm so proud of my sweet, hardworking fiancé. 

 

Here is another picture of Dan, working on the radiators.

 

So that is my news about the house!  :)

 

Other news is that it snowed a few weeks ago.  I was not really expecting it, so it came as a nice surprise. 

 

It began on Friday at about 3pm and by that evening at 7, I was snowed in.  I made my favorite meal to eat while I was snowed in.  Mashed potatoes, gravy and ground beef....mmmmmm

 

This was on Saturday morning when I woke up.  We had a bit of a break since there was no church on Sunday and no school Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday!  It was like an unexpected spring break. 

 

 

 

SO that is my new news!  :)  There are only 65 days left until my wedding day!

Catching up

It's so exciting to be engaged!  Sometimes, it seems like a dream.  I remember when I was quite young, having the dream that someday I would get married.  When I was young, all I ever wanted was to get married.  When I got older, I began pursuing different dreams as my dream of getting married seemed so far away. 
Now, reality has hit me and both of my dreams are being fulfilled.  I am a piano teacher and have been for five years now.  That was my career dream.  I am a Christian school teacher, and have been teaching now for six months, and that was a goal of mine.  Another one of my dreams was to get married and I will be doing that in just 79 days! 
Dan and I had our engagement pictures taken in November.  Here are just a few of my favorites! 

 

79 days until I say "I do!"