Halley's Birthday Dinner

So this was actually last Saturday (7/16) and Halley's birthday was the 15th. She turned 32 but doesn't look a day over 25 - in a good way! We love her (despite RJ's childhood memories or her - haha!)

That's Shawn, he loves Halley too :)

Laura (Mrs. S) makes the best 7-layer dip. It was a Mexican food themed fiesta so this was the perfect appetizer. 

Our Stith family birthday dinners always include guitar playing..

Great local beers,

Dogs,

And, of course..

Birthday Cake :)

♥-ya, Hal!

What we've been up to..

July 8th: Saturday evening church & Dinner date with Renée and Tyler:

We walked passed a book store with the cutest little fuzzball cat sleeping in the window! Luckily Renée is always ready for a photo op :)

July 9th: Taking Harvie to Dad's for Dinner..

 As you can see above, Tigger has the size advantage.

Mary made us a delicious tomato and mozzarella salad (and salmon too) and Harvie got some salmon himself:

We've also been doing some work around the house, as always! I have been helping RJ put up our chair-rail downstairs and he put in all the quarter-round! It's starting to look good downstairs!

RJ got a nail gun and it's been quite a handy tool!

 I finally put up my plate wall too!

This was a little do-it-yourself weekend project.. remember those two bronzey trees we had on either side of the fireplace in the condo? We had one hanging in the dining area for a few weeks. I wasn't thrilled with the bronze color and our accent color against the blue is now yellow (I recently decided). So I used the same paint we're using in the kitchen to do a base coat of pale yellow on the tree. I also got a darker, more gold-toned yellow spray paint to add a little dimension.

Stay tuned for more this week - Pictures from Halley's birthday dinner last Saturday and Chelsey's swap party on Sunday!

Here's a swap party preview - I can't remember if I've already mentioned I'm wearing my hair red now.. if not, here it is!

 Above: Renée & I / Below: Halley & Chels

4th of July Weekend

What a great weekend - it really flew by and time has gotten away from me (it's been one of those "it's already Thursday?" weeks).

On Saturday we met Tyler, Renée and her sister, Natalie at the evening church service. We are so excited R & T came to church and that we will hopefully be joining them again soon! I miss being 5 minutes away, but we love the pastor and service so much we're definitely willing to drive the 25-30 minutes on a Saturday night.

After church the 4 of us went on a old school style double date to a drive in restaurant, it was so good!

It worked out perfectly because the drive-in restaurant was conveniently on the way to our next stop: a backyard bonfire at RJ's co-worker's house. I had met Barb a few times at RJ's office so was excited to get to know her and her husband better. They had a few other couples over and let me tell you.. it was hilarious! It was good to know "older people" (their words, not ours!) can still have a good time. They even have a pinball machine in their basement! I guess it goes without saying that my pinball skills are lacking and RJ won. Barb was a teenager during the 70's and had a great collection of classic rock music. We loved hearing their stories and both agree we were born into the wrong generation, musically speaking at least.

On Sunday we went to Ryan and Michelle's house - Ryan is RJ's drummer buddy and Michelle is his wife. Luckily for me, when drums are involved in their jamming they play at their house. RJ goes over there at least once a week and always tells me about their friendly cats.. his favorite being the giant one. I didn't realize giant was an understatement until I met this cat.. 

Meet Gilbert:

I don't know if you can tell how big he is or not from the pictures. He's definitely the biggest cat I've ever seen! Friendly too.

We went straight from Ryan and Michelle's to RJ's parents' house in Hudson where we celebrated Trevor's birthday (it was the 1st) and the 4th. Check out this beautiful cheesecake:

Festive and delicious. 

Laura gave us a bunch of special trees from Chelsey and Trevor's wedding that were planted in their yard. We planted them along the back and a few on the sides of our yard, I love them! They are about 4 years old now. I plan on taking excellent care of them so they grow big and fill in nicely (I figure if I write that in our blog I'll be more likely to remember to water them). 

Here are all the trees in their bags with Harvie and Craze - aren't they helpful?

 The digger!

Lining the backyard:

& a few on the side yard:

It was a fun (and hot) weekend!

RJ's new favorite toy, cornhole and organizing office

Other than decorating, we have taken a break from house updates so RJ can focus on another summer project. Making cornhole boards!

After much discussion with the Saw Expert at Lowes, he picked out this beauty:

I think it's love.

He's working on three sets of cornhole boards: one for us and one for each of our <awesome> Dads as Father's day gifts. 

The other major project we've been working on is my office. I am admittedly a little bit disorganized (I can already imagine the laughter from that understatement) so I enlisted RJ's help.

With the nature of the art program, I have tons of art stuff. I bought a bunch of bins from target and RJ helped build me some shelves to put them on.

And this weekend I had the idea of putting a magnetic strip along the bottom. Renee gave me these cool magnet strips from Ikea last August and I finally decided how I wanted to use them. That is why I have trouble getting rid of things - genius ideas can take awhile!

So while the idea was good I wasn't sure if RJ could pull off drilling the magnet strip along the bottom of the wood without splitting it.. but he did! Mr. Handy. So now along the bottom shelf I can hang up pictures, kid's drawings, etc!

On the shelves themselves I also have bins for materials to stay organized. With RJ's help I am slowly becoming a more organized person. As he says, the first step is admitting you have a problem.. so he's proud of me for taking that step!
  

My office closet is getting better too - I got some shoe organizers that will help.

I'm still working on it but it's getting there!

Weekend Projects: Basement, Shed and Sticks

We were fairly productive this weekend despite taking Saturday "off" to celebrate our anniversary! We went on the Art Walk in Cleveland's Little Italy and also walked around Coventry Village and got dinner there.

 It was a great day and on Sunday we were ready to tackle some projects!

Project #1: Basement 

 Since moving in our basement has basically become the "catch all" area. Cluttered and disorganized doesn't even begin to describe it! We finally decided enough was enough and it was time to tackle the craziness.

Before:

We made a big dent in organizing but it's hard to tell. Our vision for the basement is to have it divided into a "utility area" (treadmill, free weights, cat stuff and washer & dryer, storage shelf) and a "hobby area" (RJ's music stuff, the dart board and my sewing table). We got everything moved into it's appropriate side and corner, so that was a big step. We also hung an old sheet that is acting as our temporary room divider. We went through a lot of our extra stuff and decided what was going to stay and what was going in the garage sale pile. After moving all the garage sale items to the garage the utility area looks a lot better! We got a utility shelf to put extra tools, paint, etc. on.

After:

So as you can see it still needs a lot of work.. but we did make a good dent! We also bought a new night fixture to hang in the hobby side so it doesn't feel so much like a dingy basement.

I should backtrack a second and show you the great sewing machine/sewing table combo RJ picked up for me! It's in good condition and the sewing machine tucks down into the table.

The chair opens up for extra storage and it came with a bunch of cool accessories! The girl who sold it to RJ told him it belonged to her Grandmother and she used it all the time.

Both Halley and Renee gave me sewing books for my birthday - I can't wait to try out some of the projects!

RJ also had to get some work done on the roof - scary right? It wasn't so bad.. he started with the shed roof which isn't too high. The insurance company wants us to remove all the moss from both the shed roof and house roof.

He did a good job - it looks much cleaner!

He also cut up a bunch of the big branches and sticks we had in a huge pile in the backyard. Collette (the 4 year old neighbor) came out to help break up sticks. She was a little down because her sister Chloe (the 7 year old) was at a birthday party and she wasn't invited because it was for "big girls only". The girls love the cats and the cats like the extra attention. Harvie too of course. We really like having them as neighbors - they are very entertaining!

The stick pile is slowly getting smaller as we're trying to have fires often. We have the back set up with our grill and patio furniture and got a few tiki torches, so it's really become a great hangout area.

I got some all white meat turkey dogs at the store and RJ can't get enough fire cooked hot dogs. I can handle a bite or two but I'm not a huge hot dog person - even if it's turkey. We've been having the best weather for grilling out and fires. I can't get enough grilled corn, zucchini and grilled portabella burgers.

Harvie hoping RJ will share his hot dog..

More soon!