New Windows!!

Billy and I finally broke down and got new windows on our house, figuring that of all the home improvements we want to/could make, we'll definitely see a return on our investment here. Plus, with the 30% tax credit and some unexpected leftover tax $ from 2008, we decided now was the time to do it.

We used Sea-Thru Windows, a local company, and were really impressed with their professionalism, quality, and speed! They came to our house around 9AM yesterday and were completely finished by around 3PM. I was thinking it would be a two-day job, so we were super excited about how quickly they got everything done.

Here are some before & after pics...

Front Before

Front After

(the newly painted black front door is more noticeable too - thanks BC!)

Closeup of the new windows

Living Room Before

Living Room After

We even let Jefferson go partially outside through the window to watch some neighbors walking by before bedtime...he loves the new windows too!

(we were on the 1st floor, of course :))

We are both so excited about the windows and slept with them open and the fans on last night...yay for saving on utilities and being able to enjoy the lack of humidity we're currently having here!!

Family Time

This past weekend, we had lots of family time with the Chorey side of the family, so that was fun! We went to a Tides game on Friday night with Billy's immediate family, and then spent time with the extended family on Saturday. Sunday included a trip to Busch Gardens with Hunter, Mika, and Kendall...we always love BG!

Jefferson's stately arrival to the cookout :)

The whole Chorey fam (minus Christy)

This weekend, we're heading to ATL to visit my family and some of our friends as well. We have a busy but fun weekend planned with lots of hangout time, the Peachtree Road Race, a trip to the lake, and some other fun Atlanta activities (maybe even a little job searching :)). I'll post pictures next week! Happy 4th of July!!

Road Trip

This past weekend, Billy and I took a quick roadtrip to New York for our friends' wedding. After a couple of wrong turns and an overnight stay in Mahwah, NJ, we arrived in the cute town of Schenectady, NY. We unloaded our stuff and set out to find a good running spot in town before the wedding festivities began.

With the help of a town brochure and our new gps (love that thing!!), we ventured through a very sketchy neighborhood to find a cute park in a nicer neighborhood and got our runs in. We had initially had hopes of staying in NYC Friday night and getting to run in Central Park on Saturday before heading to the wedding but decided that would be trying to do too much. We did, however, get to run in Central Park- just the one in Schenectady instead :) It was a neat park area and had a beautiful rose garden where a wedding was taking place as I passed it. This website has some nice pics of the place, since I forgot our camera back at the hotel.

After the run, we stumbled upon the Schenectady Strawberry Festival (Billy had actually discovered it during his run and decided we should check it out :)), grabbed lunch at a deli, picked up some local beer, and headed back to get ready for the wedding. Maybe we'll make it to our local strawberry festival next year!

We got in the hotel hot tub for a few minutes (Billy used to think I was weird for always bringing a bathing suit on trips, but it does come in handy!!), got dressed, sampled a local beverage, and headed to the wedding at Riverstone Manor, this beautiful estate right on the Mohawk River. I felt so bad for the bride and groom, as they wanted an outdoor wedding, and it was raining pretty steadily when we pulled up to the site. About 10 minutes before the ceremony was to begin, we were informed that they still wanted an outdoor wedding, so all of the guests headed over to the lawn area, umbrellas in hand, and witnessed a beautiful outdoor wedding...in the rain! Definitely memorable for all! And, one of our other friends officiated the ceremony, so that was fun to watch too :)

Riverstone Manor (from their website)

This is kind of how the tent looked (also from RSM website)

Here is a picture of us with Pete and Mollie at their wedding!

The next day, Billy got up early to run, I packed up our stuff, and we headed out on what turned out to be a VERY long ride home. Note to self, if we ever drive up to the northeast again, the Eastern Shore is the best way to go (not 95)!!

My attempt to take a picture of NYC as we were driving by

(you can faintly see the skyline in the background :))

We are very glad we made the trip up there, so yay for a fun weekend and for the newlywed Turners :)

Laundry Time

Recently Jefferson has discovered that he can jump up on the dryer door, onto the top of the dryer, and be eye-level with his treat cabinet. So yesterday when Billy and I were at home for lunch, I was folding laundry while he was cooking veggie burgers for us, and Jefferson decided to do this new ritual. First, though, he stuck his head and front legs into the dryer, so I came up with the brilliant plan to put a cookie in the dryer and see what he would do. Here's the result...

Dryer Dog!!

Isn't he the cutest thing ever!! :) They say terriers do like to burrow, so I think he enjoys this new hiding spot!

The Office

Most weekdays, I feel like I am a character on one of our favorite shows - The Office. I know a lot of people feel like their work environments are somewhat Office-esque, but mine seriously rivals the make-me-cringe-and-turn-away-from-tv awkwardness and nonsensical requests from the boss that we watch in overwhelming abundance each Thursday night. Now I love my boss, who is also my father-in-law, dearly, but he LOVES to dress up in costumes whenever the occasion arises or he can create an occasion for (he especially gets excited when that can somehow involve our state's college rivalries). And, being an admin person here, I have the fun job of helping him concoct his costumes and shop for new items for his "skit bin" (which I purchased for him, with the hopes of fewer shopping trips in the future since he's able to keep up with all of his attire now!). I even had to help him apply fake barbed wire tattoos to his arms for a recent presentation video shoot.

In addition to the strange duties I am tasked with (see below for a recent example :)), there are countless moments throughout the day when I shake my head and say to myself, "I am living in the real life 'Office'". My husband works with me as well, so we get a few laughs and regular moments of "I can't believe this is actually happening here", which we are glad we can share. I won't go into detailed examples now, but I'll be sure to share as things come up.

Photo from TV Guide

This scene looks a little too familiar :)

My Office-like project last week was to morph a Virginia Tech hat into a hat that said "VPI" with a banner saying "Magnum Come Lordy" (which he interpreted as the Hokies' way of saying "Magna cum Laude" just for an extra jab). Here is my masterpiece:

I felt completely like Pam, doing an "art project" for the boss (although she probably would have been more excited about getting to do this artistic endeavor - haha :))

Close-up

I'll be sure to post more "Office moments" from my work, but hopefully that captures the essence of my not exaggerating that I do actually work in a real life "Office" (as I'm sure many people do as well :)). Glad to have a job for now, though, and to work with nice people, awkward as they may be sometimes. And we do love that my boss has no shame about dressing up and enjoying it, as it's part of who he is :)

Memorial Day Weekend Fun & Projects

So, our Memorial Day weekend ended up having more relaxation time than I had anticipated, which was really nice, and we did manage to get a few things done around the house...

Billy had a race on Saturday morning, so we took it easy Friday night and got up bright and early (6:15 - on a Saturday!) to head to P-town for the race. He won his age group with his second fastest time for that distance! Got back home around noon, ate a quick lunch, and drove up to Clairmont, VA to see a co-worker's river house (he's been trying to get Billy to check it out for a few years now, so hopefully we'll go stay there soon!). Then, we headed to Williamsburg via the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry to meet some friends for a brewery tour at Williamsburg Alewerks (although we ended up missing the tour) and an early bird special dinner at Green Leafe - yummy!

Here are some photos from the first part of our weekend:

runners getting ready to go...

...and they're off!

half way through!

never thought we'd be on a boat (this picture was a big sacrifice for billy, as he hates taking pictures by holding the camera in front of you :))

a big boat comin my way

Sunday after church when Billy headed to the gym, I went home and began a workout of my own - washing the siding on our porch and all of the windows (basically like washing a giant car :)). Definitely looks better though - and had the added bonus of being a killer arm workout! Then, I went to work organizing the garage and have almost finished that! The only major thing we have left to do there is get a big storage tub for our above-ground pool that we used a couple of years ago. Both of us are hesitant to move it around too much, though, as there is a great likelihood that snakes and/or poisonous spiders could have made a home in there. Maybe for Jefferson's birthday party, we'll break out the pool again though! Later on, I worked on cleaning out the attic but still have a little ways to go there - we filled up our big trashcan and got together more stuff for Good Will out of the work done, though, so that was good! Some shelving might be nice for organizing in the attic, but we're trying to save dollars, so I worked with what we had in both the attic and garage.

I never ended up taking any "before" pictures, but here are some "after" (or still in progress :)) ones:

lawncare area (with motorcycle helmets on top)

paint & tool area

attic - travel section (bags, snowboards, etc.)

housewares (aka pre-marriage possessions & the wedding presents we only use occasionally)

office area (old computer, phones, etc.)

On Monday, we went to VA Beach to go running and furniture shopping. Running was good, furniture shopping was not successful (other than the fact that we saved $ instead of buying a new couch :)), but it was a nice day together. We made a German-inspired dinner that night and ate and relaxed on the porch for the duration of the evening, which was great! Tuesday came a little too quickly, but we have another short week this week because of my reunion in C-ville!

DIY Weekend!

or

???

Instead of going to the beach or having a lazy, relaxing Memorial Day weekend, Billy and I are planning to have a major home improvement weekend. I am very excited about it, since we love working on projects together and continuously trying to finish/improve our house! We are probably being overly ambitious, but here is the plan for now...

GARAGE: Clean out, organize, get rid of things we don't need, and make space for our foosball table (which hasn't seen the world outside of our office attic since early 2007). We figure we'll have some fun getting to use the table again, and that area will be great for parties! (I'll post before and after pictures later :))

PATIO: Still not sure if this will work or not, but we'd like to put in a brick patio in our backyard. We've been toying with the idea of doing this for over a year now (hate to spend too much money when we'd like to be moving out of this house/area ASAP!), but it would be so nice to have a little outside living space other than when we bring the hammock outside and have a few cocktails on it.

PLANTING BED: Behind the porch, we'd like to add a little planting bed possibly filled with hostas, as that area just doesn't seem to want grass to grow in it. It's kind of an eyesore, and a small planting bed would be a nice addition, softening up the brick skirt on the house there as well.

COMPOST: I'm going to start a compost pile this weekend as well, following the directions from this great house-related blog that always has awesome tips for home improvements that save dollars. That will cut down on the amount of trash we generate (we eat lots of produce, which is perfect for composting), helping the environment, cutting down how many trash bags we go through (saving $), and giving our planting areas a little boost as well.

TV STAND: Our big TV in the basement is currently sitting on a little bench that we inherited from Billy's childhood (which would actually look good at the end of our bed with a new coat of paint...don't think that will fly with the husband though :)), so we're looking to replace it with something that will have a couple of shelves for our DVD player, receiver, cable box, etc. and a couple of baskets for clickers, DVD cases, and extra cords. I definitely think we can build one, so that may be in the plans for this weekend as well. This is sort of what I envision (although we'll probably keep it simple and avoid doing doors for now :)) only in a stained wood rather than painted...

(photo from potterybarn.com)

CLEAN OUT THE ATTIC: I haven't done this for at least a year, so it's time again to sort through everything in the attic, organize it, and make trips to Good Will, consignment stores, etc. We have a great walk-up attic with tons of storage room, but that also allows us to put stuff up there without being super-organized or going through things regularly. I dropped the first two bags of clothes off at Good Will today already...first small weight lifted! (before and after pics of the attic to come as well)

Not sure if we'll get through all of this, but we have high hopes of being productive this weekend. I'll post some "after" pictures of what we get done (which may very well just end up being a trip to the beach or relaxing around the house :)). Happy Memorial Day!!