Sneak Peek

I'm hosting a get together at the new pad this weekend with a million and one things to do before people arrive on Friday evening.
I do recommend having a party close after your move in date...it forces you to get your house in 100% condition. It always seems to take longer than I think to unpack and find a place for everything. Especially the whole hanging picture part which requires Luke, who only has x number of hours a night he can dedicate to hanging pics.
So...the house is coming along, and crazy me went ahead and threw in some Dorman DIY.
Here is a sneak peek at the pieces I am working to finish today! I'll post the new pieces along with pics of the new pad maybe tomorrow, but definitely next week latest. This way I can spend Friday morning getting every little thing put away and cleaned.
 WISH ME LUCK!!

To Come...and I heart swimming!

 I headed down to Saint Simon's Island for a weekend of fun in the the sun/wild fire smoke. I'll do an official post with more pics once I gather some good ones up from everyone.

To hold you over I wanted to show you the pic I got from my SIL at my adorable nieces swim meet, and talk about my love for swimming!

The Cheer Squad

My childhood was consumed with swim meets. My dad was the buzzer man and also a stroke and turn judge, mom worked at the score table putting in the tallies for each team, and all of my siblings and I swam every summer. I even went on to swim year round for the Augusta Swim League. Swimming is one of my favorite things to do, and probably my favorite sport to watch in the summer Olympics.

 A couple of years ago I was able to swim one mile in the Miami Triathlon Race I did as a relay with friends. I went out via boat to this little island off the coast of Miami and swam my heart out back to the Miami shore. The hardest part was not the distance, but the large heats of people. With so many people taking off at the same time, you can't help but kick someone, be kicked by someone or have someone accidentally push you under the water. It was by far the most intense swim I've ever completed with the people and the current/waves adding yet another factor. However, the feeling after you've completed something like that was amazing!! So...I'm going to look into making the swim definitely happen again.

The Dream Team

Bombs Away!!

So...we are officially Newnan, GA residents as of this weekend. I'll say our stay has started on a pretty rough note, but seems to be getting better as of now.
The first mishap was the U-Haul rental truck arrangement. Luke and I decided that since our stuff was already packaged and in a storage unit, that renting a U-Haul and driving ourselves would be better (not a great idea apparently). The company did provide labor to load and unload our stuff, but we happen to move on the same weekend as everyone else on the planet, and got stuck driving a full hour away just to pick up our truck. Augusta is not that small of a place....seriously...but apparently 26ft. trucks are a rare bread, and 26ft. trucks with air conditioning even rarer. Poor Luke suffered the 1 hour ride back to Augusta and the 3 hour ride to Newnan with no AC. As if that wasn't enough...when turning in the U-Haul they noted our contract read to receive 36 moving pads with the truck. We only got 6 of the 36 pads and the lady on the receiving side basically told Luke it looks like he stole 30 moving pads. YIKES! NOT GOOD! So...that issue is still getting resolved, but thankfully out of our hands at this point. On a happy side of things; guy who gave us the truck has been really great and extremely nice/helpful.
Mishap number two is the real whammy!! We arrived to sign our lease and move in Saturday morning. When checking out the apartment we noticed a strange (chain smoker lived here/not good smell), but it didn't seem that bad. I thought we could light some candles and move on. Apparently I was really wrong! After having the guys move everything in and shut the doors...the smell began to overtake. So...to move this story along I'll just tell you Luke and I opened windows and doors to air out things, lit candles, sliced and laid out apples, sprayed Febreeze all over, dumped Arm & Hammer in the carpets (which turned out to be new), vinegared the walls, and basically tried everything in our power to rid the smell. We called the apartment and told them our story (the smell really did improve a ton with all of our tricks by the way) and they brought over THE BOMB!! I blew that puppy up this afternoon and think we are FINALLY good to go forward with the unpacking, aka: removing plastic cover our couch has been forced to wear this entire process! The apartment complex has also been very responsive to every little request I've called in, so another silver lining to note in all of the headache.
There have been other little unfortunate things here and there like dropping and breaking one of my wine glasses, but I'll spare everyone the details.

 Happy Notes:

• Clint and Catherine came to visit us on their way back to Savannah from Atlanta this past weekend.
• My SIL Stacie and my two amazing nieces also came to visit on their way back to ATL from Gump Town.  
• Our location really has been AWESOME for running all of the moving errands. I can walk to Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, and Lowes! 
• Luke and I were able to drive up to ATL to see my little niece get first place in her event at her swim meet last night (I'll post a pic later...going to steal one from Stacie).
• Seriously...my favorite flower is right outside of my back door (so I've been snipping away and making bouquets around the house for FREE.

Gardenias are my FAVORITE!

Lovely Flowers from Stacie and the girls!

The BOMB

Poor Couch

Yes it's still at mess, but we're working on it!

Kitchen Progress

TV is mounted (yikes that was harder than I thought). Now to tackle the cords!

Memorial weekend was a blast (yes I do realize I've fallen off the bandwagon getting this posting in on time). We packed up the car and headed to Savannah for some much needed beach time. Luke and I have been craving the beach since we left New Mexico, but haven't had the chance to get down there until now.
The weather was beautiful and HOT!! We all applied sun screen pretty religiously, but still fell victim to burning. This past week I've spent many moments peeling off dead skin.
Our Savannah itinerary was pretty laid back:
Saturday morning we loaded up the boat and drove out to Williamson Island. I don't think there is a better way to spend a day than anchoring up on an island with friends and having a beach picnic.
Saturday night we saw a glimpse of D.C. friends Kathryn and Tyler(and will one day have a picture to prove it) at Bonna Bella. Bonna Bella is a fun water side restaurant that you can drive the boat to.
Sunday we had to head back to Augusta (yes we worked on Memorial Day), but not before we took the boat out cruising around the inter coastal waterways.

Phone pics are a no no I've decided. A blurry pic of Luke and our American flag on the beach!

Me Driving....scary for some!

Cousin Tyler

Charles Way Reporting for Duty

A very blurry pic on the way to Bonna Bella

Our future home!! 

Today our couch and new chair arrive, and our room is all packed up and ready to roll for early Saturday. Once we move I plan on being a better blogger. The wifi back on this end of my parent's house just doesn't make blogging easy, so that's my excuse for the last couple of months. Once we move it's game....Promise!

Success!!!

Luke and I purchased our first couch yesterday. I'm oh so excited! I've been scouring the local stores for a week or three, and online for months now. I've decided that I just can't buy a couch online...I need to sit in it, and see it in person. When I checked out our couch online after visiting it in the store; I was so shocked to notice how different the colors and fabric looked online.

With our current lifestyle of moving all of the time we had very specific request and items we were looking for in a couch.
1. We wanted a sectional (but it had to break down into at least three pieces...in order for it to fit into any room we may come upon, we also wanted to be able to take a single piece and place it in a bedroom as a chair if we needed the couch to be smaller, so we liked the idea of a raised sectional so that additional piece didn't look like an extra piece of a couch, but more like a chair).
2. We wanted it to have extra features like a sleeper or recliner (but turns out you can't have number one while also getting number two... due to the raised part--so we choose number 1).
3. We needed a very neutral color (we never know what flooring or wall colors the next house will hold)
4. This should probably be number one, but we wanted it to be really comfy with deep seats (but not so deep it swallows you up, and you find it hard to get out of).

So without further adieu...

This is the floor model, but the factory is shipping us the same color

A little closer look

What the same color looks like on the internet--it's also missing the single piece.

So...I do realize you probably think we are CRAZY to buy a couch this light, and Luke and I said no way at first too. But Lazy Boy told us about this product that coats each thread within the fabric to protect it. If we ever spill anything that we can't get out...we call this 800 number and they send someone to get the stain out (free of charge). If that person cannot get the stain out...they give us a full refund of our money. So...only with a warranty like that would I agree to this color. It's actually a lot more khaki than it appears in these photos. The warranty also covers any tears or cuts, etc...
The cute pillows come with the couch too.

Finally I must mention that Luke also got something yesterday! He now owns his own man chair! A Lazy Boy recliner.

I'm not sure if this is the exact chair, but it looks similar to this one!!

Cheers to being grown ups and buying furniture.

This and That

Wedding season is going strong! Our weekends have consisted of weddings, while our weekdays are packed with work and couch hunting! 

I'm not going into major details about the wedding weekends (since they could each justify an entire BIG blog). I'll just post mainly pics and tell you they were both lovely!! The first wedding was in Chattanooga and the second in Nashville.

The beautiful bride Lindsey with Luke and Scott (aka: Awesome Auburn Water Skiers)

I loved the flowers so much I took some home!

Scott and Mallory are Auburn friends we hooked up with to play frisbee golf Saturday morning. I've never in my  life seen so much poison ivy in one place. Luckily...nobody carried it home with them.


In sad news...on our way home from Chatanooga I wanted to stop and grab a bite to each for lunch. We came upon the Ringold exit between ATL and Chattanooga and thought it had what we were looking for. Come to find out...the entire Ringold exit had been whipped of the map with the same tornado that hit Tuscaloosa. Luke and I drove around a bit with our jaws on the floor. The destruction was unthinkable and so sad to see. Please don't forget that the victims and families still need prayers their way. Here are two pictures we took of what was the exit.

I know this isn't a family home, but it shows the magnitude well!

Nothing but rubble in every direction.

Now to finish with happy news! The Nashville wedding of Matt and Shannon.

Matt the groom in middle

The lovely bride Shannon

Scott and Mallory attended this wedding too! Watch out for our awesome dance moves!

Luke and some of his best buds

Oh...and I hope to finally purchase a couch tonight!!! I've been looking for a while now, and hope tonight we'll pull the purchase trigger. I'll post pics tomorrow if it's a go. FINGERS CROSSED!

A Day In The Country

This weekend we joined friends for A DAY IN THE COUNTRY. It's a concert that comes to town once and year and showcases great country artist. Luke's co-worker lives on the river and pretty close to the event, so we drove down via boat to check it out.
We had a great time, but I guess I didn't realize how country/redneck Augusta can be!!
Maybe growing up I just didn't notice because it was my norm. I attended the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in High School and thought nothing of it. Funny how you step away and come back to realize a whole new side or look at your hometown. I've had a lot of new looks at my old town, and enjoy the gained perspective. I guess this moving around the country thing really is pretty neat.
As for moving around the country...I will say we've been slated for Newnan, Georgia next. I'm trying not to believe it 100%, but let's just say I have already made my list of homes to tour in the area when we visit.
This weekend starts wedding crazy for us, so I'll have lots of blog pics to come.
 Happy Cinco De Mayo!!