Dining Room

Our dining room seems to be ever changing.  One thing that will stay the same (for a while anyway) is the paint.  It took forever to agree on a color and we used it throughout A LOT of the house.  I have to admit, it's not my favorite (it looks GREEN in some places!), but we have more rooms to paint.  I'm not about to stop and repaint the dining room!  Here's how she looked before...

{Before furniture - WITH wallpaper}

{Wallpaper coming down}

{Wallpaper removed - still waiting for furniture}

Here she's mostly finished.  Now I'm working on the walls.

{I moved all the travel photos to the right corner and added a curtain}

{On the left I've started a travel gallery wall.  Since I hope we continue traveling, it's a work in progress.  That, and I'm still looking for old pictures and postcards to frame and hang.  I bought the huge frame at a garage sale and it sat empty till last week.  It still needs a little tweaking, but it lists all the places we've lived, our wedding date and the dates the kids were born.  It took forever and when I was done I wished I'd used the same font throughout.  Oh well!}

{There is a plate from Oregon that I got from a British woman when we lived in England.  A tile from one of our houses in Italy.  Our wedding invitation.  Postcards and pictures from places we've been.  A key from a house in Italy.  A small plate from Okinawa waiting for a plate hanger.  I've carried around a poster from London for years and years and if I can find it, it will go in the large space on the top left.  I'm excited to add more to it these walls.}

 {We eat most dinners together at the dining room table, but it's also a place to work on puzzles!  This is a fun one full of US license plates.  We've had quite a few of these on our cars!}

For more of the letter D, be sure to visit Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.

Creek

Technically it's a brook, but I'm going to go with Creek, so I can play along with Alphabe-Thursday this week.

Saturday we drove up the road to Merrimack, NH.  We'd found a couple parks online and decided to check them out.  It was 95 + degrees out and SO humid.  I hate heat, but I hate humidity even more.  The second park we found made venturing out in the humidity worth it.  We'll definitely go back again when it's cooler.

"Twin Bridge Park in Merrimack, New Hampshire, features a baseball field, playground, pic-nic area and extensive hiking trails through the 27 acres of woods along Baboosic Brook."

The creek ends in a big pond so we all took our shoes off and put our feet in.  It was amazing how much just getting our feet wet cooled us off!

For more on the letter C, be sure to visit Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday!

Backyard

Last week for Alphabe-Thursday I showed you my craft area.  This week I'm going to show you a bit of my Backyard.  Maybe with this round I can take you on a house tour??  We'll see.  For now, a few pictures of our backyard in progress.

Since the weather has been nicer, we've been spending more time out back.  We still have A LOT of work to do, but here's where we're at now.  

{This is the shed.  The kids croquet set they got at a yard sale for $5.  My step ladder and collection of vintage enamelware pots.  The garden is to the right.}

{This is the flowerbed in the backyard.  We've only been in the house for a year, so all of the plants were already here.  We're waiting to see what everything is before we make it our own.  My parents bought me the shepherd's hook and hanging flowers.  I'm going to hang a bird feeder they made from the top.}

{Here's the bike I "planted" last year...She's waiting for more flowers to overflow from the basket.  I have no idea what that big bushy thing next to the bike is - Anyone??  I'm pretty sure last year it had some pretty purple flowers...At least I think it's the same plant!!}

{And here's our garden.  I put in all the bricks.  Yes, I know they're crooked, but that's ok.  I got them all from the border the previous owner had around the back of the garden.  You can see it in the right of the picture.  The bricks were about 4 high.  Now the border is about 2 bricks high.  Hopefully the wildflowers I planted will come up in the long skinny row next to the grass.  In the rest of the garden we're hoping for carrots, cucumbers, zucchini and tomatoes.  We DID, in fact, plant seeds.  We're not just hoping they'll sprout from the ground totally on their own.  :) We've still got to weed the far end, but we like what we've done so far.}

For more on the letter B, visit Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  I'm going to go tackle the craft area!!!
Also linking up to Sunny Simple Life's From the Farm Blog Hop.

Awful Mess

I'm back for a new round of Alphabe-Thursday.  I missed the last couple weeks.  My parents were here for a week & a half...and they brought the college kids with them!  It was a great visit with mom and dad and it's  awesome having the kids home!

Now I'm trying to get back into a bit of a routine.  Even if it's only on Thursdays.  :)

Today, I thought I'd share with you the Awful mess that is my craft area.  I'm kind of embarrassed to be showing you these pictures.  Maybe just knowing that these pictures are out there will make me want to clean it up faster???  I don't know.  Probably not.  Anyway, here goes.

I think I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to craft supplies.  I don't buy new things that often, but I can't bring myself to get rid of the old.  :(  I'd really love a new shelf here in place of the white one.  I'm thinking an old hutch painted red.  Like this...

{source}

This is the "pantry" end of the craft space.  We had a water spill, so had to empty the shelf and pull up the carpet to let it dry.  I guess it's time I put everything away!

This is where I attempted to decorate.  I'd love to paint the walls aqua!

This is looking back from the family room.  Haley's desk and my work table....both COVERED with stuff.

Stay tuned.  Maybe one of these days we'll have this place cleaned up and we can take you on a proper tour.  For now, I'm off to do laundry.  There's one end of my basement that's somewhat organized!  I'd show you, but it's boring. 

For more on the letter A...be sure to visit Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday!

new meXico

The last place the Air Force sent us was the bottom, middle of nowhere New Mexico.  It wasn't our favorite place, but we managed to make the most of it.  :)

{Not so sure about the "land of enchantment", but it wasn't too bad I guess.}

{Sunset over our house.}

{The Old Apple Barn near Cloudcroft, NM.}

{We got more snow here than we ever did in Italy!}

{Cloudcroft, NM}

{A trip to Roswell, NM, isn't complete without a visit to the UFO Museum!}

{Up, up and away}

{White Sands National Monument}

{Pretty birds.}

For more on the letter "X", visit Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.

Washington D.C.

It's Alphabe-Thursday and today's letter is "W".

In our move from Italy to the states we drove across country.  We began our journey in Washington D.C.  We walked around the city quite a bit and saw a lot of the Washington Monument.

{I had to get a picture of Zac reaching the top of the monument.  He wasn't thrilled.}

{The girls thought it was TALL.}

{Reflection.}

{Up through the trees.}

{Across the pond.}

For more of the letter "W", visit Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.

Another Look at Venice

I've posted so many pictures of Venice.  It's one of my favorite places.  Today is Alphabe-Thursday and we're "studying" the letter "V".  What else would I blog about?

2007

1.  This guy was amazing.  I don't know what it was that he was playing, but he was great at it.  He didn't just play with his hands.  He had strings tied to his feet that he used to play as well!

2.  A church somewhere in Venice.

3.  I took my oldest daughter for her 13th birthday - We spent 2 nights in Venice and had the BEST time!

4.  One of the many pastry shops.

The bell in St. Mark's Campanile and the view from the top.

2008

My birthday trip - and one of my favorite pictures.

Checking out the fish market.  (Pescaria)

We loved going to feed the pigeons in St Mark's Square.  Dirty and gross, but really fun!

St. Mark's Square.  Another of my favorite pictures.

2009

A few faces of Carnevale.

2010

 A few faces of the market.

A reflection, a sign and some yummy yummy food.  (Valentine's Day is an awesome time to go to Venice!  Chocolate and goodies everywhere!)

 1.  Reflection
2.  A boat named Monica!  ....A GARBAGE boat!
3.  One of the many Traghetto (ferry) stops.  If you don't want to pay 100 Euro for a gondola ride, you can try out a quick ride across the canal and pay only 50 cents!

 The colorful homes of the island of Burano.  This is a quiet island.  They're known for making lace.

Venice is just as beautiful at night!  (Even the Nutella is beautiful!)

For more on the letter V, check out Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.