KLife Leader Retreat Weekend

This was intended to be posted a while back... we went on the retreat back in August, the 28-29th.

What a great weekend. We took our group of ten up to Lake Burton in the North Georgia mountains to a beautiful home that was so graciously offered to us for our retreat. The board family was so sweet to open up the home and it was just wonderful to have time away. Got to bond with the other leaders and staff. Of course we ate really well and we all know that is all important in the guy world so that was great. We played with lots of the water toys, Matt and I took our ladies in a canoe ride which was fun. Also got to do some water skiing, some rope swinging, some water balloon launching, some high diving, frisbee catching, and some general lounging before having to pack up and head home.

One of the best things about the weekend was that we played a great get to know you game Friday night. We all had to write down a fact about ourselves that no one else knew. I really struggled because I wanted my fact to be fun and amusing and I kept thinking that Lu would know all of the facts I kept coming up with so I had to think of something good. Then we all had to write down who we thought the fact was about as they were read aloud. Surprisingly both Lu and I wrote down facts about teeth, but I didn't get hers right and she missed mine too. The fun twist was the number of facts you got wrong, meant you had to answer that many questions from the group. It was lots of fun and we got some really good questions and learned fun things about both the people asking the questions and the people answering them. Best fact of the night, one of the leaders judges people by their bumper stickers and then decides to let them over or not. Awesome!

It was a great time with good friends, so thankful for the time.

Random fact, saw Nick Saban's lake house from the water. It was huge and looked awesome, I know were a good portion of his Alabama money went to...

Fear not

We are still alive, and working on the house. a lot of the reason why the blog is neglected. Also a large portion of that is the fact that we don't have interwebs there yet. The company is finally coming out to install it 2 weeks after I called. oh how I wish I had more options. But the price is right for now and once installed it should all work and we can go on a web surfin' safari anytime we like. Another big reason is that Lu has been working a lot lately. In this economy we know that is a blessing. She has been putting in a lot of time to get projects out this month, and it maybe like this for a few months, but we both realize that it is a blessing to be needed so much at work, and I have been able to get a lot done around the house so my honey do list isn't growing as rapidly :)

I will try to update more soon, but that is all I have time to sneak into the blog while at work today. Busy busy busy for both of us!

We are officially moved in!

Last Saturday, we officially moved into our house. We would have never been able to do it all in one morning like we did with out the help of great friends and family. Lu's parents even woke up and drove 3 hours just to come help us, and it was a good thing they brought the truck since we filled up our u-haul entirely, but with the cars and all we only had to make one trip. Props go to the all girl double A team (Annie and Anna) and Lu's Dad, who I believe carried every heavy box (especially the book ones) I was on furniture duty but by the time I was done with that everything else was in the house. Lu's mom made brownies for the entire city of Atlanta, some were coffee, some with nuts and some just plain old regular, we didn't even come close to finishing them.

Matt did a great job packing the truck on one leg... well two legs but a rehabbing knee. I still think my dad and I make a good team, we just work together pretty well. Oh and can't leave out Tiffy, who for important reasons couldn't get sweaty, but instead vaccummed and cleaned pretty much the entire apartment while we were packing the truck. That made the move out inspection so super easy. We loved our apartment and had a great floor plan and all, but it definitely was so good to be in our house.

My mom and Lu did a great job at getting the house livable. The kitchen is almost entirely put together, still a little messy but everything important is in its place, i hooked up the washer and dryer already and they are working, the living room still needs some work but is a place to sit so that is nice, and our bed room we can at least sleep there.

We are still surrounded by lots of boxes to navigate around and a long list of to do's which we are gradually working on but it is fun to be in the house. Thanks to God giving us the strength and determination to work long days and come home and put in more work. We are slowly making things really our own.

Taking off this weekend though to get a short vacation with some awesome friends, when things finally get organized we will be putting up before and after pictures...

House work Update

We have been hard at work so far with our first weekend as homeowners, I have my first of many blisters I am sure. I really like how this project turned out so I wanted to share, even though it is fairly minor and we have done lots of other things inside the house as well. Those are still to come.

Remember our sad broken mail box?

Well after some serious hard work, some sheer determination, a really big crowbar (read 4-foot long) from my neighbor, and a big drill bit. We got the bricks down and through the 6-8 inches of poured concrete in order to get the post up for our new mailbox. Here is what it looks like now.

We will be adding in flowers into the newly created flower bed and maybe some sort of cap stones on top to dress it up a little more, but it looks pretty good now, and we can get mail!

All in all it was a lot more work than expected, but totally worth the effort, although next time i think i will find someone with a jack hammer...

more house updates to come once the other rooms we are working on come together.

Homeowners!

OUR NEW HOME!

We have a house and it is totally awesome so far. We won't actually move in for another week (+a day) but we have already been there a good bit. We are working hard to get some stuff done before we bring over all our possesions. Taking down wallpaper/painting the bathrooms and painting the master. We are still in high spirits about the work we have to do even though wallpaper removal is not a task I would exactly call fun. It has been great to hang out with my wife and get a lot done though.

Here is another shot of the house, from the street:

It has also been really neat, we have met a few of our neighbors already and they are really nice. Someone even placed a neighborhood contact list in our poor broken mailbox...

No worries though, we have plans for the mailbox, we are going to make the bricks into a flower bed and have just a standard mailbox post coming out of them. I think Lu just likes the idea of more flowers at the house. Also someone mowed our lawn for us while we were at dinner wednesday night, (maybe a neighbor maybe the last installment from the sellers old lawn care people) but either way that was also a nice surprise to come home to.

We are very excited about the new place and can't wait to see all of our stuff there and finally be able to entertain guests again. :)

A week away...

So we are exactly one week away from our closing date. It hasn't really hit me yet, but as time rolls closer to having to sign all those papers this is becoming more and more real, The Mrs. and I are going to be home owners. So far the last of the hurdles to get us to closing have been going well. Continue to pray that things will be smooth and we will have no surprises at the closing table. Work is supposed to start today on replacing all the piping in the house. We are very excited and blessed that this is being done, and especially before we move and all our stuff is in there. They should be done in 3 or 4 days.

There is so much to take care of in relation to moving, I am sure we are going to forget something along the way, I just hope it isn't anything that costs us a bunch of money. Already making plans and scheduling cancellation of utilities and tv and internet. I might have to survive cut off from the world for a week or two, but i think i can manage, I have the Mario Kart and the Master Chief to keep me company. And there is always the option of watching movies. We have lots of those for some reason, although I know that they are already packed. Lu has packed everything in sight, but it makes her happy so that is cool. I am sure she would pack me up too if that would make the move easier... :)

All in all though I think we are both enough of planners that things should go pretty smoothly. We have lots to do and lots of running around to do with it. I am most excited about getting the chance to finally stretch some artistic muscles and help design our home. I know that will be a slow process one room at a time as we can save up money for each room, but it will be loads of fun. And the best part is we get to start with our room and I am pumped about the ideas we have come up with for it. It won't be everything we want yet but it will be a big step in that direction and away from boring walls that we have lived with for a year plus in our apartment. (obviously by choice, but who wants to paint and then paint again before moving out?) Anyways I am excited even if I don't show it so well sometimes. I can't wait to have pictures to share and get ideas from others. It is gonna be great!

4th of July weekend!

This weekend was really busy but really fun. First, I woke up Friday to Brian cooking me breakfast in bed, which was super sweet and awesome. We spent all day Friday organizing and packing our guest room up. It's all packed and organized already, which makes me happy. I'm weird and enojy packing and unpacking and getting organized. We still have 2 more weeks and weekends to get our room, the living rm, dining rm and kitchen packed, but we kind of have to wait on those anyway. Then Saturday we did the Peachtree with Brian's family (minus Emily who's in Boston, we missed her though)! It was really fun. I made the mistake of not making time to train for it, so I hurt really bad now. After the Peachtree and some free breakfast thanks to The Home Depot, we went home showered and changed and went to Atlantic Station. Our church was volunteering for a 4th of July Festival at Atlantic Station from 1pm to 5pm on Saturday afternoon. It was also really fun. My women's Bible study group was in charge of the relay races, so for 4 hours we were organizing and running relay races for kids. It was crazy hot, so we'd take breaks every so often, but it was still fun. Needless to say I was exhausted afterwards. So we went home and I collapsed on the couch.

Sunday morning at church I got to help out the media team and Brian. I got to sit with him at the sound/media tables and help run the lights. It wasn't a perfect job running the lights, but it was still fun to help out like that.

We also got to see my parents twice this weekend. On their way into town Wednesday night, they came by and got to see our new house, which was great. I really enjoyed showing them and they really liked it. Then Sunday after church we had lupper with them on their way back out of town.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great weeekend!

Always learning

Lately it seems that learning patience, well really being put in situations to be patient are happening quite frequently. Something to be expected I guess when you are negotiating terms and amounts and all the other parts and pieces that go into a housing contract. We made our requests to the sellers and are in a holding pattern to see what they will say. We just have to keep waiting on that though.

In other news, I did get the chance to interview for a new position here at work. The position would be a great opportunity to gain more knowledge of our supply chain and really take a step forward in my career. I am excited about it since it is an opportunity that really fits with my current background and experience. I am also excited at the prospect of having something new and different to work on. I am sure I will have some new challenges to overcome, but I think the benefits will far outweigh the energy and time needed to overcome some hurdles.

Also, for those who don't know, the Peachtree Road Race is on saturday. It will be the 40th running of the race that is the largest 10K in the world. Lu and I will be participating with my parents and sister. We aren't planning on running much, but really just doing it for the fellowship time and enjoying doing something active together. After that our church is helping out at the 4th of July celebration at Atlantic Station. It is going to be like an old school fair, all kinds of fun and games for the kids and the big kids :) My only hope is that we aren't too tired and have enough time to shower so that we can leave a good impression on the people that come to the celebration. :)

That is all for now, I will try to update so more later

So the inspection on the house went pretty well, only a few things that really are recommened to be fixed that Lu and I can't handle on our own, well at least not yet. I still need some more classes in the handy man school. It is fun though because Lu definitely has already put together a honey-do list for me, I know she will help, but it just makes me laugh.

The house has polybutelene pipes in it, which have been known to fail and leak so those need to be replaced, although not necessarily immediately. The other issue is that the siding on the house needs some work in a few places and eventually will need to be totally redone. other than that the house is in good shape most everything else checked out, with a few things to be done here and there.

I applied for a new position at work. Haven't heard anything yet, but hoping I will hear something soon. It would be a great new opportunity that would allow me to learn more about the different parts of supply chain. I am excited about the chance, and hoping that I get to schedule an interview soon. Please pray for that.

Lastly, because our church meets in the movie theater and we have gotten to know the manager really well, we had the opportunity to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen before it came out this week. Lindsey and I had really enjoyed watching the first one, minus a few scenes it was pretty entertaining, so we were pretty pumped about seeing the second installment. Although the sequel was also entertaining it had many more detractors than the first. There were way to many crude jokes and a lot of language (most of it out of character and pointless cursing) I wish they would have made it so you could clearly understand all of the transformers. I liked the movie for the Transformers and visuals, the story has a lot to it, but feels like they just brush over a lot of details and then highlight other things that don't add to the story. Not the best movie I have ever seen and not the worst. Still pretty cool to watch though, lots of neat fight sequences.

Lots of Updates!!

We did have a great time in Disney and I'll try and add pictures later tonight at home. The vacation flew by, but was really fun. We went to all 4 parks and some of them multiple times. There's a new ride called Toy Story Midway Mania and it's awesome! It's a 3D game where you shoot items just like at a fair - like throwing balls at plates to break them, or throwing rings around items or popping balloons, etc. It keeps track of your score and it was really fun to try and figure out how to get higher scores and such. I think Brian and I went on the ride 4 times. :) haha

Brian took this totally awesome picture at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Bari had Disney t-shirts made for the family since this trip marked our 20th year going to Disney. Alex is modeling the back of the shirt and Brian got to wear one just cause we like him.

Here we are in from of the Hollywood Studio's Sorcerer Mickey Hat. Sadly, Alex wasn't feeling very good and wasn't there for the picture...

This is us and Mr. Potato Head at the super awesome new ride, Toy Story's Midway Mania

We got to meet Mater and Lighting McQueen!!!!

In other news, we are under contract for a house!! YAY! It's really like a dream first home! It's got all the amenities we wanted and little to no repairs needed.

Here is what the house looks like. Once we close we will post lots more photos.

Slacking

we have been slacking posting to the blog, so hopefully this week, maybe even tonight, i can convice the wife to put some pictures up or have her write something. if not, i will post about Disney and everything else we have going on.

Later

Post Wedding Post

So as expected the weekend did not dissappoint.

Lu and I both got off work early on friday, she had some hairs cut, I has some lunch with Derik.  I miss him already.  The the three of us piled into the camry and headed to Gainesville.  With i think something around 5 tuxes our weekend bags, lots of board games and some serious excitement for what was ahead, traffic. Ok we weren't excited about the traffic, least of all me, but at 3 in the afternoon it shouldn't take you 30 minutes to go 8 miles around 285.  Fortunately after we got onto 85 north and made our way over to the HOV lane, it was smooth sailing and we arrived slightly early to the church for the rehearsal.  turns out we actually beat the bride there (she and the groom arrived shortly after we did), but so did my dad who was the minister for the wedding and Becca another bridesmaid.

The rehearsal went fine, everyone already enjoying seeing old friends.  We did have to wait on four groomsmen for awhile traffic got them worse than it got us.  We were quite packed in up front in the chapel, but it was pretty awesome as I had a great view of the entire proceeding and a piano to lean on :).  The rehearsal dinner was held on the premises in the lobby of the banquet hall where the reception would be held the next day.  It was some absolutely delicious food.  Anna cousin did a fantastic job, the chicken in some orange marmelade something or another, with the sweet corn and twice baked potatos, the steaks and green beans and yummy carrots and of course the bread and Matt's favorite, pound cake for dessert.  It was all super yummy, so i was already excited for the meal the next day as well.

After dinner we all had the chance to say a few words.  I got a little emotional but held it together, I just don't quite have the gift of speaking as well as Matt does, but my words got a few laughs and it was just an honor to say a little something to celebrate my best friend and his bride.

Lu also said some really sweet things about Anna.  All around good times.  I was impressed as to how well Matt's mom held it together during her speech, it was a different story for his big sis, but it was awesome to see just how happy everyone was and how excited we all were for those two.

After dinner, the boys were staying at Gramma's place, she lives literally across the parking lot from the church.  and so we headed over there for just a good night with Matt.  Some time of prayer, some Settlers of Catan which Matt won through me since I took over for him after he went to bed.   

Next morning after barely making a dent in the food that was left for us, we were all dressed up and hurried over to the church to wait.  Then all the pictures, which is always fun.  Anna was a gorgeous bride and Matt was just smiling ear to ear.  Her home church also had tons of beautiful places to take pictures so we had lots to do.  I had some other random running around to do for Matt (like making sure he had a steady stream of ibuprofen to hopefully prevent his knee from hurting too bad), but we eventually got it all taken care of and had time for some more settlers before the wedding actually got started.

The ceremony was beautiful.  Matt had tears and was trying to hold it in as Anna came down the aisle.  They both just couldn't contain the joy.  It was wonderful to see.  I was amazed that they both were able to clearly say their vows from memory with no help.  All in all it was just a gorgeous wedding, and Matt's reaction to the first kiss was priceless.  So happy for both of them.

Matt and Anna had some more pictures made. Then on to the reception, which was a blast.  Matt smooth as could be really made the best of his torn ACL and came out with a cane, which he tossed to me before he started his first dance with his bride.  I had a blast getting to see lots of old friends and meeting a few new ones, it was so much fun.  They left around 5.  Then after some clean up and getting all the tuxes together, Lu and I drove home.  We then got to have dinner with Derik and his wife Kristin.  That was such a treat.  I really miss seeing them.

All in all a fantastic weekend.  Again I am so happy for Matt and Anna.  It is hard to believe they are already married.  I can't wait to see them when they get back.

Photos to come soon.

Wedding Weekend

So this weekend is gonna be awesome.  I get to hangout with some of the best guys in the world and stand next to my best friend as he is wed.  I am pumped.  We will try to get some great pictures to post on the blog.  

Keep Matt in your prayers though, he tore his ACL last weekend, so he won't be fully himself come wedding day, but good news is that he won't have any problems standing there and he isn't letting it dampen his spirits.  

Other than that still nothing on the house front.  We are still looking and praying.  We will continue to keep you all posted on that as well. but between looking for houses, training for the peachtree (we are doing that with my fam so it will be walking mostly) and getting ready for the wedding, oh yeah and work of course, there hasn't been a lot else going on around here.

Wahoo!

YAY!  My big project goes out today and I feel good about it.  I really think I got things done well and it'll be good.  It's nice to have this done.  We'll probably still have an addendum go out and we'll have questions to answer, but the major work is done. :)

Tomorrow I'm going to follow one of our Commissioning agents around another one of my projects to learn more about what they do to make sure all our equipment works right, so that will be neat.  I'm definitely thinking about taking Friday off too - I've worked enough to take it off without needing any PTO, and it'd be a good time to get my hair cut and have a nice Lindsey day. :)  Then Friday afternoon we're going back out to look at houses.  We have a few that we're really interested in, so i think it'll be really fun!

As far as last Saturday's house hunting went, we just didn't really see anything we wanted and it was all less house for our money, so we'll keep looking elsewhere.

Hopefully we'll have another house update later this weekend.