What I did on my Summer Vacation: Part 1

June:

We kicked off the summer with a rockin' 80's reception to celebrate the wedding of my best friend, Allison, and her husband Brent.

As you can see, the evening started out as a normal wedding reception.

But as soon as Brat Pack Radio, a fabulous 80's show band hit the stage, the tone of the evening changed completely!


Um, mullets anyone?

Shortly after, it was off to Texas to visit my college roommate, Barb.
We started in Houston and hit up the movie tavern. Movies + tavern = great idea!

The next day it was on to meet Ian and to see the Astros play a little baseball!

Our next stop: San Antonio.

We started the day on the Riverwalk and took a boat tour to get ourselves oriented. Beautiful!


Next, Jay had the best hot dog of his life. It was a kosher hot dog wrapped in bacon, with grilled onions, shredded cheese and a little mustard on it.
and I had a very large margarita

We spent the rest of the evening in San Antonio with Barb and Mitch, went to the Alamo, and later met up with Ian and Rachel at a real Texas Honky Tonk.


Ian brought Jay this "country" shirt. We ended our trip to San Antonio at El Mercado, the Spanish market. Open 24 hours a day.
And if all of this wasn't enough, we squeezed in a quick visit to Dan and Christina the night before we flew home. Texas is exhausting!
Stay tuned for July!

4th of July

If you read our blog, you're obviously invited our 4th of July celebration! Mark your calendars! 1 month away!! Woot. Woot.

Smile on my face

This weekend leaves me with a satisfied sigh and smile on my face. I wish I had taken even just one picture of all of the fun we had, but I guess I was too busy having all that fun to capture it on film.

Jay had to work (which was the one downfall) of the entire weekend, but here is a list, in no particular order, of some totally wonderful things that brought a smile to my face this weekend.

- a mini roadtrip with my mom and grandma
- spending quality time with both of our families
- the comfort of a conversation with old friends who really know me
- driveway beers every night(that's just what we call it) with the world's best neighbors
- grilling out in Waverly
- the first weekend in the Schmitz swimming pool
- an awesome church service with music that brought me to tears and a message that sticks with me
- 8 PM jammie walks with the neighborhood kids
- an afternoon nap in the cold basement
- hugs from my grandma
- smelling like sunscreen
- a date with my most handsome husband
- a bags championship with my dad and brother
- meeting new people next door
- getting asked "how many more days of school?" and answering a number in the single digits!
- Anne coming home from college for the summer
- and looking forward to another celebration...planning our 4th of July party!

Yep, it was definitely a leave a big ole smile on my face type of weekend. I am SO incredibly blessed.

Check out the song: "Blessed" by Brett Dennen for a full musical interpretation of my weekend! : ) : )

Super Easy Cork Board Project!

Step 1: Drink a LOT of wine, keep corks. This is the BEST part of the project! I actually cheated on this step because I was given a very generous donation of corks from my mother-in-law! Step 2: Find an old picture frame you're not using anymore and take out the glass. Step 3: Flip frame over and arrange corks in desired pattern. Step 4: Use your trusty hot-glue gun and glue the corks in place. When all corks are in place, glue the backing to the inside of the frame to secure. Step 5: Voila! You have a framed cork board that can be used in your kitchen or bar! It looks cute as just decoration, or use it with push pins to give it more function.

3 C's

At my old school district, we would begin each meeting with the 3 C's: Cares, Concerns, and Celebrations. It was always a nice way to start when we hadn't met in a while. So, I thought for this blog, I'd present to you my 3 C's since I haven't written in a while.
Cares: My spunky munchkins. With 12 1/2 days of school left (who's counting?) I'm doing my best to practice patience and enjoy the last few weeks of school with my kiddos. They have been a great class and are full of personality. Those personalities are a teensy bit on hyper-overdrive at the moment with the end of the year approaching!!! But I'm trying to embrace it, have some fun, and maybe the kids will still a learn a little something in the remaining days.
Concerns: We found out after some blood tests a couple of weeks ago that I possess the antibody for the chronic illness Lupus. The presence of that antibody has caused me to have some sort of blood disease (with a long name that I can't remember). Basically, I have too much of the stuff in my body that causes my blood to clot. Next week, I will start on a blood thinner. I'm not looking forward to giving myself a shot once a day, but I suppose after a while I'll get used to it.

My biggest concern at the moment is that little Lupus antibody that is present. Although most people who test positive for this antibody never actually have Lupus, I still can't help but worry about that potential. To be honest, I never knew much about Lupus until I was told about my blood results. But the more I learn, the more I pray that this Lupus stuff stays away from my immune system. Send a prayer to man upstairs for me on that one, would ya?

Celebrations: Enough of Debbie Downer, we've had a lot of reasons to celebrate lately...both the big and the small things. First of all, I love our neighborhood. I am celebrating the oncoming summer and the fact that our neighbors love to take walks and have driveway beergaritas and grill out together. Bring on the summer!

Second, in the big celebrations category, we celebrated Dallas and Jamie's wedding last week and had a blast! It was a great party and a beautiful day.

Okay, that's enough from me for now! Happy weekend everyone! Enjoy the hot weather and the sunshine! :)

Guess who's 21?

In doggie years, that is! Here's the birthday girl enjoying a puporita on her big day!
It feels like we were just bringing her home for the first time!


My fluffy puppy! You're still my favorite cuddle buddy!

JAWS

The temperature is getting warmer. The snow has melted away and revealed the piles and piles of dog doo from a winter's worth of pooping. Ahhh, what a site to see out my front door.

I've found that I'm not the only one who has observed the piles of poo in their yard, in fact, my mom sent me this email today:

Subject: JAWS OF LIFE, I mean POOP......

I bought the JAWS Pooper Scooper today. Would I buy this product again?....YES. It's not perfect, sometimes you still need your little garden spade to help pick up when it's at a funny angle on the grass. But I'm slightly anal (haha) and like to get every bit. When you pick up the poop it also grabs some of the grass, which I like. I give it 4.5 turds out of 5.

Have you done any spring cleaning or pooper scooping yet?

It's cute because he's so little!

I think when I have small children, I'm going to spend a ridiculous amount of time making them do useless things like this, just for the pure cuteness of it all.

Little Boy and the "Miracle" speech

That's definitely good parenting, right? ;)

P.S. If you've never seen Miracle, he is dressed EXACTLY like coach Herb Brooks from the movie. A nice touch.

Back to 'Bama!

In 2 weeks, I will be looking out onto the beautiful ocean from our condo on the beach in Alabama. I am so excited and it could not come soon enough!

I saw on AJ & Christy's blog that she was reminiscing past trips they have taken to Alabama together. And although I look forward to this trip every year with my family, this is only the third time Jay has gone with us.

In fact, the last time he was in Alabama, we looked like this:


Yes, my hair's in pigtails. HA!

Sweet home Alabama, I can't wait to see you!!

Beige is beautiful

This week I have to decide on paint and a color scheme for our basement. The drywallers should be finished tomorrow (yay!) and Jay wants to get started priming and painting ASAP.

Since it is such a large area, I decided about a week ago that I'd go with a very light neutral beige color for the walls. We will use the area for a lot of things, and beige just seemed...safe. But as the days this week have progressed, my mind has wandered to crazier colors.

I now have an "inspiration" for the basement. I'll give you a hint, it's not beige. Far from it. And unfortunately for painter Jay, my inspiration requires a few switch-arounds on our main level, too. He won't mind repainting one of the walls in the living room again - will he? (Even if it's the largest wall?) I don't think he'll mind moving some of the furniture from upstairs down to the basement either. Oh, how I love my patient husband. Maybe I'll let him buy that new big screen after all. :)

I can't wait for my vision to completely come together! Why can't I resist painting a clean blank wall a bright color?

Beige, you're beautiful, but you're not for me.

Fatigued on Fridays!

Another exciting Friday night at the Schmeebs household!



Anyone else have a hard time staying awake on Friday nights?

Basement update!

It's been a few weeks since I've updated you on our big basement project. We've spent a lot of our time lately...

...Shopping at the trifecta (Menards, Home Depot, Lowes)

...Adding some plumbing to the walls

...and the bathtub

...And some electrical

...passing inspections

...Then one day, the drywall arrived!

And now it's really starting to come together!!

Cross Country Skiing

I've had the itch to go cross country skiing for a few weeks now. We haven't been able to go for various reasons, but finally had a chance to today. We've had that cool foggy weather that left everything with a layer of frost on top of it, which made conditions just beautiful!


Check out that trail - so pretty!

Jay says: "I"m gonna go down that little bitty hill."

Down he goes!

Bwhahahaha!

Are you going to get up?

Setting out together across the bridge