Tuesday

On Tuesday, I painted the trim.

Then I started on the walls.

It's kind of an army-green. I got one coat on and will need to finish the edging next time...

I caught the 7:00 train back to Chicago and got home around 11:30.

Whew!

Now to get caught up on all that homework I missed out on...

Monday!

This past Monday morning I woke up at 5:30 to take the train downtown and then the Amtrak out to Galesburg. Of course, I was exhausted.

But, I got some work done at our house.

I spackled LOTS.

I primed.
My mom caulked.

And then I went to my niece's third birthday party.

There were 9 girls there...from 3 families...

Here is our oldest niece, Maddy:
Here is the birthday girl, herself:

...and middle sister, Emma:

The cute Dora cake Marcus's sister made...or as I called it, Dora's Head on a Platter. :) haha

Three years old!

...I ended up having to take the dress in a bit, it was a little too big. No worries, it was cute nonetheless!

Sunday

Sunday after church, I worked on our niece's birthday gift.

She turned three on Monday.

I worked on this thing for about 7 hours. Good grief. And I thought making gifts was going to be easier than buying them...

...but, it turned out pretty cute.

Saturday Fun

We had such a busy weekend (and beginning of the week)!

I'm going to make a post for each day, so stay tuned.

Saturday, we got up bright and early and were out of the house at 6:45. We got downtown to our softball game ready to play (but more ready to go back to bed).

Dan had a killer hit....

We chilled for a bit after our game to watch the next one...

Then after we got home we rested a bit and Marcus and I headed out to Rockford with his band for a show.

The show was really great, considering...
They played very well and then were done. Or so they thought.

The manager angrily informed them that they were paid to pay until 9:00. It was only 7:30. No one told them they were supposed to play for 4 hours.

So they played...
...and kept playing...
...and played some more...
...and then it was time to go home, but...not so fast!

The other band who also played at the show had some car troubles. They got in the van to leave and some fluid came rushing out from under their hood...we stayed and helped for a bit...

Then, we were super hungry and decided to go to dinner (at 10:30 PM), but when we got to the parking lot of Red Robin, fluid began rushing out from under OUR hood! (Zach's hood, to be exact, we didn't drive, but it was the vehicle we were in.) Coincidence? Perhaps.

We ate anyway.

Then proceeded to drive back from Rockford, stopping every 10-15 miles to refill the coolant in the radiator.

We stopped a gas station (twice) and also on the side of the highway (twice).

It was getting late, and Zach was getting loopy...

You can't tell, but behind me is the interstate.

We got finally got home around 1:15 AM.

Marcus is 28!

Marcus's birthday was Friday, June 19th. He turned 28 years old. Weird...I have known him now 12 years.

He wanted to stay in for the night...
He requested Thai...so I made some homemade crab rangoon and Thai Fried Rice.
...oops left my apron on for the pic...
Back in April I got him a new ukulele for an early birthday gift. But, since I felt weird giving him nothing on his actual birthday, I picked up this toothbrush for him. :)
Brittney and Dan got him a mug from Starbucks he's had his eye of for quite awhile...



Happy Birthday, Babe! I love you!! 

(We had a very busy weekend, more posts to come!)

Blogging to Avoid Homework

So, I am hopelessly trying NOT to do homework...I am drained! But, Marcus just left for band practice and I have the evening to myself to try and be productive.

But, first, I decided to blog.

And since there is really nothing new or interesting in my life other than the constant homework, I am posting to introduce you to another room of our house.

As some of you know, when we move (do you know when?!! because we don't) Marcus will open his own business, Anderson Lutherie, which he currently has on the side of his full-time job at Music Center of Deerfield. Thankfully, the house is zoned commercial and residential, so we won't even have the legal hurdles of running a business from our home. The house is perfect for this. Behind the garage, his great-grandfather had built a workshop. It is beautiful. It is the one part of the house that won't need remodeling (we'll have to install a ventilation system of sorts), so that is perfect. My pictures don't capture the wood quality of this shop, but I hope you can see how great it is.

This first shot shows the back wall of the garage--yes--it opens! Into tons of storage space. Down on the floor, under the workshop behind it, his great-grandfather would store lumber (he used the shop for building furniture). On the wall that comes out into a door, was lots of space for bigger tools.



As Marcus would say, "Do you see that flame on the wood drawers?" :)


There is so much storage in this shop (and in the garage) that I fear we will forget where we put things. On a positive note, there is plenty of space to hide presents. Ha!



In this picture of the garage, you can see in the far corner, the door leading to the shop as well as the back wall partly open. If you look closely, you can see tracks on the floor- the wall that opens has wheels so it opens nice and smooth! You can also see the garage door boarded up, they didn't use it as a garage. :(...but we plan to! :)


This next picture shows the other side of the garage and all of its storage. If you look to the right of the light, you can see a little bar on the underside of a storage unit attached to the ceiling. That bar pulls down to reveal a ladder, so you can walk right up to all the stuff you stored up there!

I think it is a unique little feature, but it might have to be taken down so we can install a garage door opener. :(


Okay, okay, now that I've successfully bored you all, off to homeworkland!

New Post Just Because

Well, school's out, summer's here, and I've been enjoying being lazy! My first day off, Thursday, was spent sleeping in, working out, and doing grad homework for four hours. I hear about people in my classes who work, parent, and do homework, and I really don't understand how that's feasible. God bless you folks! Friday, I got a couple good books at the library and laid out at the pool.

I'm officially ready for summer to begin after those two relaxing days and this coming week starts my busy summer schedule or friends to see, meetings (VBS) to plan and attend, and several French Horn lessons to teach...even some training workshops at school to attend.

I know a post isn't very exciting without pictures, so I thought I'd take this post to show you all one of my favorite rooms in our new house...which we still don't know when we'll move in to, but it's our house, nonetheless. :)

It's a little mini-room near the attic that is kid-sized. I hope to use it as a kid's craft room. I want to paint it white (instead of mint green!!) and then from there, let the creative juices flow, letting the kid(s) color the walls however they want. I know we don't have kids yet, especially not ones old enough to "craft," but the room is there if God decides for us to go down that path. This room is very short and cute and the workbench/tables are kid-height. I get kind of claustrophobic in there, so I always like to leave the door open...



...but if you do close the door, you can see this little bell up near the ceiling. It connects to a button in the kitchen which Marcus's great-grandmother would ring when it was dinner time to alert her hubby (who was hard of hearing) to come down. I'm not sure if kids ever used this room or not, but the room attached to it (which you can kind of see in the first pic behind Marcus) was used as a dark room for Great-Grandfather to develop his photography (there are two such dark rooms in the house).


Someday we'll live in this peculiar, fascinating home! I'll try to post pics and stories about the various rooms throughout the summer...

Weekend Busyness

This weekend my brother and his girlfriend came to town and we jammed the weekend full of activities. It was an exhausting, but very fun weekend.

Saturday morning we had a softball game at 8:00AM! Our first of the season...and we won!!

After a little nap, we headed downtown to Millenium Park for some site-seeing...my bro's girlfriend had never been to Chicago!!! 

The good ole' Bean!

I absolutely love Millenium Park. Not only is it FREE, there are so many beautiful gardens and fountains and cool things to see. This time of  year, there were tons of purple flowers in all shades...

I love the contrast of the tranquil gardens in front of the majestic skyline.


I thought this was a really neat bike rack!

Then...we came home and grabbed dinner really fast and headed the other direction...up to Winthrop Harbor (which, in case you don't know, is the last city in IL along the lake, if you go a few blocks north of where we were, you hit WI) to this little coffee shop where Marcus's band had a show. It was...interesting...the coffeehouse, not the band. ;)
My sister wearing my bro's hat is the only photo proof that I have that he was here! I can't believe I don't have any pics of him! Oops! Love ya, bro!!
By the time the show was over, we were getting a bit loopy. (Remember that we got up at 6:00 for softball!)
...and Dan was dancing like a crazy person...
...THEN we proceeded to continue partying at Denny's and got home around 11:30. We got up nice and early again for church...hit up Potbelly's and then lounged around the rest of the afternoon. 

I got some sewing done, but mostly it was seam-ripping...I kept messing up!! Megan, your present will be done soon...sorry it's so late!!

P.S. One hour left of school tomorrow!