Quite the week

***I was able to get the pictures***

This last week has been..... an adventure.

First of all, he left on Monday and didn't return until late Thursday night. He went on a recruiting trip to our old stomping grounds. I thought about going with him, but it just wasn't reasonable and would have been quite boring for me as he had a lot of things to do throughout the week. However, I would have gotten to see a few good friends, but then I had a doctor's appointment so it really wouldn't have worked. So sad.

Anyways, the previous weekend was his cousin's wedding so we were spending time down with them. It was a beautiful wedding and we had a great time! We also had a great time spending time with the family. While I had my camera there, I forgot to take any pictures. Well, that's not entirely true, I did take a couple but they didn't turn out at all so I had to delete them. But we had a blast spending time with them: we laughed and talked and got to know my sister-in-law's boyfriend. The boys had a good time talking to him until 1 in the morning! Needless to say, they get along really well.

So I dropped my dear husband off at the airport on Monday morning after we went to this cute little breakfast place to celebrate our second anniversary! It was really fun! Then we said our sad goodbyes and he went to the recruiting trip. I stayed with his parents that night and then headed to my appointment the next day. The appointment was fine, just a little blood work that I didn't see at all (I get woozy at the sight of my own blood... yeah I studied nursing for two years... what was I thinking?!). Then I came home. I did fine during the days, I worked on the piano and I made a cute little Halloween decoration (which I'll have to post pictures of later because I can't find his power cord).

This is how you can hold something you are gluing in place if you don't have a big enough clamp... lol! Resourceful and effect!

Here is the piano with putty on it
Another angle
And my cute little Halloween Decoration. I did a mixture of these two Halloween Decorations found here and here. I think it's fun and cute... but I do need to replace the part that's holding it, it's a little top heavy so if you bump it at all it falls over, so I'm just going to replace in green flower holder stuff with plaster of paris.

The nights were not so fun, I hate being alone. But we made it through and he got home really really late on Thursday. The poor guy had to wake up at 4:30 the next day for my surgery.

We headed to the hospital and the surgery went fine. After the surgery there were a few new things I got to experience... none were very fun, and we'll leave it at that.

But it was nice to have my family here and my loving husband at my beck and call all weekend. They were very sweet to me and helped me whenever I needed it and during those awkward things I got to experience. So I'd like to publicly thank my loving husband, my loving parents, my loving siblings, my good friend who gave me a surgery survival kit, and all those that helped me in any way! And I know that the nice nurse that helped me won't ever see this, but I'd like to apologize to her for being so emotional and probably being a brat to her. She was really sweet and helpful.

Now I'm going to do as my momma told me to and get so rest, she said, and I quote, "it's okay to sleep all day and all night." I bet you wish you were told you could do that!

His Graduation

Now dear readers, this happened a couple of months ago, but if you'll remember from this post that I forgot to get copies of the pictures from his graduation. Well folks the wait is over. I won't put too many, I don't want to embarrass him, but he made such a handsome graduate that I just have to share.

I love this picture!
His parents
His brother's family
Our parents
My aunt and grandmas, and his brother's family
I'm so grateful for everyone that came and supported him and I think it's safe to say that his mom is grateful that he actually attended the ceremony.. :)

A New Addition to our Family

Hello world, I'd like to introduce the newest member of our family:

We don't have a name picked out for him yet, but shoppy might work out just nicely. Shoppy is so helpful and cleans up our messes. Currently Shoppy's chore is to vacuum up the saw dust from my projects... actually that will probably always be Shoppy's chore. Anyways, he's great and we're so glad he's a member of our family.

So close I can taste it

I thought I would bring you up to date on the progress we're making on "the big one". About a week or so ago I took off all the pieces I could get off, this is what is looked like:
He later helped me get off the indented part below the keys.

Then we covered the keys and the harp with plastic.. oh and the ground.

A view from the side
Then I started sanding, and sanding, and I'm still sanding. I have a bit more to do. I've gone through with the 100 grit and I think I'm pretty much finished with that, I've found a few places I need to go over again, but then I'll move onto the 220 grit and then I'll start painting!
The side after I sanded it
These are all the pieces I took off after they we stripped and sanded.
I still have two more little pieces that I need to strip and sand and then I'll start painting them all and then I'll put the clear coat on and I'll be finished! AH! I can't believe it's so close!

Lessons Learned

This week as I've been working on the beast, I've learned a few things that I thought I'd share.

1. If you ever have to strip off old varnish or paint or stain or whatever, I would recommend this sandpaper!

We got a "free" trial of it in the pack of the less expensive stuff that Norton sells, and let me tell you, it really does work 3x longer and harder! I swear it did more with one little piece than it would have taken five of the cheaper stuff! It was AMAZING! Anyways, that's the first thing I learned.

2. I also learned that these little babies are also amazing!

Since I've been working on the part that has to stay inside the house I've attached Shoppy to the sander so that we don't get sawdust EVERYWHERE. Anyways, as you can imagine it's quite loud, these little babies work like a champ!

Life is the school, love is the lesson

Tonight we watched the CES Fireside by Elder Scott. It was so good! I really liked how he mixed it up a bit and had a little question and answer session with a married couple. I loved what he had to say about marriage and being sealed in the temple and what a blessing that is. Another part that I especially liked was how he talked about his wife. I want to be a wife like that, one that my dear husband will hold in such high esteem. I hope that doesn't sound cocky... because I see him in such wonderful light. I love him very much and am so grateful for him! I hope that we will have the kind of marriage that Elder and Sister Scott have, so full of love and devotion! I think that's one of the greatest things about being married is getting to be with your spouse all the time and getting to grow more in love each day. I love being able to do things for my husband, like getting to make dinner and seeing how happy it makes him. I love when he does stuff for me, like going to work for us each day or killing spiders for me or letting me cry when I need to. He's so wonderful and I love him very much!

Next Monday, the 20th, we'll celebrate being married two years! It's flown by, I know two years isn't that long, but they have been great and I look forward to the rest of eternity together! I hope that we can live our lives so that we can enjoy that amazing blessing! I hope everyone has that opportunity--to be sealed to their spouse forever, and gain the wonderful blessings that come! I hope that everyone will also work on their marriage daily, it's not always easy but the blessings are so great.

Okay I'll get off my soapbox now, but I just everyone to have what I'm so blessed with! The title for this is the quote that one of my cute grandmas has on her facebook page, I think she hits it right on the head, and she definitely lives this way, I've seen the love they have in their marriage. I'm grateful for the wonderful examples that we have in our lives of happy marriages.

Picnic and other things

Last night for dinner we had a picnic. It was a lot of fun. We ate tin foil dinners, threw the Frisbee, and just enjoyed the fresh air. I took my camera, but forgot to take pictures. We had a great time though. Best of all, it was his idea for the picnic!

In other news, I've been working on my piano more. I got a call about teaching piano lessons, so that gave me a little more motivation to work on my piano. I've taken off all the parts that detach and started stripping and sanding them.

We had a great time over Labor day weekend, we went and visited my family (same scenario with the camera... brought it but forgot to take pictures). We went and saw Macbeth at the Shakespearean Festival. My little sister got us free tickets, so that was fun. It was good, a little dark, but good. I also made 4 apple pies while I was there because my grandpa's orchard is busting at the seams with apples. We also bottled some apple pie filling. All in all it was a great weekend. We love spending time with family!

Young at heart

Yesterday I noticed a few things and they made me laugh so I thought I'd share them with you. We are definitely still young at heart, granted I don't think we're old anyways, maybe we're just immature... I'd like to think of it in a better light, so I prefer young at heart. Here are a few examples:

Exhibit A: We went to our new favorite store and bough 20 of these kool-aid packets! Why? Because it's our favorite kind and a lot of the time stores don't have it! Maybe it's because it's always sold out because it's so good. Anyways, whatever the case is, it's good and we like it so we stocked up!
Exhibit B: I don't have a picture of this one sorry... but it goes along with the kool-aid so work with me. We had TWO different kool-aid pitchers in our fridge! LOL! Blue and red.

Exhibit C: We can definitely make messes. This is what I've been doing the last couple of days, if you can't tell what that is, it's scrapbooking. Well, my version of scrapbooking. I'm not really great at making things really cutesy, so I go for creative.. I guess. Anyways, that's not the point. What we're looking at is the mess. Now usually I wouldn't want to show you when my house is a mess, but the exception today is the song that he sang me when he saw this. It went a little something like this, "Mess-maker mess-maker make me a mess..." (to the tune of Matchmaker Matchmaker...or whatever that song is called). I just laughed.