MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas! New Year's Eve at our house!

ST.LOUIS!

We were in St. Louis this past week and we had a great time! The visit was much too short and we were snowed in for two days so we didn't get to see everyone that we wanted to see, but it was a nice time anyway!

7 inches of snow the first day! Probably the only snow we will see all year!

Robbie BBQs in the snow! A first for a southern boy like Robbie!

Robbie, Patrick, and Elijah at the food court

Beth and Ellie
We love our St. Louis family! I wish that we could have seen all of you and we had a great time with those that we did see! Have a merry christmas everyone!

ATL to STL

We are leaving for STL on saturday! We will be there until the Thursday! I can't wait to see everyone!

Our Finished Floor

Finally, our kitchen floor is finished! It looks better then ever, I am glad we went through that whole ordeal to come out with an even better kitchen. Our contractor was wonderful and his crew did a beautiful job. I couldn't be happier with the results!

We started out with this. A nice kitchen with your standard kitchen tile. Honestly, the kitchen is what sold me on the house. It is huge for a 60s ranch and the counter space is great. It also has a open, bright feel. One on my favorite parts is the little bar the over looks the living room.

Then this happened. The leak. The tile cracked and the floor seeped water. We called in the professionals. I anticipated a a quick, inexpensive fix. Unfortunately (I thought), that wasn't the case.

The floor had to be completely ripped up and we had these huge machines up for two weeks!

This is more of the sub-flooring then I ever wanted to see

AND THEN...

Here is a close-up of our beautiful floor

TA-DA! I never would have imagined that I could be this happy about a tile floor. It's weird the things you get excited about as a homeowner!! It nice having "our touch" on our house. It really feels like it is our home.

Yay kitchen!

They have been fixing our floor all day today! Update coming!

Christmas Tree

Yesterday we set up our first Christmas tree in our house. We are looking forward to our first Christmas as homeowners.

Halfway there!

Hanging ornaments. Thanks to Sandy Stites we already have lots!

The finished product. Robbie stands proudly next to the tree. The tree topper came with our copy of the "Shrek 2" DVD.

Yay Christmas!

Found vs. Postsecret Charity Tour

Pictured on the upper left, Davy Rothbart of Found Magazine
Pictured on the lower left, Frank Warren of the Postsecret Project
Hello everyone!
A week from tomorrow (Monday, December 3rd) Robbie and I have tickets to see the Found vs. Postsecret charity tour. It benefits Hopeline, a suicide outreach program and it should be a fun, fun night! For those of you who don't know, I have been reading the "sunday secrets" for about two years now and I discovered Found Magazine about six months ago. Postsecrets new community boards help expand the postsecret experience (as long as you weed out all the comments from the angsty teens *sigh*) There are links to both on the side of the blog and those of you who haven't checked it out yet really should! I will let you know how the event goes, but until then buy the postsecret books and support Franks project!! Maybe you could even send in a secret of your own...

Inspiring

Hey everyone,
I found this picture on the internet and I really liked it. If I had a daughter one day I would want her to feel like this!! I'm not sure what it is from and I hope that I'm not breaking any copyright laws or anything, but I wanted to share it with everyone. Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving! Robbie and I are getting our tree next weekend and I can't WAIT for the first Christmas in the new house!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We are going to the in-laws house. It will be Robbie, me, Bob (Robbie's dad), Sandy (Robbie's mom), John (grandfather), Laverne (grandmother), Ed, Nate, and Ian. Whee.

The Drought

For those of you who are out of town, you may not know that Georgia is in a serious drought. We are supposed to run out of water in about two months if we don't get some serious rain. Basically, we have been having months and months of really, really, really, really nice weather. It would be great if we could get a torrential downpour for a couple of days. So far we are in a total outdoor water ban, and there is talk of turning the water on in people's houses every THREE DAYS!! We would all be filthy!! Of course there are ways you can conserve water.

1. Only wash full loads of laundry and wait until your clothes are actually dirty to wash them
2. Only wash full loads of dishes
3. Don't rinse your dishes before you load the dishwasher
4. For dishes that have to be washed by hand, fill up your sink with water and use it to wash the dishes instead of letting the water run
5. Shower every other day
6. Don't flush the toilet every time you use it, only when you "have to"
7. Make sure you mend all leaky facets and pipes
8. Turn off the water while you are brushing your teeth, washing your face, etc.

~~Hopefully it will rain soon~~

Kitchen update

UPDATE: The floor is finally dry and the dehumidifers are gone. Now all we have to do is make sure the insurance pays us what we are owed!
So our kitchen is looking worse then ever. As I write this a crew is in here ripping up the tiles. Who would have thought that a refrigerator could cause this kind of damage? Hopefully it's not as bad as it looks. Our insurance better pay up.

In the background is the dehumidifiers, which are still a part of our daily motif.


What at mess.

Our Kitchen Troubles

Update: The insurance is trying to weasel out of paying for the mold damage, even though they are the reason that we have mold. We are in the midst of fighting with them.
Our ice maker was leaking onto our kitchen floor and caused the floor to buckle and the tile to crack. I insurance guy waited too long (11 days) to get the company that gets rid of moisture to come out and clean under the tile and we now have MOLD!! Right now the kitchen has two large dehumidifiers in it to get rid of some of the water and it's been sprayed with anti-microbial spray. On Monday we begin phase two; closing off the kitchen with plastic and drawing the air out of the room to create negative pressure to get rid of the mold! We have to take everything out of the kitchen and not be able to us it for at least two day!

CRACKED TILE

There's mold under there

Two giant machines taking up our kitchen

As promised....MagFest

Last weekend we went down to Live Oak Florida for our 5th Magnolia Festival. It was lots of fun! My favorite show was Toots and the Maytals, it was absolutely AMAZING! There was so much energy at that show. Railroad Earth and The Emmitt Nershi Band were really great as well. We did, however, have a few mishaps.... First we left our campsite to go see a show and our chairs got knocked into the embers of the fire, when we got back my chair was completely gone and the arm of Robbie's chair was burned away as well. Nate was asleep in his tent only feet away the whole time, good thing the wind wasn't blowing! We also got a flat tire and had to drive to the local Wal-Mart to get it replaced. Ian also lost his car keys and it cost him 250 dollars to get new ones made when we got back in town.



Nate and Ian were pretty cramped in the backseat of the car. Doesn't look very comfortable.

This is how we found Nate when we returned to the remains of the the great Magfest fire of 2007. Later he admitted that he did "smell melting plastic" but just rolled over and went back to sleep. Thanks Nate.

Ian makes grilled cheeses for all of us on the camping grill we USED to have before Ian fell on it and broke it.

Our flat tire

Robbie saves the day!!!
All-in-all it was a great weekend!

Southeastern Psychological Association

I presented my SEPA poster today at PURC, just to test it out. It went pretty well, needs some tweeking....(sorry Beth, had to use the CRADL logo instead of Noah)

YAY Magfest is here!

At magfest....pictures to follow

Maddox Overton is One!

It's crazy that a whole year has passed since Maddox was born!

Hillary and Maddox pet the goats at the petting zoo

More of the petting zoo...Watch out Maddox mommy's not going to be able to carry you around like that for too much longer, your little sister is going to take up all the room! BTW I'm 4 for 4 on guessing the sex of unborn babies, what can I say, it's a gift.

Maddox and the pumpkin.

It's that time of year....

Now that it's starting to get cool outside we can finally really enjoy our backyard...especially the firepit.

Robbie takes Hazels favorite spot

Lilly enjoys a nice cold porter on a brisk day...She's getting those crazy eyes....

Paul, Gabe, and Megan 'round the firepit

The Horror!

The Marriage of John and Molly~October 13th 2007

John and Molly got married at R Ranch in the Mountains over the weekend. They are a great couple and they threw a fantastic party!

The Beautiful Bride

All the guys looking dapper

Miles, Grant, and Robbie get their drink on at the reception

Who? Me?

Lilly looking as precious as always

Oscar Material

Lauren Simpson

Here's Lauren Simpsonized!

Robbie Simpson

This is Robbie Simpsonized....he looks like Trey Anastasio...

Sometimes "Men" need a slumber party

Last weekend Robbie and some of his guy friends went to have a slumber party in the woods for John's wedding.

They were so worn out from their pillow fights they had to eat a BIG meal

In between tickle fights, giggling in the hot tub, and comparing their manties they had time for a sing-a-long!!