Landscaping and a new friend

Last weekend while I was in Florida, Mom and Dad came over to our house and helped Scott do some landscaping in the front yard. They only did one side of the front--the other side is a little bigger, and we will have to get a few more bricks before we can finish it. It looks great! Mom also started pulling down some wallpaper in the kitchen so that I can start my kitchen painting project while Scott is gone next month.
This morning I discovered that we have a new roommate. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and wondered why Scott put a leaf on his bedside table, then looked closer, and it was a one-legged grasshopper sitting calmly on his Bible! We just left him for today. As Scott said, "At least we know that he's standing on the promises of God!"

Florida Volleyball

For the past week I was in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, chaperoning the Iowa High Performance volleyball teams at the HP Championships. Our teams did well, and had a good time.

The first day we were in Florida, the whole group went on a catamaran ride. Here is the lovely boat:From past experience, I know that I feel just fine as long as the boat is moving, but as soon as we put down anchor and everyone starts swimming, I get very, very seasick. Last time we did this, I threw up multiple times. This year I managed to keep down my breakfast, but I was not feeling good at all. Once we started moving again, I felt great. Here I am praying that this torture will soon be over:

After the boat trip, I spent pretty much my whole trip in the convention center watching volleyball, and driving teams back and forth between the convention center, the hotel, and restaurants. It was fun to watch them play, but not exactly your typical Florida vacation. In fact, I wouldn't consider it a vacation at all...the kids are great, but some of the other adults in the HP program don't seem to enjoy my company, and make it pretty obvious the whole time, so by the end of the trip every year I am lonely, feeling disrespected, and can't wait to get home.

The whole group went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. the last night in Florida. Here is my delicious meal--crab stuffed shrimp. Yum! We also had key lime pie for dessert---double yum!
After supper, I had my one and only beach experience of the trip. It was too dark to actually get any good beach pictures, so here is a picture of my feet in the water. That's pretty much all I got. I spent 2 minutes with my feet in the water, then walked to the parking lot to get the van and resume my duties as the volleyball limo service.

Getting the Cutler home ready to sell

My sister Lynn and her family are interested in buying a house near my parent's house, so they are working to get their current house on the market to sell. Today Mom, Dad, and I went over to help them get as much done as possible. Mom painted the beadboard in the upstairs bathroom, then headed home to shampoo their basement carpet. I finished up some stuff in the downstairs bathroom, painted some wood trip, and then went downstairs to help tile the hall floor.

The subfloor in the basement was partially rotted, so they had put down new wood on part of the floor, and were finishing up scraping off the old tile from the wood that was still good. Even Hannah helped with scraping!Dad and I spent most of the day laying the tile. The girls all wanted to "help" so we let them stick it down better by rolling it with a rolling pin. Even Olivia got to help out! We got the whole area done, and it looks pretty good!
Here Dad is laying down the last little corner tile. Yay!

The bathroom upstairs has a window that looks pretty much straight out into the neighbor's house. That can be a little awkward when you have to use the toilet...Lynn had bought a window "cling" treatment for the window that I put up. It lets in light, but doesn't allow people to see it. I really like it!

Waxing

Last night I got a haircut. The haircut is nothing amazing or spectacular...it is a good haircut, but just a trip as i (again) grow my hair out. On a whim, I decided to have my eyebrows waxed. This is the first time in all my 31 years that i did this. I naturally have big, bushy eyebrows, but I thought I took care of them pretty well. She did one, and then gave me a mirror. I was amazed at how good it looked after being waxed! This could be a new addiction to work into the budget!In other news, this week I am learning what it's like to be an Army wife. Scott is in charge of organizing his unit's 3 week trip to WI in August, so he had to drive there Monday and Tuesday to take a class. He left for Ames (his post) at 5:30am on Monday, checked out a Humvee (sp?), drove 5 1/2 hours to Ft. McCoy in WI with no radio, no air, and no conversation because the windows were down and the engine is loud. Tuesday morning he took a one hour class, picked up a couple big boxes of stuff, drove 5 1/2 hours back to Ames, checked in the vehicle, and drove 1 1/2 hours home. Wednesday he spent the day at home washing uniforms and repacking. Thursday morning he left at 5:30am for Ames, then his unit convoyed back to Des Moines for 4 days at Camp Dodge doing training exercises. Sunday afternoon he will drive back up to Ames, then come home.

I am gone for about 10 days for work, then Scott is gone for 3 weeks of Army training in August. Is this what being a newlywed is like?

New Office!

As you may have figured out if you regularly hear from me on the internet, I was not on it much last week. We were in the process of moving our entire office to a new location, and did not get internet access back until today! Last week, very thankfuly that it was no longer 98 degrees with a heat index of 110, we loaded up a 14 foot U-haul TWICE on Monday, drove it to the new office, and unloaded it. We hired some high school boys to take everything up the stairs at the new office. On Tuesday, we hired Two Men and a Truck to bring all our desks, furniture, and the copy machine over. We spent the rest of the week cleaning up, putting things away, and getting phone, copy machine, and finally internet set up. We are not finished by any means, but we are making progress!!!!

Here is Lynne's spacious office, with a shelf and desk for Michelle when she is working here.
This is the current state of the back part of the main room. The big main room has a half wall down the middle. We are planning to use the front part by the entrance for my desk, and for meetings, etc. The back part is our staging area for Regionals, the kitchen area, and the copy area.

Here is Carol in her smaller office.

This is the view from the entry door. We haven't quite finished putting things away.

Here is my little desk area by the door.

And our huge store room. We have the shelves on either side, and can actually walk between them! I organized them so each shelf is filled with stuff for one event (Regionals, prizes, HP, etc) and right now it is pretty neat and tidy!