Halloween

Better late then never, here are some photos from the Halloween dance we went to two weekends ago!  This year we decided to make our own costumes, courtesy of Great Dane, and dress up like characters from Breaking Bad.  If you've never seen the show then you might just think we were a haz-mat crew!

Project Weekend

Jane and Richard came to visit this past weekend so as usual we got out the home improvements to-do list and started crossing things off!

 

Before our company arrived, Matthew prepared the laundry room for installing the door.  He cut out the wall board, removed the insulation, and moved the wiring out of the way.

 

The next morning Matthew and Richard figured out where the opening would be on the outside of the house and cut away the siding using the dremel.

 

 

Now there is a hole in the house!

 

Placing the new door into the hole - it fit just like it was supposed to!
























We finally have an entry way with a bench and shoe rack!  Now all I need to add is a rug and coat rack.

 

While the guys were busy with the door, Jane and I put in another flower bed around the house.  The area around the car port, air conditioner, house, and a tree is difficult to mow and maintain, so I decided it would look better if we made it into a bed.  Here is the before photo:

 

We dug up all of the grass, edged the area with black plastic edging, put down landscape fabric, and then I covered the bed in mulch.

 

The final product!

 

The flower bed didn't take too long so Jane and I were also able to work a little bit on the "front" of the house.  This side faces the woods so we really don't spend much time around it and have not done any improving yet.  Here is a before photo of the jungle.

 

Before removing the leaves and other debris, Jane got out the chainsaw and made short work of those ugly bushes!

 

I dug out chain link fence posts (we used the actual fencing for the garden) and used our garden tractor and trailer to haul away all of the posts.

 

The pile of extra fencing parts out by the road (someone will pick them up for scrap).  I had already dug up more than half of the posts before this weekend but it was nice to get them all out!

 

Here's what the front looked like when we called it quits for the day.  We will still have to power wash the house, trim the trees back, level out the flower beds, remove the stumps, and plant new plants but I think we'll leave that for another weekend!



















Jane and Richard also made a furniture delivery during their visit - a new entertainment center for our living room!  Now that we have a flat screen TV our old furniture was too big.  This three piece set is perfect for holding our DVDs and all of our gaming systems.  Thank you!!!  Now I need to find some sort of decorations to put on top...

 

And finally, I found this little guy in the leaves around the house, I think it is the smallest snake I've ever seen!

Laundry Room Renovations Part Two

In between working on other houses and our regular jobs, Matthew and I have slowly been finishing projects in the laundry room.  Most of the room is renovated now, except for the door that will (hopefully) be installed this weekend.

 

I ordered two new 16" deep white storage cupboards but they came with a little assembly required!

 

 

After I painted the walls and trim, we hung up the cleaning tools along the wall and mounted the storage cupboards above the washer and dryer.

 

Matthew then built a kitty litter box and shelf combination to go between the washer and water heater (the wall behind is not yellow like it looks in this photo, the camera flash makes it look that way).  Now kitty litter dust won't travel as far and I won't be worried about accidentally dropping clothes into the litter box!  The plan is to eventually add a Reverse Osmosis water filter and a 50 gallon holding tank to the top of this shelf for my aquarium business but for now I can use it to store all of the buckets and things for AquaAid.

Our Anniversary

We celebrated our second anniversary last night by eating out at our favorite fancy & expensive restaurant, Elizabeth on 37th.  It was a wonderful evening and we can't wait until it is time to visit again next year!

 

Laundry Room Renovations Part One

Last week we finally started renovations on the laundry room!  We started by taking down the very ugly cupboards that were in the way of our upright freezer (and did not provide much in the way of storage).

 

I patched and painted this section of the room so that we could start moving things around to make room for the door that we will put in when Jane and Richard visit in a couple of weeks.  The color is the same as the top of the walls in the kitchen.

 

 

We also removed the wire shelving that was over the washer and dryer.  Some of this had already fallen down and the rest was too high for me to reach.  I ordered some 16" deep white cupboards that we will put up after I patch and paint these walls.

Horse/Pony Rides

On Saturday, the day after I returned from TN, Matthew and I loaded up Rabi, Spice, and Peanut and headed out to Hunter Cattle Farm for their Farm Heritage Days.  Hunter Cattle hired Jean, my riding buddy, and us to give pony rides for the kids during their event.

 

We were originally going to drive the minies but Jean borrowed a little saddle that fit Spice perfectly so we just gave regular pony rides.

 

Here we are all set up and waiting for the kids.  Peanut came with us but didn't end up doing anything but standing around looking cute.  Jean brought a horse and pony as well.

 

This was Rabi's first time giving more than just one or two rides.  Matthew helped the kids on and off while Jean, her daughter, and/or I walked the horses.  We started at 10am and didn't pack up until 5pm.

 

Spice was a good sport all day too.  We used two horses at a time and rotated every half hour so that they got some rest breaks.  According to the tickets we took for the rides, we gave over 420 rides! 

TN trip and NATRC Ride

I spent the last two weeks in Tennessee for my fall trip to visit my parents and ride horses.  The weather was great (a little cooler than GA!) and we were able to ride almost every day.  Most of our rides involved creeks or rivers and here one of our friends, Louise, is riding with us.

 

There also happened to be another competitive trail ride through the NATRC at a park about a half an hour away from my parents' cabin during my visit.  I had planned for this by riding my horses almost every day for the five weeks prior to our visit.  My mom was able to compete (for the first time) on my older horse, Rabi, and since they were there to babysit, I was able to ride my young horse Mow on his first ever competition of any kind.  Here we are at the vet check the night before.

 

The judges look at how well you present the horse and at what condition the horse is in to provide a baseline for the next day's ride.

 

The horses stayed in stalls overnight at this park.

 

The ride started at 6:00 am the next morning and it was only 47 degrees out!

 

The sun just barely came up before we were off.

 

 

Along the 22 mile ride we stopped twice for P&R (pulse and respiration) checks to help evaluate the horses' condition.  We also completed four different obstacles in front of the judges including mounting, trotting from one judge to another, and side passing to a round bale.  There are no photos of the obstacles because Mom and I were too busy concentrating!  But here we are at one of the P&R checks:

 

This ride is called "Ride the Edge" because the trails go right along some beautiful cliffs.

 

 

A lot of the trails are very rocky and since my horses don't have shoes we put rubber boots on their front feet called easy boots to help protect them.

 

 

Twenty-two miles sure goes by fast when you are having fun!  (Actually it took us just over six hours).  Mom did an excellent job with Rabi and placed fourth in the horsemanship category.  I was also very proud of Mow and how well he behaved - he even ended up placing sixth in the horse category!

 

 

After the competitive trail ride we went back to the cabin to rest for a while before heading out on the trails again the next week.  We even managed to squeeze in one hike between all of the horseback riding.

 

Apparently I should have sprayed with bug spray for the hike though because I ended up with about 100 tick bites that night...

 

 

Tick bites didn't stop us from enjoying one last ride through some creeks to the Big South Fork River.  This time I rode Rabi and Mom rode her horse Doni.

 

The river was probably low enough to cross, but we'll save that adventure for next time!