new patio door

We don't have a patio (yet), but a few weeks ago, Tim and his dad installed our new French patio door! I thought I posted about it - but apparently not.

Here's what the back of the breezeway looked like before:

Here's the hole they had to build - they essentially took out the entire back wall and re-studded it:

And here's our door! The drywall still needs to be hung and the door needs to be painted, but we love it!

siding progress

For the past 2 weeks our contractor has been working on ripping down our old siding and today he started putting up the new vinyl siding! I'm in Dallas for work until tomorrow, so Tim sent me this picture (via the new love of his life - his new iPhone) of some of their progress:


For reference, here is a before picture (taken after the new windows were installed, hence the messiness around the windows):


Hopefully by the time I get home from Texas tomorrow even more will be finished!

summer vacation - part 2

Continuing from my last post...

As I said, last Thursday, we drove from the Cape to northern Virginia. It was 521 miles of pure BLAH. The drive in and of itself wasn't horrible - we made great time and didn't hit too much traffic, but that's just a long time to spend in the car (roughly 8 hours - we may drive a little fast...).

Anyway, we headed to the "South" because my parents, after 10½ years in MA (our longest stint anywhere!), moved in April - thanks to what they hope is my dad's last relocation for work. The bought a beautiful house in Leesburg, VA in a gated golf community on the Potomac River (the community is on the river, not their house).

On Friday, Tim and I played golf with my dad at the country club where they live. It was only the second or third full round of 18 holes in my life - but I think I did pretty well! The course was beautiful, with quite a few holes running along the Potomac and we even saw some wildlife - a couple young deer and some woodchucks.

Also on Friday we went to Cocktails on the Potomac which is a monthly event at the clubhouse where there's an open bar on the deck overlooking the river. It was fun and quite picturesque.

Tim and me on the clubhouse deck - the Potomac River is behind us.

The view from the clubhouse - so beautiful!
The 18th green on the Potomac
The visit had another purpose - my mom was threw a surprise 80th birthday party for her dad, my Grampy. All of my mom's siblings came (3 sisters, 1 brother) from as far as Minnesota and Georgia as well as all of their kids. It was great and while we think my Grampy may have known, he still loved having the entire family together!

Happy 80th, Grampy!

Looking at the scrapbook of family photos that I made for him

Miriam had lots of fun with the bubbles

My mom and dad <3

Tim and me on the deck

We then got up on Sunday morning to make the trek back home. Another long day in the car, but we were happy to be home. Sox missed us (but did great with his sitter - much to my relief) and I was really excited to see him and the grass needed to be cut pretty badly, so Tim took care of that before we even finished unpacking the car. One good thing about all the rain - our grass is awesomely green right now!

It was back to work yesterday and now we're (im)patiently waiting for our siding contractor to start on our house. His tentative start day is Thursday, so hopefully he can finish up the other job he has and start ours!! I'm also back to playing field hockey (I have a game tonight) and I'm also coaching at a youth track camp in our town. It started last Thursday (I couldn't be there, obviously) and runs for 6 weeks. They told me that the bulk of the kids are young (ages 3-8) and I can't WAIT to go help out. They're even paying me which is a nice plus seeing as when I inquired about it, I wasn't expecting to get paid. The money will help pay for new blinds/shades for the windows since some of the old blinds don't fit in the new windows.

Check back for progress with the siding and keep your fingers crossed for the rain to stay away for the next few weeks so that he can finish quickly and for our walk!

summer vacation - part 1

I've been a bad blogger, but I have lots of updates today!

Tim and I took last week off work for our summer vacation. We spent the 4th of July on the Cape and part of the week after. We had a great party with Tim's extended family and watched the fireworks from the beach.

On Sunday, my mom, my mother-in-law, and I did our last big training walk for the 3-Day. 15 miles. It was LONG but definitely a good experience to get one in that was that long (we'd done 10-11 miles before). We have only 10 more days until the walk - I can't believe it! That weekend is now in the extended weather forecast, but I'm trying to keep myself from looking because I know how much it can change - maybe next Monday I'll start looking.

We also got to spend some time with our favorite kids - Danny, who was our ring bearer, and his big sister, Katie. We took them mini-golfing one night and had a blast! Danny even got a hole-in-one! He was so excited!



We also spent some MUCH needed time on the beach. It was great to get some sun (especially after the very rainy June we had here in MA - I think I read somewhere that it rained 25 out of the 30 days of the month or something crazy like that; it was getting rather depressing) and as always, it was a great way to catch up on some reading. I got through Handle With Care (Jodi Picoult's newest) and Firefly Lane (Kristin Hannah). Both were great; I especially loved Firefly Lane.

Here's some shots from the beach:

My father-in-law and brother-in-law going for a sail

The seagull that was very interested in my Chex Mix

And Tim, relaxing on the beach

We stayed on the Cape until Thursday and then drove down to Virginia to visit my parents in their new house. I'll recap that in a new post - to prevent this from getting too long!

couch to 5k - 2

Week 1, Workout 2 - Thursday, June 25
@ gym - treadmill

1. 5 minute warm-up walk @ 4.0 mph
2. 60 seconds jog @ 6.2 mph
3. 90 seconds walk @ 4.0 mph
4. repeat steps 2-5 for 20 minutes (8 cycles)
5. 5 minute cool-down walk @ 3.5 mph

couch to 5k - take 2

Well, as motivated as I was to start the couch to 5k program two weeks ago, I didn't make time to get past the first workout. Big FAIL. I re-started yesterday and I have a new plan in place to make sure I stay on track this time around. Even though the gym is only about 2 miles from our house, I will now pack a gym bag in my car so that I can go straight to the gym from work. So here we go again:

Week 1, Workout 1 - Tuesday, June 23
@ gym - treadmill

1. 5 minute warm-up walk @ 4.0 mph
2. 60 seconds jog @ 6.2 mph
3. 90 seconds walk @ 4.2 mph
4. 60 seconds jog @ 6.0 mph
5. 90 seconds walk @ 4.0 mph
   
6. repeat steps 2-5 for 20 minutes (4 cycles)
7. 5 minute cool-down walk @ 3.5 mph

Workout #2 (identical to #1) will be tomorrow night after work.

Aside from trying to get myself to the gym more often, we have been doing a ton of work to the house. This past weekend we put the windows in both of our bathrooms and this weekend we'll be finishing out the windows by installing the double window in our other upstairs bedroom - then we're done! Tim and his helpers (my father-in-law, possibly a cousin and a work friend) will also install our new French patio door! We've gotten word that our siding contractor should be starting on July 13th!

More updates after the weekend :)

6 weeks???

How is the 3-Day only 6 weeks away???
Good thing all my money is raised! I haven't been training as much as I'd like to, but it's hard when I really don't foresee having trouble walking that much. Regardless, I am trying to buckle down over the next 6 weeks just for peace of mind (and for my general fitness level).
To date, we have raised over $15,000 between the four of us!! I'm so overwhelmed by the generosity that has been shown toward us and our goal.

couch to 5k

Last week I decided that I needed to seriously do something about my lack of physical activity since the wedding. It's quite sad and embarrassing actually, how out-of-shape I have gotten since I graduated college and retired from PSU track and field 2 years ago. I had heard of this Couch to 5k program but never looked into it. Well I figured it couldn't hurt to try it out. I did the first workout last night and I really liked it! Even though I don't have an actual 5k in mind to run anytime soon, I figured it couldn't hurt to use this program to get into better running shape.

In order to try and keep myself accountable for following the program, I'm going to use my blog as a way to record the workouts. So, away we go!

Week 1, Workout 1 - Tuesday, June 9
@ gym - treadmill

1. 5 minute warm-up walk @ 4.0 mph
2. 60 seconds jog @ 6.0 mph
3. 90 seconds walk @ 4.0 mph
4. repeat steps 2 and 3 for 20 minutes (8 cycles)
5. 5 minute cool-down walk @ 3.5 mph

I felt really good the whole time and will try to up my speeds for steps 2 and 3 next time around (tomorrow!)

family room and siding

When I last posted, our family room was still in shambles from the window installation and new paint. Well it's all finished now and looks great!!


Right now we're working on our kitchen windows and the breezeway windows. We have 18 windows in, only 6 more to go! Up next this weekend will hopefully be our bedroom windows.
We also hired our siding contractor and he should be starting in a few weeks. We're really excited to have this done - our house will look brand new!! We've decided to go with a "Flagstone" color with white trim and red doors. Here is a picture of the Flagstone color on a different house:


Our new doors will look like this:


Stay tuned for more pictures of our continuing house updates!

new paint and more new windows

This past weekend, on Sunday, my father-in-law and Tim installed all the new windows in our family room (including the huge 5'x9' window in the front!). The room also got a facelift with new paint - something I've been wanting to do for a while and having the room ripped apart because of the windows was as good a chance as any to do it.

Here's what the room looked like just 4 days ago:


And here's what it looks like as of this morning:

(that is Sox, not caring that the couch is covered with stuff!)

I love our new windows in here - they are awesome and will really allow us to get some air in the room! The 3 front windows used to only open at the bottom ¼th of the window - how strange is that? I also love the new paint - it definitely brightens up the room.

Between tonight and tomorrow night, we should be getting all the trim around the windows done and the room will be put back together - stay tuned for those pictures!