Man it's been awhile!

Hi all!  Sorry it's taken so long to post, I will definitely try to get better at this.

But here's one really long post with a brief summary of a few things that have been going on with us.  

So here goes with the randomness!

I'm adding the picture below because 1. it's cute, and 2. there's a good story behind it.

One morning when Thomas was feeding the cats, he noticed that Rakeesh wasn't there waiting at the food bowls (which is VERY strange for him!).  After a thorough search through the house, I actually found Rakeesh squished between the window screen and the window pane!  Somehow (I still don't know how this happened), when Thomas was shutting the windows before bed, he didn't see Rakeesh and he shut the window with Rakeesh trapped between!  So all night, poor Rakeesh was trapped between the window pane and the window screen.  The funny thing is he didn't seem too bothered by the entire event.  When I released him, he simply ran downstairs to find his food!  Thomas apparently has a habit for trapping our cats.  He has trapped Biffy in a dresser drawer twice now.  It's a good thing Thomas doesn't do the laundry--otherwise we might have more serious problems! (I've actually seen a cat that got trapped in the dryer, and the owner turned the dryer on with the cat inside.  The cat suffered from multiple moderate burns, but ultimately survived and was fine after a bit of TLC!)

Here's a group shot (minus Dad who was napping!) during my latest visit to OK.  Here we are all decked out in orange--it felt good to be surround by a sea of orange again! :)

 Me with Meme and Papa after swimming on Labor Day.  ♥

And now a few pics from a pumpkin patch we recently visited.  We were able to watch the pumpkin weigh off-with the largest pumpkin weighing 1245.5 pounds.

  We also walked through the biggest corn maze I've every been through.  We had to carry large flags with us in case we got lost.  It took us about an hour and 20 minutes to get through the maze.

HOUSE UPDATES:  This is the desk Thomas built.  It took awhile, but turned our really great...and fit perfectly in the room.

Can you tell which side is mine, and which side is Thomas'? :)

This is our Thomas' current project.  He tore down the wallpaper, and is currently in progress of sanding the walls.  We are thinking of doing the bathroom in gray and yellow, we just haven't decided 100% yet.

Hopefully pretty soon I will have some before AND after shots of the bathroom! :) 

Here are some absolutely beautiful embroidered butterflies I snagged at my favorite flea market.  I fell in love with these, and got them for about 0.75 cents each--which is crazy when you think about all the time someone has put into these!  I have been debating on what to do with them--incorporate them into a quilt, pillows, or frames.  I really don't like the frames I currently have them in, but they were the only square frames that we available at the time.  So I am on the lookout for either nice frames for these guys, or a better idea of what to do with them.  But they are too pretty to not have on display! (btw, this is currently in our hallway)

Of course I have to add a few geocaching pictures!  Here are some pics of us with our friends Janet and David.  We met up with them to hunt for this particularly good cache.  The title of the cache was Raiders of the Lost Cache...and was themed after Indiana Jones, of course.  We had to squeeze tight to get into the cave, and once inside we found this 'treasure chest' among the spider webs and toy snakes.  We also grabbed a few other caches while we were in the area.

Here we are at the lookout point at the park we were hiking in.  We were pretty much exhausted at this point.  We had a pretty strenous hike through lots of brush and boulders.

Thomas as he squeezes into the cave with the Raider's cache.

The cache container:

Thomas as he climbs out of the cave.

And here's Janet

Thomas did not escape unscathed.  Here's an example of the danger that can come with geocaching. :) 

This is an example of some of the boulders we had to climb as we searched for some of the geocaches.

Janet and the boulder climb:

We also did a bit of geocaching at another beautiful park.  This hike was a lot less strenuous, and was absolutely gorgeous with all of the leaves changing colors.  We also walked through several beautiful meadows of wildflowers. 

Okay Mom, here's one for you!  The always-camera-shy-Rosie :)

Well that pretty much sums up what we've been up to lately.  We are definitely trying to take advantage of the nice weather and beautiful landscape while we can.  You'll probably have to put up with lots of landscape pictures in the near future.  

 Hope all is well back home!

And I hope you weren't too bored. :)

Please, keep in touch!

♥ Natalie

What's new?

Hello!  I'm finally taking some time for a new post.  Things have been going well lately.  I've been staying pretty busy with work-now is definitely a busy time of year.  It's so hard to believe that I have already been a vet for over a year now.  There's a new sitcom that I'm looking forward to this Fall on NBC called Animal House that is about a veterinarian--looks a little cheesy but still fun! 

Then there have been lots of little projects we've been working on with the house.  Thomas has been building an extra-large desk that we hope to post about in the next couple of days.  We've also been spending some time geocaching when we can.  Aunt Ruth also just recently visited us for a few days.  There are some pictures below of her handiwork while she was here.

Here are a few pictures of some projects we have finally completed.  There are still 2 or 3 in progress.

One of my favorite things to do lately is go to the local flea market.  There is so much potential there!

For example:

$1 flea market mirror +  

a lil paint =

    

After finding this next deal, I'll never be able to pay full price for picture frames again.

I found frames at Michael's from $12.99 on clearance for $2! 

Which really adds up when you purchase 10.

It's kinda hard to tell, but we added pictures of different landscapes we've photographed.  Here's a closer look:

Another recent improvement to our home has been the addition of gorgeous curtains.  While Aunt Ruth visited, she made us these fantastic curtains that really changed the feel of the rooms-and helped to give them a little character.  The old curtains (which came with the house) were very frilly and old fashioned.  

Here's a few before/afters:

Our Bedroom:

Office:

And I have to include pics of the crafter and her product! :)

And there you have it.  The latest of our life.  By the way--the pets are doing well.  Rosie is getting groomed Monday, which is long overdue, so I may add a few pics of her new do soon.  Biffy and Rakeesh especially love the basement, while Sugar and Rosie seem to enjoy the front porch the most.  They have had quite the change in environments over the past few years.  At least up here they're not as hot during the summer--our weather has been mostly in the 80's lately.  Of course, people here think it's miserably hot!

Please keep in touch!

♥ Natalie