Decisions Decisions Decisions

As many may remember we had our 25 year old Air Conditioner to go out in late August. This was fine and we were happy to replace it with a new energy efficient York that is so much quieter. But during the installation, an old exit pipe was broken. The unit was in the upstairs hallway. I called the AC company with a dripping the day after Labor Day. They thought they fixed it. Long story but we have had to replace the ceiling in our downstairs hallway. The bathroom ceiling was ripped out as well as the bathroom wall to replace the exit pipe.
While the plumbing was exposed we found out the upstairs shower leaked and had to call a plumber. Luckily that was an easy fix as he caulked the tile.
All the downstairs hardwood floor was torn up and new flooring installed. That took the men (who were wonderful) four and a half days to take up and four and a half days to put in the new. While this was going on I decided to repaint the den dining room and foyer.
The week before all the damage, I had painted the living room. We had ripped up the carpet to put in hardwoods before we knew we would lose all our old hardwood floors. I pulled off the 25 year old wall paper in the half bath and painted those walls the same blue as the living room.

NOW! I need to make some decisions.
Here is what the living room looks like now.

It has two large pieces of furniture and a couch. The roll top desk and bookshelf will stay in these locations. This is first a living room. But I want to have the option of bringing in a bed for Grandma should she decide to come stay a while with us. Thanks to my daughter-in-law, Katie, she suggested leaving a space by the bookcase.

I am looking for a chair and a rug. Also a frame for Garrett's picture he painted and gave to me and LeGrand for our birthdays.


I want to keep my sleeper sofa. I figure the rug needs to be a solid. I found 2 at Haverty's, one green the other cranberry. Don't know the size but about 5'x7'. Don't know if you can see much in this picture but they are a very high shag.

I found a different rugs yesterday at lowe's. Here are there links. I think I like these better than the shags.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_29352-10954-71554_0__?catalogId=10051&productId=3419328&UserSearch=71554&Ntt=71554&N=0&langId=-1&storeId=10151&rpp=24

The other will not come up on lowe's website but it is a solid brick color. Nice.

Next the chairs:
The rug color will help me decide on the chair color. I want either green or red.

Or green...

Here is a shot of the ottoman/green chair and the red chair for a little prospective and some "fun" chairs. The green is a recliner and the red is a swivel rocker. I am not a fan of embroidery furniture but oh how fun this red chair was!

The painting will be the focal point if you sit on the couch looking out the windows. Garrett suggested a light tan wood. Here are four samples. This is really hard for me.

LeGrand says for me to choose what I like but I thought you might want to offer an opinion and see the options. I still want to go to another few stores for chair shopping.

Disney World 24 years later

(I wrote this before the tornado post but it was in my drafts. Don't know how to put it in order.)
It was 24 years ago that we took our family to Disney World. We had a wonderful time staying with LeGrand's cousin, Kenny Hutchison. Kenny's wife, Suzie, washed all our homemade, matching clothes each night. Our 5 children ranged in age 9 years to 15 months old. I remember my mother wanted to keep baby Lance saying he would not remember it. But LeGrand would not let her saying he (LeGrand) would remember Lance not being there.
When we left I remember saying, don't ask to return for another 5 years. I hate that we never took our family back.
Thank goodness I have children who want to take me now. Hopefully, I can help with the grandchildren and give some relief to the parents.
To my surprise, I still love roller coasters!!!!I had to remind myself I was there to see the grandchildren's joy and excitement. I was glad Jacob was tall enough to ride some of the roller coasters and yes, I did bribe him to ride them a second time. He loved playing a racing game on my cell phone.
I do believe everyone had a super time. Rhada was with us as we had just come from the Halpin Girl Cousin Reunion. One day she and I went to the Animal Planet without the others. I was glad that I had been jogging at home on the treadmill because it came in handy after "Finding Nemo" then loosing our way to the bus. Glad Rhada can run fast. We barely made it.
Rhada and I also got to drive Jacob and Nico the 10 hour drive to Tuscaloosa. The boys were little troopers. We visited with Grandma in Dothan and Aunt Rachel and Baby Hannah in Montgomery.
It was a bad storm (or so we thought at the time) day so mom Robyn, who had flown home with Baby Ben, watched the Internet to be sure our path was clear.
What a wonderful trip!

Christmas in July

In horse drawn carriage in Memphis.

For Christmas LeGrand gave me a "baseball trip". He planned it all. We left 4th of July and spent the night in the Peabody in Memphis. The next day we were off to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play the Reds for 2 games. Thursday we traveled across Missouri to see KC play Detroit. We visited several places of interest along the trip including church sites, the Arch, Mizzou campus, Truman Library and especially my old friend, Sally Weatherby Davidson and her husband's dairy farm. We ended with a visit to Matt and his family. Poor Ben was sick. As Nico said, "that was a big spit". Then Poor Robyn did not get to go out to dinner with us and had sick kids for a week. Other than that, what a wonderful trip!!!

The St. Louis stadium was an easy walk from our hotel.

A view of the stadium from Gateway Arch.

KC stadium was just as pretty with many tailgaters.

Sally and I and our husbands had a great time walking the farm and reminiscing.

Matt, Robyn and boys in their new home.

Nico loves to color. 

Jacob wrote "prizes" for reading books. He wrote to 1000 by 10's and had a prize by each number.

Ben sure did not look sick!

Hannah Cate and Ginger

Hannah Cate came to visit June 23rd. Girls always like to get together. She and Ginger had a great time. They can always find things to talk about.

Jacob turns 6

Matt and his family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas the first of June. I first went to help them unpack. Or rather watch the boys while Robyn unpacked. I had two quick trips to visit in June. The second trip I took some chairs and brought Jacob home with us for his 6th birthday trip. We went to Atlanta to see the Braves play the Rangers on his birthday, June 17th. Uncle Garrett, Uncle Lance and Aunt Katie met us. We spent the night and went to the Georgia Aquarium the next day.
Jacob enjoyed playing Scrabble with Papa's iPad and racing on Grandma's phone. He also helped Grandma navigate through Memphis. Papa met his Dad in Memphis on Sunday to take him home. Grandma was sad not to have her big camera but her Droid did take some good pictures.

Beach

I have to remember the reason why I have a blog....to remember that I have a life. And a darn good one. Does that a and r look like a m? Well, I want to remember my visits with my grandbabies over the summer. I will start with our trip to the beach.
The fourth week in May we went to Destin and stayed at Bay Club II. Rachel and Natalie and their families were with us the entire week. Lance and Katie and Garrett came for the weekend. Rhada had to work. We brought back 17 tadpoles and raised them on our kitchen counter. Two lived to froghood and were released in Northwood Lake.