Front Door Appeal

While I did just add some fun hawkeye bling to the house, the curb appeal of our house is kinda lacking. Maybe that's not a fair statement, the previous owners put a lot of time and effort into the landscaping in our front yard. And that landscaping looked great... and still does look nice (not as good as when they did it, but we haven't completely ruined it). But the reason why I think our house could improve on curb appeal is because of the shape and color of our house. So what makes the house weird?

• Split level with the upper floor hanging out over the bottom floor
• Door is tucked into the corner between the garage and the stairway and isn't symmetrical
• Our siding is metal
• The colors are brown and cream
• Front door is oak with gold trim around the glass design

Our house in the winter (after putting in the offer, before getting the keys)

The only thing I feel that I can change is the door. I'd love to buy a new door. I grew up always having a screen door plus the entry door. I like how that allows for a cross breeze through the house and being able to keep the front door open with the screen door closed, makes me feel like our house is more open and welcoming. Matt, on the other hand, grew up with a single front door and I haven't been able to convince him that we should get a screen door. 

So the next best thing to a new door, is a newly painted door. But what color? Right now, I'm leaning towards purple. It's not too bright to completely stand out but it would still be fun and unique. Or blue. My parents new house has a blue door and I love it (they hate it - no screen door). Yellow would look gross with  our house colors. Red might look ok but since we're so close to ISU I don't want to go with red. Here are a few purple doors I've "pinned" recently. 

traditional entry design

And some blue ones...

So, now I just need to convince Matt that painting the door is a good idea. :) 

My adventure with a circular saw

When we moved into our house 15 months ago, this is what our mailbox looked like...

Not really my style but cute. The reason the previous owner painted it was because it used to have an ISU wrapper around it. So this is MUCH better than an ISU themed mailbox. They actually gave the wrapper to the neighbors and I think it pulled off some of the paint when they took it off so she created this to fix it. So for the last 15 months here's the full view of mailboxes in front of our house...

A couple months after we moved in, Matt went to a home improvement store and bought this new mailbox. It's just a plain black replacement.

This box sat unopened in our garage for a year. I know, ridiculous. We bought it towards the end of the summer, then Matt got busy with work in the fall and then the snow came along. By the spring, I think Matt had completely forgotten this was still in the garage. Last month, after a long walk with Gable, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Gable was in his kennel napping and I thought it wouldn't take long to replace the mailbox. 

I didn't have any problems taking off the flower garden mailbox but the board I found underneath was a mess. 

 Yikes! Luckily Matt had some extra wood in the garage from a little building project of his own in his work truck. The only thing standing between me and my new mailbox was a circular saw. I needed to cut down the plywood so it would fit inside the mailbox. Then I could screw the plywood onto the stand and then screw the 

mailbox onto plywood. I was super nervous using the circular saw by myself but I'd used one before, it had just been awhile. I don't have any pictures of me using the saw because Matt was at work and there was no way I could stage that picture and feel safe about it. My first attempt was a little off... huge bummer. My wood was a half inch too long. My next cut was super tricky but I got it trimmed down with all my extremities in tact. yay! 

I added the tigerhawk decal after I got mailbox mounted. Doesn't it look fantastic! Way better than the ISU one next to it. Plus it's pretty fun to know that I replaced it myself... and got to use a circular saw. 

With Hawkeye football kicking off yesterday, I added a few other Hawkeye details earlier last week too. 

 I bought this at the craft fair at Huxley's PrairieFest last weekend. I carried this heavy cement piece home 7 blocks, with Gable also on a leash. I was pretty sure, he'd see something intriguing and take off, jerking the leash outta my hand and causing me to drop this. But luckily he didn't and we made it home in one piece.  Here's a close up..

And I also put out our GIANT flag that I bought last fall.  

Let the IOWA / ISU rivalry week begin!

Sweet Corn Love

Sweet corn has got to be one of our summer favorites. And apparently it's one of Gable's favorites too :)

Matt was trying to get a pic to send to friends... they sent us an adorable photo of their little girl, Natalie, enjoying some sweet corn and of course we felt the need to show off our "baby" too.

Doggie Dip / How we spent our 2 yr Anniversary

Matt and I only made it to the pool once this summer. (This may explains why I'm so pasty.) But our one trip to the pool was FANTASTIC. WDM's end-of-summer doggie dip was on August 15th - our 2 yr anniversary. For $5, Gable got to play with 59 other dogs for an hour in the pool. There was another session after our but they literally got sloppy seconds in the pool so I'm glad we went early. 

Waiting in line to get in! Good thing Matt and Gable got their early.

Obviously, this little video isn't of Gable, but watching this dog swim was too funny to not share. 

Birthday (x3) week...2011

Last week was ridiculous... even more ridiculous than the same week in past years. (I think it's because it's been the first time that my family has all been in town for bday week since I was in high school?!?!) So here's a recap on birthday week 2011. Warning: No pictures. I was having too much fun to document it :)

On Monday, August 8th, Matt and I headed to Ankeny for dinner with the Brubakers (check out their fun family blog here) and the Marsdens. Unfortunately, Clint actually wasn't able to come because Norm (their puppy) wasn't handling the noodles he found at the dog park the previous day. (Luckily Gable was fine even though he tried the noodles too. Unfortunately he's already been introduced to a variety of people food.) It was a fun night filled with great conversations and lots of laughs! We probably stayed out too late though... especially given our busy week ahead.

On Tuesday, August 9th, I turned 27. It's kinda weird to say that... 27. It sounds older than I feel. After work, Matt and I decided to celebrate by a visit to Adventureland. It had been a couple years since we'd been there and our trip to Okoboji reminded us of our love of rollercoasters, so why not?!?! It was a really fun date night. Kinda took me back.... back when we had just started dating we went there with some of our church youth group friends. We did really well with our selection of rides until our second to last one of the night. It was a little too "spin-ny" so it's good the park closed shortly after we got off.

On Wednesday, August 10th, we went out to dinner at Mama Lacona's for my dad's birthday (well, they brought out free birthday dessert for mom and I too). Grandma, Jackie, Becky and Matt were all in attendance too. We followed up the delicious Italian food with presents at mom and dad's house. Jackie got to open presents too so it felt very reminiscent of Christmas. I got some really cool gifts which I'll eventually get around to posting about.

On Thursday, August 11th, we celebrated Mom's birthday by seeing a show at the Funny Bone Comedy Club. The comedian, Willie Farrell, is actually a local Des Moines-ian and was hilarious. There were a couple times I was laughing so hard I was crying. He plays off the audience for most of his show and we were sitting close enough that he started talking to my dad which was cool. One of the funniest parts was when a man sitting in the back hollered out to Willie because he wanted to talk about his work... which was selling mouse traps. lol. But what made it worse was that he was just so incredibly drunk and kept trying to say more and more; he didn't get it when Willie tried to segue-way into a different joke. Eventually this man got to spell out the website address of where people could go if they wanted hand-made mouse traps... not even a second after the man finished yelling out the web address, another patron added " slash redneck". The crowd went wild. It was so hilarious. Even Willie cracked up and couldn't add anything funnier to the joke.

On Friday, August 12th, Matt and I headed over to Amy (Matt's half-sister) and her husband, Geno's, home. Geno's 50th bday was on Saturday and they decided to have a happy hour at their place. It was nice to be able to help them celebrate. Tricia (Matt's other half-sister) and her husband, Robert, were there too and only live a block away. They have a 9 year old vizsla, Ruby, so a meeting between  the two vizslas also occurred that night. Pics of that to come.

So that's birthday week 2011. It was amazing and jam-packed. I was exhausted by the time we finally hit the weekend but it was so worth it!

Stacy's having a baby!

Stacy and I met our freshman year of high school. We were both awesome french horn players and our friendship grew from that connection. :) Back in March when Matt and I were in Omaha, I got an exciting phone call from Stacy. Her and her husband, Matt, were expecting a baby! So excited for October 26th!

Last month Stacy was in town and decided to expand her registry to include Babies R Us. And I got to go along. It was a super fun day but I had NO IDEA how many decisions a soon-to-be mom has to make! Here are some of the pics from our day together!

Checking out the bouncers with her mom

Apparently baby swings have gotten super complex

Testing out the gliders with her sister, Brit

New body pillow for a better nights sleep

It's good for feeding once the baby gets here too.

He or She?!?! Can't wait to find out in October!

Gable update!

I know you've been wondering about Gable so here's some pics of him over the last month. 

This is a sand volleyball court in a park near our house. He gets to run around here at least every other day. And boy does he love it. He really goes crazy running around in the sand.

It's rare to get of pic of Gable like this. He either wants to eat the camera or is busy eating something else. 

 

Best buddies. (Please disregard my sweaty, just-walked-Gable-in-90-degree-heat look.)

See. He doesn't like to sit still for long.

I think he was trying to eat my hand here.

Such big floppy ears. And he must have been hot - his tongue doesn't normally hang out like that. 

Aww. This is why we're head over heels in love with him!

Due to the heat, Gable finishes every walk with a drink of cool water / dip in the pool.

"Seriously mom. Quit taking pictures of me."

"Feed me!"

Bed time. 

He starts the night in our bed and then when we're ready for bed he goes into his kennel.