I have to say, this weekend was just PERFECT! We headed to the lake house on Friday night. Hubby and son and I watched a dvd. We watched "Knowing", creepy but I enjoyed it!

Saturday morning hubby got up at 6 o'clock to head to the upstate for a Tae Kwon Do tournament! He just started back in late spring and he is a yellow belt. Well, he got a bronze medal for his forms and a gold medal for sparring! I was proud! It was funny, he wouldn't let us go with him to watch! But, he called as soon as he won!

As soon as he was done at the tournament he headed to the Clemson game. He was one of those that sat in the pouring rain to watch them lose! It was around 10 o'clock when he got back to the lake.

I had a very nice, quiet day on Saturday! The kids hung out with their lake friends and I sat on the porch and read! It was overcast all day and a little on the cool side, which was perfect for me!

Sunday afternoon I went to my Pokeno group. Had a great time! Here is a photo of the pokeno card, some of you had not heard of this before!

You play it like bingo. One person takes a deck of cards and calls out the card as they turn it over. If you have that card you place a marker on your card. When you get markers in a straight row you yell out "POKENO!"

In our group everyone brings a prize worth 10-12 dollars and it is wrapped. Then you attach another prize worth around $2 to the outside and it is not wrapped. When you win you get to select a prize. You get to keep the outer prize, but we play a second round after all the prizes have been opened and your prize you unwrapped can be "stolen" then! I like it a lot more than Bunco, you can play pokeno and don't have to pay close attention!

Yesterday, one of the outside prizes I got was one of the dark chocolate bars I posted about on Friday! Yummy! I ended up coming home with a really cute silver pumpkin slide/pin. It will be so cute for fall!

This morning when I got up it was a chilly 65 outside! Yea! I love cooler days and nights!

I don't have much planned for this week, just some projects around the house. I already checked off two! I painted a bookcase that I am planning to use at the lake house and I recovered the barstools in the kitchen! Not too bad and it is only 1:15 on Monday!

When the seasons change do you get motivated to do projects around the house?

~Steph

Oh.My.Word!

If you like dark chocolate, and you like sweet and salty together, this is the BEST!

I am trying very hard not to eat the whole bar today!

Heading to the lake later today and will be back on Sunday just in time for Pokeno!

Have a happy weekend!

~Steph

I Stopped Myself

See this kitchen? I ab.so.lute.ly LOVE it! This is what made me start thinking, yesterday, about cleaning and packing. Today, forget it.

Background: Yesterday hubby sends an email with a few mls numbers and says "take a look, what do you think?" I immediately look and see the house that this kitchen belongs in, and realize it is a house I had looked at online several months ago, when the price was more than I liked. Now, it is at an unbelievable price and I love, love, love the house! I am already mentally placing my furniture in the house and planning parties! When hubby gets home I start talking about The House. Then hubby says, "Well I don't want to have to finance that much."

The amount that we would finance is NOT that much. I know how frugal hubby is, but thought that he was finally seeing the good buys that we were letting slip through our hands because of his reluctance to spend any money. See, we paid off our mortgage, gosh, it's probably been almost four years ago. Then we bought the lake house and paid that off almost two years ago. Hubby likes not owing anyone anything! And, I do too, but it's not like we would be doing something that was putting a strain on us. He keeps talking about how he wants to move to a bigger house and he doesn't like our neighborhood. The guy that owns the company hubby works for just bought a house in Lake Lure and one of the other guys in the office is closing on a new house in Bluffton next week (and they had just moved there and bought a house a little over a year ago, but this was a deal they couldn't pass up!). So I guess I thought he was feeling a little more confident about making a move. But, I thought wrong. I have decided that he can look all he wants, I'm not going to get sucked into the possibilities that never materialize!

There are some things I would like to change around the house, you know, small cosmetic things like the lighting fixtures in some of the rooms. So, I am going to enjoy my present home and be happy that we continue to be totally debt free!

~Steph

I am Dragging Today!

I woke up last night around 2:30 and could NOT go back to sleep! I was supposed to go visit one of my friends from college that lives not quite two hours away... can't do it, too tired to drive!

I was really looking forward to our visit too! I'm hoping we can reschedule in a couple weeks.

The moving bug has bitten again! I am in "getting-the-house-ready-to-put-on-the-market mode". Somebody stop me!

~Steph

We Are Going To Have a Busy Fall!

Last Saturday daughter auditioned for a small part in the Charleston Ballet Theatre's Nutcracker. I just received an email saying that she will be a "party girl" in this year's production! We are excited, even though rehearsals start in a few weeks and will be EVERY Saturday until the performance in December! Yikes!

~Steph

She's a Teen!

(Age 6)

This little cutie turns 13 today!

I can remember 13 years ago today, at this time she was about 10 minutes old and I was so relieved that I didn't have to have a c-section even though she was almost 10 pounds! I had had a c-section with her brother two years earlier, but my sister was getting married in four weeks and I was in the wedding and couldn't risk having the rough time as I did with the first one! I was adamant that I didn't want a c-section! Even though things progressed so quickly there was no time for an epidural, in the end I was so glad because my recovery time was so much quicker!

Gotta run and pick up the birthday cake, from Marble Slab, no homemade this time! ;)

~Steph

Well, The Party Is Over...

I can finally sit down and relax!

Saturday night was daughter's birthday-slumber party. We ended up with a total of twelve girls, which makes for a VERY loud night!

I think they all had a great time and after I had to tell them to be quiet at around 1:30, I really didn't hear much from them the rest of the night! Hubby said he heard them around 3:30, but it must have not been too loud because I didn't hear a thing!

Hubby was worried that they would try to sneak out of the house during the night. I quickly solved that problem by setting the house alarm, which my daughter does not know the code to disarm! If anyone tried to leave, I would be quickly alerted! :)

A few photos from the big event!

(my first attempt, and probably last, at decorating a cake using homemade fondant!)

(The birthday girl)

(The girls, quiet for about 5 seconds!)

Daughter's actual birthday is this Wednesday, so we will have a little family celebration, just the four of us on Wednesday night. I told her I would prepare her favorite meal for dinner, we will have another cake and open presents.
Hopefully this will be a quiet week, I don't really have much planned so I may catch up on somethings that need to be done around the house! And, since I was away from the computer so much last week, I have tons of blogs to catch up on!
Have a great week!
~Steph

Everything Didn't Go As Planned

Hope everyone is rested up from the holiday weekend!

Daughter left straight from school on Friday to head to the lake for the weekend with a friend.

Hubby, son, and I got up Saturday morning and started getting ready for our trip to the upstate to the Clemson game!

Since we have diabetic kitty we never really went anywhere that he couldn't go too! Until a few weeks ago when we finally found a place to board him that could handle giving him his insulin. So a little over a week ago I called and got him a "room" for Saturday and we would pick him up on Sunday when we returned home.

The kennel is on the way out of town, so I thought instead of driving over and then going back home, we would just drop him on our way out. We leave the house, the cat in his carrier, and drive over to the kennel. When we pull into the parking lot it is strangely empty! I looked at the door and saw a big CLOSED sign! What?!?! Oh, yes. They close at noon on Saturday and it is now 12:30! I couldn't believe I didn't think to ask what time they closed on Saturday, it just didn't cross my mind!

We CAN'T take kitty with us! What are we going to do? Hubby says he will take us back home and just go by himself and I'm like, NO WAY! So we drive back to our house and I run to our neighbor and ask her if she will feed kitty and to just not worry about his insulin since we will be home the next day. She says she'll give him his shot if I will show her what to do. We need to get on the road and I tell her not to worry, he'll be fine until we get back! So, we dump kitty in the yard, give neighbor the cat food and the opener to the garage, where kitty will eat and sleep, and hit the road...by this time an 1 1/2 after I had planned!

We drive to Greenville and drop off son, who is so mad that he had to go with us, with my sister and BIL. We get to Clemson an hour before the game starts! AND, we DON'T have tickets! When we get to the stadium, apparently there are many people who don't have tickets and we see no one selling any! About 30 minutes after the game kicks off, we score two tickets for $15 a piece. Not bad, but they are so high up in the stands that we are almost out of the stadium! Good game, other than it started raining and I was a good girl and sat through it all!

Had a great time visiting with my sis and her hubby after we got home and the next morning before we left.

Monday we went to the neighborhood pool party and had a blast. Had a great turnout and the weather was perfect!

And today this little fellow turns 15!

So I ran out and finished up shopping for his birthday gifts and picked up an ice cream cake for this evening.

Starting tomorrow, I will have to get going on daughter's birthday party plans!

~Steph

Nothing Like Doing Things at The Last Minute!

Daughter turns 13 this month. Last year we did the slumber party thing and I think 8 girls came. A month or so ago she started talking about "her party" and I told her that since she had a pretty big deal last year that maybe this year it would be better to go low key. I said she could invite a friend over and I'd take them out to eat and to a movie, or something along those lines. Hubby never had big birthday parties growing up and he thinks if they want one we should do it.

Well, guess what we are doing instead of my idea?

Thirteen 12-year-olds have been invited to a slumber party next Saturday! I was running around like a crazy woman trying to find some cute invitations and even though this is last minute, I think it is going to go okay! Just ask me what I'm thinking around midnight next Saturday night!

We are heading to the Clemson game tomorrow and I can't wait! We are going to spend the night with my sister and BIL that live near Clemson. Daughter is spending the Labor Day weekend at the lake with a friend and will be home on Monday. I think hubby and son and I will hang around the house and then head to the neighborhood pool party on Monday.

Big plans?

Have a great weekend and be safe!

~Steph

This Stuff is Fantastic!

One day a couple months ago, I looked down at my hands and they looked like the hands of someone 20 years older than me! They were full of age spots and really dry looking! Oops, guess I should have been putting sunscreen on them as well all these years!

I had seen this product mentioned in a few magazines and read some reviews and thought, why not?

I was telling hubby about it and he said that one of his receptionists sold avon and he would order some from her.

Well, I have been using it for about 5 weeks and talk about a difference! I wish I had taken before photos! I can't stop looking at my hands!

I have also been using it on my neck and face at night, even though it says it is for 50+ skin and I am still six years away from that. Guess my face needed it too, because I can see a difference. Not as much as my hands because my face wasn't in as bad a shape! :)

I just thought I would pass on this recommendation. I love to hear what works and doesn't work for my blogging friends!

~Steph, who now has hands that look like they belong to her!