A Very Eventful Weekend...Meet Tripp!

It's only Saturday night, but already this weekend has been very full! Last night we drove home to see the house for the first time in a month and it had changed so much! They had finished painting the outside and staining the floors and we love how it turned out! It's hard to believe only a few short months ago, there were no floors in the house and now it looks brand new. We can't wait to get back in there next weekend and start moving in furniture and doing all the other projects we have on the immediate to do list. The biggest project we are planning to do next weekend is repainting all the cabinets in the kitchen and installing the countertop we built. My mom is also coming to help us with the flower beds and we can't wait to have her green thumb to help!

As much as we are going to miss our friends here in Auburn, I have to say I am appreciating the wonderful people in Aliceville more everyday and am really seeing what draws people to the small town life in the country. I've always wanted that kind of life and the outpouring of love and friendship has overwhelmed us. A very dear friend, Mr. Ganus, has made our home his project and we will be forever grateful for his generosity! He has been up to our house multiple times spending hours working in the rose garden cleaning out all the overgrowth, trimming and fertilizing the plants and even planting new bushes. Then this past week he went up to the house one day and got on the lawnmower getting all the leaves up in the yard. It was such a wonderful surprise! It was raining the whole time we were there so we didn't get a picture this time.

When we got to the house last night, my mother in law came over with a present in her hands from another sweet neighbor, Mrs. Kay. She does beautiful cross stitching and made us this beautiful Welcome sign for our house! We definitely do feel welcomed!

After we made a quick visit to the house, we ate dinner and then went over to visit some friends who had just gotten a new lab puppy. The breeder they got theirs from still had 3 male black labs, exactly what Phil wanted, for a great price. We called them and went by there on our way back to Auburn today and ended up leaving with a precious little puppy! Now, we were not planning to get a puppy until Phil graduates in May, but this was just too good to pass up. We got to see both the mom and dad labs and they were both absolutely beautiful and sweet dogs so that made me feel a little better about hopefully not having a "Marley and Me" situation on our hands! He did so good the whole way home in the car and is now sleeping soundly at Phil's feet.

Also, we have found an armoire! Phil's grandad bought an antique armoire at the school auction a few months ago and had it out at an antebellum house he purchased to renovate. It needs to be refinished and reworked a little bit to make it secure enough to hold a tv, but I've got a few ideas and I think it is going to be perfect. I'll show you the before picture and hopefully in a few months we'll have an after picture! You know how I love to refinish so I'm excited about this project!

Oh, I almost forgot about our other adventure today...Phil hates to spend money on things that aren't "necessary" so he didn't want to rent a Uhaul for the move instead opting to haul all our furniture in his dad's cattle trailer. That was the real reason for our trip this weekend. It had rained for 2 days there so the ground out by the barn had completely turned to mud. We got out there and hooked up the trailer to the back of the 4 runner and started to pull. Suddenly we started sliding and spinning out slinging mud everywhere. We were stuck. After about 20 minutes trying to wedge wood under the tires etc... we took the trailer off and tried to just get the 4 runner out. No success. We ended up having to get his dad's truck to pull us out and then pull the trailer out and an hour and a half later we were finally on the road. Needless to say, every bump we hit on the way home terrified me, but we made it safely. Now we just hope Phil's truck can pull it when it is loaded down with all of our furniture next weekend!

So that has been our exciting weekend!