Announcing Lil' Snoke

Yup, I have an announcement to make...

Dave and I are going to be parents!!

That's right, I'm pregnant. Due February 27th. I'm 2 1/2 months along. Dave and I are both pretty excited. :)

Just thought it was about time to share!

Since when is Barely Grey yellow?

Dave and I stopped by the house on Monday after our vacation away. The great news was that there was again a lot of progress. The microwave and dishwasher had been delivered, some flooring had been put in, the rest of the shutters were on the front of the house, and they had painted the whole inside of the house. The bad news? They painted with the wrong color.

Take a gander at what was supposed to be our "Barely Grey" interior:

I don't know how well you can tell in this picture, but the whole inside of the house is now pale yellow. The builder stopped by while we were in there, and Dave asked him, "So is this just primer?" Brad responded, "Nope, that's the paint, just one more coat to go." We both stared at him blankly. Then I said quietly, "Um...it's the wrong color." Brad said, "What? Antique White?" I was like, "Antique White? What? What's that? The wall color?" Brad was like, "Yeah..." and I said, "It's supposed to be Barely Grey." Brad was like, "Don't tell me that." Dave and I just both smiled. Brad kind of shook his head, then nicely said, "Ok, if you were supposed to get Barely Grey, you will get Barely Grey."

Soo...they have quite a bit of fixing up to do. Considering they'd painted the WHOLE house. I feel kind of bad for them. And if Dave and I weren't such not-yellow people, I might just let him leave it. But we're really not yellow people, at all. Much more grey people. Hence us choosing "Barely Grey" over our other two paint choices, both of which had yellow undertones.

Here are a few other pics:

kitchen

dining room

front foyer

a snippet of the hardwood floors we will have for all of downstairs

master bath cabinet

master bath shower

Chicago

Last Wednesday through yesterday morning, Dave and I traveled to Chicago and South Bend, Indiana. In Chicago we visited some of his relatives, and my brother's wedding took place in South Bend on Saturday (pictures coming soon :) ). We definitely had a good time, although I was EXHAUSTED by the time we got home yesterday (and then we both went into work for a half day!).

I only took a few pics in Chicago, but here they are:

Me taking a picture of the giant metal bean (actually called the Cloud Gate) in Millennium Park.
(See me and Dave?)

Here we are standing in front of the Buckingham Fountain (to our left and in the pic below).
It was pretty amazing.

It was nice to spend some vacation time with my hunny. :)

Stone, cabinets, crown molding...

Our house has gotten quite a few updates since I last posted pictures!! Here are a few for your viewing pleasure...

You can see we now have our stone and our posts for our front porch. About all that's
missing from the exterior is our black front door and some lights.

kitchen

family room

stairway

front foyer

upstairs loft area

master bedroom

one side of master bath

other side of master bath

Pretty exciting, huh? Annoyingly, our closing date is still set for September 17th-22nd. Dave and I aren't thrilled about this, and it's going to require some effort from us to change a bunch of things that were depending on the house being done by the end of August. Oh well. That's life with builders, I guess.

Giveaway Winner

And the winner of the giveaway was....


Callie!!!


Callie is a blogger-friend I've come to know entirely through our blogs. I'm one of her frequent readers, and she's one of mine. She writes about all sorts of good life stuff...and about Jesus and her faith in Him, which I of course really enjoy. :) You can check out her great blog at http://throughcloudedglass.blogspot.com/.

Here's the door mat that Callie won:



Isn't it nice?
Congrats Callie!!

Trip to Charlotte

Two weekends ago (4th July weekend), Dave, the puppies, and I took a trip to Charlotte. Friday we spent the day on the lake on Dave's mom's and stepdad's boat with them and some friends. It was fun. :) Saturday during the day we went to a 4th of July celebration with his mom's family (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and all). Saturday evening we had dinner at Sion's parents' house and then watched fireworks, and the rest of the weekend we spent with Dave's dad. His stepmom was out of town and working most of the time, but we did get to have lunch with her on Sunday, which was nice. :) We also got to see his Granny. So many people!! Overall it was a pretty packed weekend, but it was great to visit and see everyone.

On the left: Dave's mom, her friend Jill, and Emily
On the right: Emily and Lael


On the left: Dave on the jet ski
On the right: Lael


On the left: Sion
On the right: Me and Todd, Dave's stepdad


Me and Emily floating and having a girly chat


Right before these pictures, Kelly in all seriousness asked us if his sunscreen was all rubbed in.
Umm....not quite.


Me


Newlyweds...don't they look so in love, haha.


Sion and Emily...and Elle in Emily's tummy (due in November :) )


Lael and Kelly


My studly husband in a Key West hat


I looked over to find Dave and his mom looking so cute sitting next to each other,
so I had to snap a couple pics. :)



Up close


Dave and his dad

PS Make sure to go back and sign up for my giveaway if you haven't already!

Giveaway and Company Girl Coffee 7.10.09

Good morning Company Girls. :)
(Wonder who the Company Girls are? Check them out here.)

I've been out of the loop for a couple weeks. How is everyone doing?

Dave and I locked in a rate on our new home yesterday. I'm glad the worrying and negotiating is over. Of course we have not reached the end of our troubles yet...we're finding things in the house that aren't as we expected, and we're not overly happy with the builders right now due to the closing date (currently estimated to be middle of September). But that's a long story for another day. You can see updates on the house here.

This week was a sad one. Our next door neighbor, a guy in his thirties, suddenly died in his apartment. Dave came home Tuesday to find a ton of cop cars and a CSI van in front of our apartment building. The whole situation is a bit crazy. You can read about it here. Please pray for his wife, who I'm sure is hurting greatly.

On a happier note, I need to do my giveaway!! I've been planning it for quite some time, but I wanted to save it for a Company Girls' day so all of you could participate.

Here's the deal...

I've been given the opportunity to do a free giveaway of the door mat below:


Isn't it cute? I really love the design. It's from CSN Rugs...if you're looking for an area rug, they're a good online store to check out. They have quite a selection.

So here are the rules: Just leave a comment on this post sometime within the next 7 days. I'll give everyone until midnight of next Thursday. Friday I will randomly select a winner from the people who have left a comment. For anyone reading this from the automatic upload on Facebook, please go to my actual blog at www.thekssblog.blogspot.com to enter. Only one entry per person, please.

So isn't that great? I actually wish I could participate in the giveaway, but I don't think that would deem me a very good blogger. :)

Have a great week everyone!
God bless.

Prayers for Candie

Last night, Dave and I found out that the guy who lives next door to us died Tuesday. He just got married in May, and his wife, Candie, is pregnant with their first child. She came home to find him dead in their apartment around lunchtime.

Among people I talk to, the cause of death is unknown. There have been suggestions that he had a health problem for which he was taking medication, and that's as much as we know.

Whatever the cause, I cannot imagine what his wife is going through right now. To lose a loved one at any time is so difficult...but to find your new husband and father of your unborn child dead in your own home is beyond my imagination. Please please please keep her in your prayers. She has a long road of pain and healing ahead of her. Not to mention a pregnancy to take care of and a baby to raise on her own.

It's so unsettling to think that a person I saw and said hello to almost daily is now just gone. Life is so short, and can be taken from us so quickly.

Once again, please pray for Candie.
Thanks and God bless.

Siding

Well our "maybe" house (I call it that because we're still semi-up-in-the-air) now has siding!

Last week they finished the brick and the windows:



And within the past two days they did all the siding:



Next comes the stone, driveway, back porch, and drywall. Hopefully it will move along swiftly and they'll put our closing date back where they told us it would be. And hopefully mortgage rates won't go any higher and we'll get a rate somewhat close to what we expected to get in the beginning. And hopefully they won't do anything else to frustrate us. And hopefully a better (i.e. everything we want and more affordable) house won't come along and catch our eye in the meantime. (Yes, I'm still very frustrated.)

One Year Anniversary @ the Lake

So I know this is a little late, but Dave and I had our one-year anniversary two weekends ago on June 21st. :)

We didn't do anything exciting to celebrate (we were too busy doing other things), but he did get me my new camera, and I "got" him ("got" in quotations because he's the one who purchased it) a new messenger bag.

We actually had plans on our anniversary to go to a lake party for our friend G's birthday. Here are a few pics from the day:

Meade and Abby


me and Dave


Debbie and Brian


The birthday boy, G


Abby and me

There were many other people there to celebrate, also (including G's wife, Mary...sorry I didn't get a pic of you!!) It was a good day. There was tubing and jet skiing and fun in the sun. :)