Reunion and Other Things

This past weekend I had my ten-year class reunion.  It was nice!  We had about 15 people show up out of the 33 we graduated with.  I guess that's a good turn out, but I don't know.  It really surprised me who did not show up, but oh well their loss.  I thought it was interesting that the same cliques from high school still hung out together, but at the same time it makes sense.

We had the reunion at the Green Dickson Park in Shiner.  Thankfully the weather was cooler since we had it at one of the outdoor pavilions.  We asked people to bring snack food to munch on and the class officers bought a cake for everyone.  I ordered the cake from Brookshire Brothers in Hallettsville and it was very delicious!  However, the lady that took my order over the phone must not have fully understood what I wanted written on the cake despite repeating the wording back to me correctly.

Do you notice the problem?

Yep, apparently we graduated in 2013 and were already celebrating our ten-year reunion!  I did the best I could to fix it....

Here are some pics of us prior to the reunion.

You know I love selfies!

I really love my puppy dog.  She has such a personality.  I took these pics one morning because she was being so sweet.

And then I get the cheesy smile!  So sweet!

Media Room (aka Man Room)

Currently, our media room is the most complete room in our house.  Andy absolutely loves it!!  I think it's awesome, and our big screen TV looks huge (the picture doesn't do it justice) since the room is so cozy.  We will definitely be spending a lot of time in this room.


Love the gray walls! 
Love everything about it!

Andy had to have his first beer in the "man" room!

Laminate Wood Flooring

Andy and I chose to use Lumber Liquidators for our laminate wood floors.  Little did we know, our installation process ended up being more work on our part than I had ever expected.  But before I get to that drama I do want to say, we absolutely love our floors!!  They look beautiful.  They are the perfect color.  They are the perfect look for our house.  We love them!

Now, would I use Lumber Liquidators again?  I don't know.  Would I recommend them to a friend?  I don't know.  Would I purchase my flooring from them again?  Yes, they have great prices.  Would I have them install my floors again?  I don't know.  Here's the deal... I don't know if it's the company in general or if we had trouble simply because of the specific store we used.  With chain businesses, they all have different managers for each individual store so the problems could be because of the individual store we chose.  Had we picked another store, we may have had no problems whatsoever.  I am not 100% against Lumber Liquidators, but I am hesitant to say they are the best.

Ordering our flooring was very easy.  Our flooring arrived in the time frame they told us.  We picked up the flooring ourselves to save the delivery fee and that was a very easy process too.  So far, so good.  The installation manager came to our house to measure everything to make sure had ordered enough flooring.  That process went smoothly as well.  We scheduled Friday, July 5th for the installation crew to come to our house to check the floors if they were level.  If they were not level, then they would need to put down leveling compound.  Andy received a phone call around 9:15 from the installation manager that the crew would be at our house after they finished up a project at another house.  We were okay with this because we needed to finish up our painting before they arrived.  So, 1:00 rolls around and still no installation crew.  Then 4:00 rolls around and now we're getting impatient, so Andy calls the manager.  We find out that the crew did not show up to work that morning and that no one is coming to our house.  Andy is livid!  Why did you not call me when you knew your crew did not show up to work?  Seriously?  What if we had not been teachers and one of us had taken off of work because we needed to be at the house?  Very frustrating.

Long story short, we were told a new crew would show up on Saturday after they finished another project.  They show up around 2:00pm.  We ended up speaking to several managers at Lumber Liquidators because it's Saturday and our floors were supposed to be complete so we could pick up our new furniture.  We were told that the crew would finish the floors completely.  And they did until 8:30 that night.  They did not take the trash with them because they did not have the appropriate vehicle, and they did not caulk our shoe molding.  I called the next day (Sunday) to ask Lumber Liquidators to send someone to dispose of the trash and they said they would send someone.  We were gone to my class reunion, and when we got home our trash had not been picked up and it was blown all over our neighbor's yard.  How embarrassing!  So, I call back on Monday and explain my story and how frustrated I am about them telling me they are going to do something and it not being done.  Andy is... well... pissed.  There's no other way to describe it.  We spent $3500 on flooring and did not receive $3500 worth of service.  Andy ended up driving to the store to return the unused leveling compound and spoke with the manager.  They discussed several of our complaints and the manager decided he would refund us some money to help make things right.  We were concerned about some soft spots in our flooring and the installation manager came to our house the next day to verify that the soft spots were normal with laminate flooring.  He did reassure us that what we felt was normal and that as the flooring acclimated more to the house the spots may go away completely.  Oh yeah, someone did finally come get the trash and dispose of it.

Here are some pictures of our floors in different lighting.

Painting Walls

We wanted to paint a wall in our bedroom, a wall in the living room, and the entire media room.  We waited until we pulled up all the carpet for the flooring installation.  I didn't realize painting was that tiring, but I've never painted that much either.  Thankfully none of the walls in our house are white.  Andy and I vowed to never have just plain white walls in a house again.  We just like the light beige color for walls so much better.  They just seem much warmer than white walls.  Now, there are some room designs that I have seen recently with white walls and it's beautiful.  I just don't want white walls in the entire house.

Andy painted the blue wall in our bedroom.  The brown curtains are absolutely hideous, in my opinion.  They were the curtains left by the previous owners.  I will definitely be replacing them, so try to ignore them in the picture.  We had a light blue wall in our bedroom at our old house, and I definitely wanted something darker.  This color turned out perfectly!

Andy wanted light gray walls for the media room or man room as he calls it.  We love, love, love, love the wall color in this room.  Definitely one of my favorites!!  I think it is Andy's favorite wall color, and I know it's his favorite room in the house.

I am not a huge fan of loud, bright color.  However, I went to a friend's house and she has a Tiffany's blue color wall in her living room.  I fell in love!  I told Andy that in our living room I wanted a bright, loud color.  I told him that I wanted people to see the wall and think "wow, that is unexpected but it looks great."  And boy did I pick a loud and bright color!!  It's called Granny Smith Apple...

While we painted, Andy kept singing "Casa Ole..."

It has dulled significantly over the past few days and looks fabulous!  It is no longer a lime green color, but actually looks like a Granny Smith Apple.  I love it!!  I need to take a picture of what it looks like now.

New Living Room Furniture

For the past six years, Andy and I have had a microfiber sectional couch with chaise and a recliner.  We have loved it!  The fabric is extremely durable and easy to clean.  However, Maddie sheds more hair than we were expecting.  All of the research we had done when we decided what dog we wanted said that Brittany Spaniels shed minimally.  Ha!  Not my dog.  When we bought our new house, we had an extra room for our old furniture and I wanted new leather furniture for the living room. 

We decided to go shopping before 4th of July, and apparently that's the best time to shop for furniture.  Every store we went to said that 4th of July was their biggest sale of the year.  Woohoo!  Good for us!  We stopped by Bel Furniture, Ashley Furniture, La-Z-Boy, and Rooms-to-Go.  Bel and Ashley Furniture both had living room sets that we liked, but one of us had a problem with the other one's favorite.  La-Z-Boy was too expensive for the budget we had set, so we didn't stay there very long.  We headed to Rooms-to-Go last and found our perfect living room set.  The sales associate that helped us was a little Asian woman and she was fantastic!!!  She was very knowledgeable and not too pushy.  She knew exactly what we wanted and steered us to all of their options.  We ended up spending about $250 over our original budget, but we both completely loved the furniture.

Here is a picture of it in the store.  We chose the brown color, technically called burgundy.  We got the 3-piece set of sofa, loveseat, and recliner.  We do not have a coffee table, lamp tables, or entertainment center yet, but those will come eventually.

Rooms-to-Go does not offer free delivery.  I tried to negotiate it, but it was non-negotiable.  Delivery would have been an additional $125 on top of the extra $250 we already paid for it so we opted to pick it up ourselves.  We bought the furniture on Tuesday and picked up it Saturday.  Here are a couple of pictures of the furniture actually in our house.  I am currently on the hunt for a floor rug, coffee table, lamp tables, etc.  So, please don't be too critical that the room looks really bare because it is, but I'm working on it.  Also, the furniture looks really dark in the pictures, and it is dark but not quite that dark.  I am hoping to find a lighter colored rug so that I can break up the browns from the floor and furniture.



Lonestar was NOT a fan of the new furniture.  After our flooring was installed (which I'll get to that in another post), he stayed in our bedroom under the bed for a couple of days.  He finally came out on his own, and I snapped this picture of him as he was "exploring" the living room.

Clogged Dryer Vent

As I mentioned in the previous post, yesterday started out relatively stressful.  Andy mowed the yard while I did our first load of laundry in the new house.  Everything was hooked and was good to go or so I thought.  The washer worked fine.  Our dryer, on the other hand, not so much.  When I opened up the dryer to check on the towels, I noticed an electrical smell.  I had never noticed this smell in our previous home, so I thought maybe it needed to warm up since it had been unplugged and unused for over a week.  I turned it back on for a little bit and opened the door again.  Still smelled electrical.  So I kept it off until Andy finished the yard and could come in to smell it.  Sure enough, Andy verified the weird smell and actually said it more of an electrical burning smell.  Not good!  I won't leave my dryer running when no one is home, so this really had me worried. 

Andy went outside to check the vent and there was no air coming out of it.  Great... we have a clog... in a pipe... that we can't reach.  I immediately googled dryer vent cleaning companies.  I found one and called them.  They had an open appointment the same day between 12:00 and 2:00, but it was going to cost $139 plus tax.  Ouch!  Andy thought that he might be able to suck out the clog with our shop-vac, but he had no luck.  So, I called the company back and scheduled the appointment.  The guy that showed up was extremely nice and helpful.  Andy followed him around everywhere to see the process because we might be able clean it ourselves and save the 150 dollars.  It took him about an hour and apparently there was a relatively large clog.  I wish I had taken a picture of it, but I was too busy cleaning the kitchen.  We were actually looing the wrong vent in the beginning.  Our dryer vent releases through the roof which is good to know.  But either way, we have a clean dryer vent now!!  I am just glad I can wash and dry my clothes safely and not worry about burning my home down.

We have a home warranty on the house and it covers a great deal of things.  But, of course, the one thing it did not cover was a dryer vent cleaning.  We are actually upset with the inspector that he didn't catch it.  Andy said you could see the clog if you simply looked in the vent.  I may call the inspection company we used and complain.  We paid them $500 to inspect our house, and they could have, should have found that clog!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Sunday Andy and I went on a wild goose chase trying to purchase a new gas grill.  We sold our original BBQ pit because it was half gas and half charcoal.  Now that we have a covered back patio on the new house, we wanted to just have the gas grill.  Plus, that's really all we've been cooking on lately.  Anyway, we purchased the grill at one Academy and then had to drop it off at another Academy so that it could be assembled on Monday.  I was a little nervous about all this because Andy was supposed to grill steaks for my birthday.  Thankfully, all went smoothly and we have a new gas grill!

Weber Spirit E-210 Gas Grill
It's the perfect size for our back patio!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday.  I really don't feel 28, and at my old school the teachers and students thought I looked like a student.  The day actually started out quite stressful which I'll get to that in a different post.  The weather was actually relatively cool so Andy mowed the yard for us.  We are definitely going to have to stay on top of the yard and landscaping since we are living in a subdivision now.  Honestly, the landscaping that the previous owners had done is ugly, in my opinion.  I really like planting new flowers and doing landscaping-type things, so I am looking forward to having some time to do that.  Plus, I want to win yard of the month one time!

Here are a couple of pictures of Andy hard at work mowing!

On Sunday we had decided to invite my parents and Andy's parents over for my birthday on Monday evening.  Andy grilled steaks which he purchased at a local meat market, and they were absolutely delicious!  We also had corn-on-the-cob, baked potatoes, salad, and I had asked my mom to make a birthday cake.  It was nice to be close enough to my mom and step-dad that they could come over and hang out with us.  It was actually the first time they had seen the new house.  Andy's parents had already been by before we actually bought the house.  I had a great birthday and am so blessed by what the Lord has given me.  He has truly guided and protected Andy and I and my family. 

Our wrapping paper is still in the storage building so Andy had to improvise with newspaper and foil.  I thought it was super cute!

 

My birthday would not be complete if I didn't get something from Vera Bradley.  I actually got two things this year - an apron (which you can see in the pic below) and a tervis tumbler cup.