A FEW THINGS...

Occasionally I have several things to tell you that aren't necessarily post worthy by themselves, so I throw them all together to keep you updated on what's happening around here.  Here are a few things that we've done over the Summer at our house!

Our first big Summer project was that we had the exterior of the house painted.  Since we have a brick house that mostly just means painting trim around the house.  We went from a brownish tan on all of the trim to a creamy white.  These are just quick iphone pics and it was getting dark when I snapped them, but you get the idea.  We had already painted the patio ceiling and trim white when we did that addition, so we used the same color on the rest of the exterior.  (Sherwin Williams Simple White #7021)

We would like to get new garage doors at some point, but for now I'm considering painting them a darker complementary color.  I need to check out some options and get some samples.

It seems we've been spending all of our money outside this year... after living in this home for over 11 years, we finally had a sprinkler system installed!

You can see where they dug to put the lines in.  I'm so excited about being able to water now while we're out of town, and not to be dragging a hose and sprinkler around all Summer!  In the past it seems like I would just get all of my summer planting done, and then we would go on vacation for a week and I'd pray for rain the whole time we were gone!  (My sweet sister would stop by and water pots for me, but that's a big chore to ask someone to cover!)

The best thing about our new system is... it's all run by wi-fi!  We can access it from our phones or computer.  All of the zones are displayed and we can set up our watering schedule, turn it off or on at the touch of a button no matter where we are, and monitor our water usage and zone timing. Pretty cool!

One more recent exterior project... We used to have a gas post lantern in our front flowerbed, but several years ago the bottom rusted out because it had not been mounted in concrete.  We removed it but turned the gas line off and kept it in place, hoping to replace the lantern in the future.  Since then we came across another lantern that someone in the neighborhood was throwing out that was in great condition (other than needing a paint job) so we scooped it up. Fast forward a few years and we finally got it re-installed!  We needed a plumber to clean out the line and he basically had to re-build the light but I'm so happy to have it back.  The concrete base is still curing so in a day or two I'll get it painted black and put the glass back in.  I could have shopped for a new one but I like the simple, traditional design of this one.  This is just a quick progress pic, in addition to painting the light I need to get the bed cleaned up and re-mulched after all the work they've done.  Can't wait to have that gas flame burning this Fall!

I never shared our summer vacation with you here, but we had a great time in Florida!  I would venture to say the sugar sand beaches and brilliant waters along Highway 30A rival some of the most beautiful anywhere.  We stayed in a beachfront condo about a mile outside of Seaside.  We cooked all of our meals in our condo and didn't venture out too much other than some leisure time later in the evenings.  The town of Seaside is absolutely quaint and darling but also quite crowded, so I was glad we weren't waiting in lines for dinner each night.  Since we spent most of our time on the beach and not in Seaside proper, I did not write a post about it but if you're interested in the area Mallory has a great Seaside post here.

One tip I will give... if you travel through Pensacola to get to the area beaches, check to see if the Blue Angels happen to be doing a practice run on the day you're passing through.   Or, if you're staying close to Pensacola, it's worth driving into town to see the show especially if you have airplane fanatics in your family!  Check here for more details and their practice schedule.  It refers to where you can view the show on the Naval Aviation Museum grounds, but the jets fly up and down the beach for miles around the area, so you'll likely be able to see them if you're anywhere along the beach.  We just found a random waterfront spot to stop and park and hopped out and watched them.   There are so many air bases all along the coast of Florida that even in Seaside, it was cool to see all kinds of planes doing fly-bys along the coastline each day.

Many of you know that my husband is a minister.  He has a heart for leadership too and has recently taken up blogging again.  You might enjoy his recent post regarding marriage that he wrote after we celebrated his parents' 60th anniversary.

We turned around a few times and the Summer was over.  The kids are back in school, Caleb is a Senior this year and Emily is a Sophomore.

On his first day of school for his senior year, he came home to find he received his first (and only since it's the only school he was interested in) college acceptance letter in the mail... what a big day!

He is looking forward to his last year in High School Marching Band and loving every minute.

I just came across these monogram stickers at Hobby Lobby.  There are 2 sets of each letter and lots of different frames in every pack, so you can mix and match the initials you want to use.  They happened to be on clearance at my store so I snatched them up!  They're great for the front of my planner, labeling special notecards for a friend, my daughter's school notebooks... tons of things!  I found them in the scrapbook section with all of the other letter stickers, just thought I'd share in case you want to try to find some too!

Alright, I think that's all of my random updates for today!

P.S.- My email for yesterday's post mistakenly didn't get delivered until super late last night.  If you missed it and a recipe for Homemade Butterfinger Ice Cream interests you, be sure to check it out!  :)

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