Tractors Chains and Mud

Hi Friends!  Like all my other posts, I'm a bit late in sharing our adventures.  Meh...oh well.  So this entry is about the events of last week and last weekend!

The week was pretty productive for Jordan and I.  We'd had a lot of projects very close to "done" but they still required last steps to fully finish them.  It was nice to check a couple of those OFF our list!  One of those projects was our laundry room cabinets!  You saw my post about Jordan and Dad installing these a few weeks ago, but Jordan was able to finish the details last week.  I've captured a couple of pictures for ya'll below:

Top Left: These are the finished cabinets, wall to wall!  Since the mirror was there, I had to waive to ya'll.  I've had that mirror since I was a child and love it! 

Top Right: There was a little gap that needed to be filled in so Jordan trimmed a board and caulked it between the wall and cabinet.  The first attempt failed because we realized too late that the board was severely bowed.  Bummer, but lesson learned.  I'm really pleased with the design, size, and shape of our finished cabinets.  I'm able to put SO much stuff in them and our laundry room looks very tidy now.

Bottom Right and Left: Since we kept the existing shelf that was originally in the laundry room, we had a tiny gap between the shelf and new cabinets.  To hide this, Jordan put a nice piece of corner-round to finish it off and it looks like the cabinets have been there all along!  Jordan and Dad did a wonderful job and I'm so thrilled to have this little job complete!

Throughout the week, Jordan had been working on insulating our garage door.  The insulation wont do much since our garage door has windows, but it might keep the temperatures more balanced when the weather swings from super sweltering to freezing cold!

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Again, this is looking really good!  If any of you want to do this little project, it's pretty easy to do.  Jordan found 3/4 inch insulation at Lowes and it comes in all kinds of sizes.  The sheets are labeled with a handy R-Value metric that tells you how well it insulates.  The particular sheets we bought were R-Value 4.  

After talking to Jordan I'm going to see if we can use a piece from the scraps as a table pad on our new buffet in the kitchen.  Having some sort of light weight but thick pad will protect the wood from being burned with hot pans and I think this will work perfectly!  Plus, it's well timed since Thanksgiving is on the way!

Last weekend, we loaded up our usual car full of gear and headed to the lake.  Jordan had picked up our pieces of glass from our date night at the Marrs Glass Studio earlier this month, and Mom and Dad were excited to see the finished pieces!

Mom immediately got flowers into Dad's beautiful vase and she set up a pretty hook so that she could hang her ornament in the window.  Their pieces compliment each other very well.

This particular lake trip was one of the most relaxing visits we had (not that any of them are stressful)!  The weather was perfect so it wasn't draining to be outside.

Mandy (my cousin) and I spent about an hour sitting in the lounge chairs with Abby under an umbrella.  Jordan and Scott where kind enough to bring us waters and such while we visited together, so maybe that's one of the reasons why it was so nice..lol!  We had fun scheming about our Fall plans, in particular, Thanksgiving!  I also threw in a "cameo" of my Canon in the above picture.  This camera was a Christmas gift last year, and I've enjoyed using it so much.

Before dinner, Jordan and I thought we would take a drive in the jitney on the beach.  You know, I wanted to snap a couple of lake pictures to share with you all.  The "beach" isn't a new thing at the lake.  Ever since the water receded so much, it's become very common for off road vehicles to drive around on the "beach" in between the weeds (and trees).  Well....the water level had dropped even more this month, making the sand more than a little treacherous.  I just HAD to get a closer picture of a stranded old boat that had recently surfaced, so we drove the jitney a little too close to the water line and got completely stuck.  

Let's just say, we got ourselves into a bit of trouble with Mom and I suddenly had plenty of material around me to photograph...lol.

These are various pictures of the mud fiasco.  The tire was completely stuck in muddy "pudding" with no one around except me, Jordan, Abby, Sophie, and the quiet breeze.  Whoopsies...  

We sat there for a few minutes calling around to see if someone could rescue us.  (Thank goodness Jordan had his cell phone with him.)  Just when we were talking about an action plan to walk back, Mom and Dad showed up on the 4-wheeler.  Luckily for us, Mom and Dad were pretty forgiving; after all, this would be another opportunity for Dad to use his tractor!

In the end, we had a neighbor (on his own tractor), Dad with his tractor, Aunt Cindy and Uncle Robert, Scott, John, and Mandy all at the beach to watch us get hauled out.  It was a little pre-dinner entertainment/show/shame moment.

Top: I just think this picture is hilarious with Abby's head cocked to the side.  She's a totally innocent party and doesn't understand why she can't jump down and run around in the "pudding"!

Bottom Left: Mandy was kind enough to hold on to Abby while the jitney got hauled out.

Bottom Right:  Jordan was in such a rush to get the jitney home and cleaned up!  I've never seen him move so fast! 

These are a couple other honorable mention pictures for you all:

Left: Scott and Jordan grilling hot dogs for everyone!

Right: Scott being manly with the tractor chains.  Where there's a tractor, one must have at least 3 or 4 chains, right?

And, of course, the food was incredible per the usual lake menu!

Top Left: Mandy and I made cupcakes for Scott's birthday.  Happy birthday bro!

All other pics are just a typical dinner and morning breakfast (for the masses)!  We don't cook on a small scale at the lake.

While at the lake, Mom and I had switched pieces of furniture so I was super excited to get our new buffet set up in our kitchen when we got home.  It's been a full week now with this new buffet and I'm still really thrilled with how it looks in our kitchen.  This piece of furniture makes our kitchen look very elegant.

Left Top and Bottom: The new buffet in our kitchen!  I already have this sucker full of our china, silverware, and other goodies!

Right: Jordan bought me some flowers to enjoy throughout the week!  He chose excellent colors and the flowers have lasted a long time! 

Well, that's the full update for ya'll!  Until next time!