The "Un"official End of Summer

What a weekend! Can you believe Labor Day has already come and gone? Unbelievable!

We had a special treat this holiday weekend. Typically Paul has to work on holidays, unless of course the store is closed. Every so often we'll be lucky to get him for a full day on Memorial Day or the 4th of July, but usually he has to work the day before or the day after, so our plans are limited. This year my extended family had loosely planned a camping trip for this weekend. As soon as I knew this was a possibility, I made sure that Paul requested these 3 days off so that he could go with us. Unfortunately the camping trip fell through (my aunt said it just didn't work...I'm convinced its because they all went to the Iowa game!) but...fortunately this meant that both Paul and I had three full days off with absolutely NOTHING to do! And I mean nothing, zilch, ZERO! No wedding, no football game, no family reunion! I can't remember the last time that happened.

So, Thursday night Paul indulged me and tagged along for the Iowa State/Northern Illinois game (Go STATE!) and Friday we both headed to work with an excitement I recall as being vaguley reminscent of the last few days before summer break! Finally 5:00 on Friday came and we were FREE! Okay...I know I'm being a little dramatic, but this really doesn't happen often!

Saturday morning I was able to get up and go work out without getting a babysitter! We spent the afternoon lounging around, watching football and doing a little cleaning. We ended the day with brats on the grill, and made the mistake of leaving the kids alone in the kitchen for a few minutes. You know that panicked feeling  you get when you realize your kids are being too quiet...yeah, we had that right before we found this:

KETCHUP FIGHT!!!! I bet you can't tell who won! I was actually quite proud of Paul and I. We just laughed with them and took some pictures and video. We are both trying very hard not to worry so much about the mess, noise, injuries, or clean-up that these little events cause. Everything can be cleaned up and if it makes us laugh, its probably not that serious!

Sunday morning was Paul's turn to head to the gym. I'm guessing looking back he is a little regretful that he left me home alone, with my Pottery Barn catalog, knowing he still had 2 days off! By the time he got home I had so many ideas I could hardly stand it!

First on the list, paint the bathroom. I loved the color of our bathroom. It was called Mustang and was a beautiful dark raisin color. Paul thought it was too dark, so I finally gave in and changed the color. It is now a beautiful green called Artichoke. I figured since I went through the work of picking out the color and going to the store, it was only fair to let Paul do the painting...I would hate for him to feel left out!

Doesn't he look happy about it!

The second item on the list of my brilliant ideas was a little bit more time consuming and labor intensive. Shortly after Paul and I got married my father gave us a beautiful oak table with matching chairs and bartsools. I have loved this set but over the years my taste/style has changed. I have kicked around the idea of selling the set and buying new, but just couldn't quite get myself to 1. get rid of such a fantastically made table and 2. sell something that was given to me by my father. So, I have been trying to figure out the best way to refinish our table so that it better suites our taste. That's when I saw this post on my friend Missy's blog. [Side note: it was Missy's blog that inspired me to start one of my own!] That was it! I would have my super handy brother whip up a new top for the table, paint it and voila! The only problem is I have no patience and didn't want to wait for my brother to build one my brother is a newlywed and I would hate to ask him to take time away from his family to work on this for me. So, I decided to go ahead and do the painting and can add the new top down the road. 

So, I spent all day Sunday and Monday sanding, painting, painting, painting and polyeurathaning my "new" table and chairs. The barstools aren't quite done, but so far I couldn't be happier with how they have turned out. They need a little more drying time before I can decorate them and make them pretty we can use them, but I promise to post pics as soon as I can!

We ended this great weekend with a barbeque at Paul's parents house. Everyone was there! Matt & Mikki with Kaleigh, Cameron & Kalista and Travis & Lisa with Justin & Emily. The kids had a great time playing outside while us girls sat around the table and talked. Its fun to watch Emily and Kaleigh as they navigate their way through the beginning of the teen years. They are both so much more level-headed than I was at that age! Of course, this is a realization that I didn't have until I was in my very late 20's and the mother of two!

I hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend as much as we did!

Stephanie