Father's Day Cards

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed a break from studying.  Being my mother's daughter, I had the itch to make something cute.  I had seen this idea for a tool belt Father's Day card, and I just had to make it for my dad.  I love how it turned out!  The idea came from http://ruelysicreativecards.blogspot.com/.

For Kelson's step-dad, I went for a Father's Day shirt card.  I thought it turned out kind of fun.

This is the one I am most proud of.  After making John's shirt card, I got a little out of control and made up a pattern to create Kelson's dress blue uniform (which is really black) out of paper.  I love it!  By the way, as a disclaimer, this is in no way an announcement that we are having a baby.  This one was a future father's day card.

I had a great time making father's day cards, and it was a fun way to celebrate the wonderful men in my life.  I am so grateful for my dad and for my husband who is going to be an incredible father someday.

Apparently you can have too much of a good thing...

I have always wanted to live in a house covered in ivy.  It just seems so old fashioned and romantic.  I finally have one!  I love the way it looks, but I am finding that you can have too much ivy...

See the greenery behind the TV?  I thought it was a houseplant. Guess again.

Yep, the ivy from outside is actually growing through the wall and into the house. Its like one of those shows on the discovery channel about how plants are going to tear down the buildings after all the people are gone.  I must say that it was quite a surprise to peek behind my tv and discover that the greenery was growing inside.  Weird!  We told the manager, so hopefully they will stop the ivy before it tears down our house or something.

Our Life is Awesome!

 Sunday afternoon, we wanted to get out of the house, but we had pretty much no gas in our car, so we decided to see what we could find within a few miles of our house. Within ten minutes, we drove through the little town of Phippsburg and down a random forest road to this dock, which was absolutely gorgeous. I wouldn't mind living in that house across the river.  What a view!

Looking at all of this gorgeousness that is pretty much in our back yard, we couldn't help but remark on how awesome our life is.  We really wanted to be stationed in Washington, but we would have missed out on this adventure! Blessings come in all kinds of interesting disguises.

Neither of us ever imagined ourselves spending time living in Maine, but we are very glad to be here.

Kelson jumping for joy

Spending the evening reveling in the beauty of nature was the perfect way to spend our Sabbath.  I look at this, and I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and is blessing us every day.

Date Night!

K

Kelson and I haven't been able to have a lot of weekly date nights during our relationship due to the complication of living 3000 miles away from each other most of the time, so we are excited to get to have dates now that we are married.  This week, we planned a picnic, but then it started raining.  No worries, we just moved it to this gazebo downtown. 

I made foil dinners and brownies.  They were quite delicious.

I'm afraid that I completely disgusted Kelson by eating mine with ketchup.  Doesn't everyone eat foil dinners with ketchup? I'm pretty sure it's totally normal.

The view of the park from the gazebo.  I'd say we did pretty good finding a lovely picnic spot in the rain.

The Winter Street church.  Beautiful!

Exploring Bath

I have started taking lots of walks, which is a fun way to explore my new home. This was one of my favorite houses I found on a recent walk.

Then, I stumbled upon this small, private school that is surrounded by the most beautiful grounds.

They had the biggest rhododendron bush I have ever seen.  Gorgeous!

In the middle was a pond with a little island in the middle and this adorable bridge leading across to it. It looks like something from a Monet painting.  I am going to make Kelson take me on a picnic here.  Love it!

Silver Linings

Our street is even prettier at sunrise.

On the left you can see Bath Iron Works, where Kelson's ship is and where Kelson spends every day.  It is just down the street from our house. 

I love that this park is right across the street from our house!

A couple of days ago, Kelson was gone, and I was woken up a little before 5:00 in the morning by some mysterious noise in our house. It was 5:00 in the morning, I was awake, I was nervous, and I also had a headache. I wasn't in the best mood.  After I had verified that there wasn't, in fact, an intruder in my house, I went downstairs to take some medicine before I went back to bed.  When I got downstairs, I noticed that the clouds behind the trees were pink from the sunrise.  I had a feeling that the sunrise was beautiful over the river, so I decided to take the opportunity to get dressed and go across the street to the park that overlooks the Kennebec River.  After all, I am rarely up at 5:00 in the morning. My mood vastly improved as I watched this beautiful sunrise over the river. It turned out that my early morning was really a blessing rather than an inconvenience.  Too bad Kelson wasn't home to share it with me.

Our First House

Welcome to our home! We absolutely love it.  Doesn't this just look like somewhere I would live?                                 Notice the bit of white picket fence, which is one of my favorite things.  I was trying to do a video tour, but I ran into technical difficulties, so this is a ridiculously long post full of pictures.

front view of the house

Our side yard with the flower garden toward the back.

The house was built in 1900, and it has all kinds of interesting, old features, such as these nifty light switches  where you push the buttons to turn the lights on and off.

Just inside the front door.  Kitchen straight ahead, living room to the right.

Stained glass looking out over the garden.

Our formal living room.  The books on the shelves include such fascinating topics as dream interpretation, palmistry, phrenology, herbal medicine, and tarot card reading. Our landlady apparently has eclectic taste.

French doors going from the living room into the formal dining room.

Formal dining room. We always eat dinner in here.  Notice the various wallpaper prints in all of the rooms.   

Our landlady used to be an antique dealer, which must be why we have an absurd amount of antique furniture.  There are two desks in the dining room, because obviously you need more than one.

Entering the kitchen from the dining room. We enjoy eating breakfast and lunch overlooking the flower garden. 

Our family room, complete with wood stove and miniscule TV.  The window looks out on to the garden.

In case you are wondering if this house was made for me, browse through the cd titles we found in the house.  Almost all of them are Christmas albums.  Kelson put one on for me as soon as we walked in the door.

Like I said, our house is full of random things.  For example, this cat.  It is by the front door, so I thought it might be a doorstop.  Nope.  It is just a creepy stuffed cat. It definitely belongs here.

Now for the upstairs: This is our landing, complete with sitting area, an extra dresser, and all kinds of random items.

Our guest bedroom.  Now we just need some guests...hint,hint...

Our bedroom, with yet another set of white bedding.  There is entirely too much white in this                                           house-bedspreads, carpets, couches, etc. It is really an accident waiting to happen.

You know when you are watching a scary movie, and the stupid people can't seem to resist going into the creepy attic? I know how they feel.  Our attic door is padlocked, and I have never had such a great desire to pick a lock before.

view from our upstairs windows

our bathroom-gotta love the wallpaper

I mentioned that the house was full of interesting antiques.  Isn't this the coolest toothbrush holder you've ever seen?  Unfortunately, our toothbrushes don't fit in it.

Stairs down to the basement.  Yes, it is as steep and creepy as it looks.  Too bad you can't smell the combination of mothballs and mildew.  It really completes the effect.

Our house, like most of the houses around here, is built directly on  the granite hillside.   When it rains, the water comes up through the ground into the basement, so there are little channels for it to run through and a dehumidifier to keep the basement from molding.  Very interesting.

Doesn't everyone have a gallery of antique paintings in their basement?

Random extra sitting room in the basement. This may be a nice place to hang out in the summer.

We saw this little door in the wall, so of course we opened it.  It goes into the crawl space, which is full of yet more furniture, old windows, and various stuff.  If you are looking for something, you could probably find it in our basement.  Everything is down there.  I'm pretty sure our landlady rents this house out so that she won't have to clean it out.

Another side view.  That door goes into the basement sitting room.