trumps in town.

a few weeks ago our house was jam-packed with trumps. my dad, my stepmom, my little sister, and my little brother and his girlfriend all came to visit us. seth and ally arrived on friday night just in time for us to head down to riverbend to see florida georgia line perform followed by jake owen. it was super crowded. had just rained so it was super humid and ridiculously hot. but fortunately we were able to find a good spot to stand where there weren't people bumping into us every three seconds. and despite a terrible, terrible adventure to ihop later that night, we had a blast!

dad, robin and jessie arrived on saturday afternoon and we went back to riverbend again saturday night for cee-lo's controversial act. the weather was much nicer {though it was still very hot!}.

on sunday, it was rainy for most of the day so we hung out around the house, drank margaritas and played board games. then we grilled out and had cake to celebrate robin's birthday!

it was so good to have the trumps in town. our house was crowded for sure, but we had a great time! i hope they all come back soon!

365 days in our house!

whoa man. can you believe it's already been a whole year that we've lived in our house? it doesn't feel like it's been that long since we were arguing negotiating with the sellers on the price and then anxiously awaiting all the approval things that have to happen.

lots has happened around the highland project in our first year here. remember what it looked like before we even moved all of our belongings in?

here it is on the outside when we first moved in.

and after 6 months of living here {looks so much better with green on the trees, too!}.

back in august i updated pictures of each room of the house showing our progress so far and i had intended on doing the same for the one year mark, but really not that much has changed since august. but i do need to share a few things we've done here and there.

first, we installed a new storm door on the front of the house. check out the old metal one in the picture above. yuck, right? now look at this beauty.

you can finally see all of my pretty teal door without aluminum blocking the view. and while we were at it we went ahead and installed a peephole {so i can know who's knocking on my door} and switched out the doorbell for a lighted and prettier one.

curb appeal is looking up!

next, we did a little update to our master bathroom. most recently the bathroom looked like this:

and the first thing we set out to do was to install a vent fan and light over the tub.

ta-da!

and as you can see, we painted the room as well {don't worry about those stripes in the picture, they're shadows from the texture of the glass in our light fixture over the sink}. this picture doesn't really show the true color of the paint.

it's much more blue-ish grey, like this:

we also updated all of the accessories in the room which were mostly oil-rubbed bronze, now they're brushed nickel.

quite a while ago we finally painted some chair to have around our kitchen table. oddly enough, they're pretty similar in color to the new wall color in our bathroom, but not on purpose. you can see the chairs around the table here from when austin and i had our little thanksgiving dinner.

and lastly, we got a garage door opener for the second bay in the garage so now austin is able to park inside, too! we got it installed just in time, really, right before it started getting cold enough to have to scrape ice off the car in the mornings.

i think that's about it for changes around the house lately, but we've got big plans for once i'm done with school and working {and getting paid for it-finally!}. i seriously cannot wait to get my diy on in that kitchen!

don't forget you can check out all the new house related posts here and see an entire list of all the projects we've tackled so far and what we've got left do here on the our home page.

also, a very happy, happy birthday to austin. on thursday we celebrated 27 years of austin by going to dinner at urban stack with some of his family.

p.s. don't get the mint chocolate chip milkshake at urban stack unless you like really gross, liquidy milkshakes that taste like leaves.

2012 wrap up.

whoa man. can you believe today is the last day of 2012? and to think, we were all told we'd never make it past the 21st. just like past years, here's a recap of the year in my life/blog.

apparently the month of january was less than eventful. but the year did start off with champagne, so... no compaints.

in february we bought a house. kind of a big deal.

read all about our house projects here and check out our checklist here.

we also celebrated austin's birthday in february.

march was somewhat uneventful too. work on the house, go to school, work on the house.

we got lots of work done on the outside of our house in april when momma and my timmy came to see us!

and miss juliet turned seven!

school's out for summer in may. which, of course, meant more work on the house.

june is always a good month. this year kasey came to visit.

i blogged everyday through wedding week 2012 leading up to our second wedding anniversary.

austin and i took a little trip back home in july to visit the family.

dad and robin came out to tennessee to see our new house in august.

and lindsy and katie surprised me by coming in town for the adpi beta beta house opening. bri came, too!

september was a fun month, too. austin and i took a trip to gatlinburg!

you guys know my favorite month of the year is october. always. austin took me camping and i wore lots of camo.

and he made me a cake!

we did the usual thanksgiving thing in november.

and obviously december was full of christmas, family, and friends.

so that's that. 2012 in summary. i'd say it was a pretty good year. but i have to say i've got a lot to look forward to in 2013. big things. like graduation. and a job.

p.s. here you can see my year-end posts from 2010 and 2011.

birthday week extravaganza part 2

have you been sitting on the edge of your seat since i posted birthday week extravaganza part 1? no? oh, well. here's part two even if you weren't anxiously waiting...

for my birthday eve dinner, austin cooked me a delicious meal of vegetarian barbecue meatloaf and mashed potatoes at my request. he also made me quite possibly the best cake i've ever had. seriously. peanut butter cake with whipped cream and peanut butter icing topped with graham cracker crumbs, drizzled chocolate and chocolate shavings. oh. em. gee.

{somewhat unrelated and very blurry picture of my cute puppy begging for cake which she was of course given and loved every bite of it}

on the day of my birthday austin's family took us out to eat at fork and pie {one of my new favorite places}. i had the spinach orzo pie and chocolate chess pie for dessert. i highly recommend each of these.

thursday evening, we all went downtown to the aquarium.

i had an awesome birthday week, the celebrations just kept on and on and who could complain about that? thanks to everyone for the sweet cards, texts, phone calls, etc sending me birthday wishes. although i do have to say that the best call of them all was my momma calling to sing me our family's special birthday song. made. my. day.

so here's to the next 365 days of my life {less than that now, but you get the point} until my next birthday!

birthday week extravaganza part 1

in case you missed it, my birthday was wednesday. and in case you don't know me my birthday is kind of a big deal. so for the past week or so we've been celebrating my birthday with lots of fun activities.

{also, if you did miss the fact that it was my birthday we might not be friends anymore. just kidding. sort of.}

for starters, austin, ben and i went camping on the hiwassee at gee creek campground. i've been begging austin to take me camping for literally years and since i was on fall break from school combined with it being my birthday week austin had no choice but to take me.

so we borrowed the cr-v and packed it to the top. i don't really understand how three people and one dog need so much junk for one night of camping.

camping fashion. love it? please note my failure to pack a hair brush...

the park rangers had some animals for us to check out! this little owl had so much personality to him. he was so cute!

the ranger told us about the falls at the top of this trail and how people like to swim up there in the summer. and when we got to the top o.m.g. austin and ben jumped in! do you know how cold i was outside the water and in dry clothes? those crazy kids were freezing.

after lots of fishing, campfires and hiking our camping trip was over. and i needed a shower. but on the way out of town we decided to stop by the little winery we had seen signs and advertisements for, thinking we would try a few wines, see if we like it, and maybe add to our wine glass collection. however, when we arrived at the winery there was no.one. to be found. cars were in the lot, the "open" sign was lit up, doors were wide open,  but we saw not a single person. it was creepy. we waited a bit for someone to show up to the tasting room but no one ever came. i then came to the conclusion that someone had perhaps kidnapped/murdered everyone and we needed to get the heck out of there a.s.a.p.

i have a vivid imagination.

and since i'm sure you all noticed this post was titled "birthday week extravaganza part 1" you probably assume there is a "birthday week extravaganza part 2" coming soon. and you would be correct. so. yeah. sit right there on the edge of your seat for part 2. i know the suspense is killing you.