Hanging out in Texas!

During our visit to Texas. We visited the SouthFork Ranch, went shopping at various malls, craft shows, IKEA, and ate out at few great restaurants!

Here is Elizabeth and Hannah at the Saltgrass Steak House:




Here is Hannah and Ricky at The Cheesecake Factory Restaurant.
It was very good! Highly recommended!



Here is Anna and Hannah at IKEA. There were so many things for the home in this store! We bought new bedding for the master bedroom at an excellent price! As you can see, Hannah loved this place!

Dallas!

Hank and I went to Texas this weekend. Ricky and Anna were thinking of places to go that neither of us have been to. Anna suggested that we head out to SouthFork Ranch and check out the actual house that was used for the show Dallas. It was awesome! Do you have the theme music in your head yet? If not, ask Anna and she will sing/hum it for you! :-)

They only filmed the outside parts of the show at the house, and I guess the inside shots were done at a studio in California. But still, it was awesome to know that we were actually there! We had a great time! Thanks Ricky, Anna, and Hannah for taking us!

This is the entry gate that was used in the show. I think they said they would put dirt on the driveway so when they drove down it during the show dust would fly up from the cars.


Here is the SouthFork Ranch Emblem:



Here is Hank by the actual 1978 Lincoln Continental Jock Ewing used in the series:



Here is Hank and I in front of the Ewing Mansion that was filmed on the show.


Here is Ricky and Anna (Elizabeth's Brother and Sister-in-Law) on the balcony:



Here we are inside the family room:



And of course the gun the shot JR!

Our Home

You've seen the inside... now here is the outside! Here are a few pictures of the outside of our house. We will be doing a few landscaping projects soon and put up Christmas Lights!! So there will be more pictures later!

After Pictures...

Ok, I tried to get the color to show better in these pictures, but the lighting would not cooperate. At least you will be able to see the new arrangement of the furniture:



Here is a picture of our kitchen. We repainted it and finally bought curtains for the window.



Here is the dining room. I took this at night, so it doesn't look too good. We did get an updated light fixture and added curtains to the windows. The walls have been repainted as well.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas....

Yes, I know what your thinking, "You already put your Christmas tree up!?" We bought a new 9 ft. pre-lit tree last year after Christmas and wanted to make sure the lights worked. Chili even helped us decorate!

"Can I help?"



"Come on.. can I please put my toy on the tree? Ok, I'll just leave it under the tree."

Painting....AGAIN!

OK... I know what you all are thinking. I said I wouldn't paint our house again...well at least for a while. Here's the story...We decided to get our tree down from the attic that we bought last year after Christmas. It is a 9 foot pre-lit tree. We wanted to make sure it worked and would fit somewhere in our house. We were unable to put it in the same place that we always put our Christmas Tree every year, so we decided to move the living room furniture around.

My first paint job in the living was pretty good. Except behind the Entertainment Center. I was tired of painting once I got to that point, so I just swiped a few swipes where I could reach behind it and left it like that. I figured since it was so heavy, we wouldn't move it. Well, we moved it and I needed to repaint. The leftover paint that we had didn't match at all! So, I decided to just repaint the whole living room, dining room, and finish the hallway. Yes, you are probably thinking I am crazy! I decided to go to a good paint store this time to get good "quality" paint.

So....I went to Sherwin Williams. I bought "Latte", which is a darker beige than the light yellowish beige it was before. Once I was at Sherwin Williams, I decided to repaint the dining room too (Why not? I'm already painting every other room!). Let's just say RED is hard to paint the first time, and the existing red had streaks. So, I bought "Lady Bug" red to go over it. It matched pretty well. I stayed up until about 3am last Friday and got it all done! Now.. I will say I will not paint for a LONG time! I don't have any after pictures yet, but here are some before. I will try to get the after ones up soon.

Here is the Dining Room. Can you see how the color isn't very even. Looks much better now. Will post new picture soon.


Here is part of the Dining Room, Entry and Hallway. The Hallway has never been painted. It was still the offwhite paint from the builder. The Entry was a yellowish beige.



Here is the Entertainment Center that I didn't do a good job painting behind. It has now moved to another wall and room is repainted. Will post new pic soon.


Here is the other side of the Living Room. This show's the yellowish beige better.

Happy Halloween!

This year, we had a Halloween Party at our house. We handed out candy and saw everything Ghosts to Power Rangers. This year our nephew, Ian, was "Batman" and our niece Hannah, was "Raggedy Ann". Very Cute!