the little things

We’ve now spent ten nights in our new place, and it is starting to feel like home! There are many big things I could say about the house—what I love about it and what needs improvement. But right now, I’m only focusing on six little things that I am excited about.

1. We have a porch swing. Nolan likes to sit in it for about five seconds. Steve says it’s Amish-made, which makes it a neat addition.


2. A double sink. I can’t tell you how many times I wished for one when our dishes would pile up in the apartment, and there was no leftover space to wash hands or fill up glasses.

3. A window seat. The seat opens up for storage, and once we get some curtains and pillows, it will be a cozy reading spot.

4. Washer and dryer! This is the first time (since I lived with my mom in high school) that I’ve had a free washer and dryer in my building! This almost deserves its own post!


5. Though the small garden looked overgrown and has not been taken care of this summer, I found swiss chard, rhubarb, peppers, and tomatoes growing healthily!

6. I haven’t used it yet, but I love that there is a clothesline in the backyard for wet beach towels, rugs, and to share my delicates in front of the neighbors ;)

ligonier

Last week, Nolan and I went for a little trip to see Ligonier. Most of the small towns here have downtowns that contain only a Fox’s Pizza and a Dollar General. But Ligonier has an adorable downtown, and we took a couple hours to explore.

I thought this photo was so cute of us, and then I realized my hair is over his hat!

Settled in the 1760s, the town became a fort in the French and Indian War. In the 1800s, it was connected to the Pennsylvania Railroad, which sparked Ligonier’s industrial development. It also enabled Pittsburgh residents to visit, and the town became a summer resort. It has the 3rd oldest amusement park in the country—Idlewild.

Found my favorite store in town. The toffee is amazing!


I love the orange décor.

Quaint little stores: the first says “Meet Me at the Beach”, and the second, “Rachel’s Ligonier Floral”. :)

We stopped in for some homemade ice cream. But Nolan’s at the age where he doesn’t want to eat unless he’s holding the food or spoon by himself, so when I didn’t let him, it did not end well.

Town squares (I guess this one was called a diamond) with gazebos always remind me of Gilmore Girls!

Fun little day trip!

goodbye to our sweet little apartment (part 2)

A few more glimpses of our home… (part 1 here).

Stephen relinquished our keys about an hour ago, so it’s no longer ours :( But it will always be Nolan’s first home! This is where we paced the floors with him and took turns holding him twenty-four hours a day when he was a newborn. This is where he learned how to sit up, crawl, walk, and run. It’s the place where we were overjoyed with each little new thing that he did. I will miss it!

This was our living room—it was Stephen’s workspace, Nolan’s playroom, our TV spot, my blog-writing center, etc.

And dining room:

Every day, our floor was completely covered in toys.

Slightly different angle:

Tiny little kitchen:

The white shelf is one of three that Steve found in the dumpster and painted. We were glad for any extra storage space!

This was moving day on Monday. We’ll definitely miss our town and the friends that we have there! But at least it’s not too far to visit! :)

goodbye to our sweet little apartment (part 1)

These are photos of the place that has been our home since August 2011—three weeks before Nolan was born! Yesterday, we loaded up the U-Haul and moved to our new place. Steve is actually back at the apartment right now, painting the two bedrooms back to white.

This was Nolan’s room. It was never quite this clean, but I loved it.

(Paint color: Olympic’s “Serendipity”)

Our bathroom. Steve made the shelf to give us some extra space (so we got to take it with us). I’m not sad to leave this bathroom. I always wanted it to have a window so our towels wouldn’t get mildewy, and so I could air out the bad smells that would drift in from the apartment above. A few mornings this spring, we woke up to dirty water pouring out of the exhaust fan in the ceiling from the shower upstairs!

Stephen's and my bedroom. We painted it yellow a year ago, and it made for a happy room to wake up to! The apartment complex chopped down all of the trees that gave us shade, and these windows face east, so we usually had a black sheet over our blinds and curtains.

(Paint color: Olympic’s “Golden Slumber”)

One more sidenote about the neighbors upstairs—they were from another country, and a completely different culture than us. The past few months, I woke up every night at 2 or 3 to go to the bathroom, and I’d hear the little footsteps of their two-year-old! Needless to say, the two-year-old didn’t start running around until noon or one in the afternoon, right when I would be putting Nolan down for a nap. I am going to love the quietness of having our own place!

I’ll post pictures of the dining room, living room, and kitchen soon.

And then of course, I’ll have to start posting about our new place from 1920 that we’ll be working on for the next while. :)

my last first kiss

July 28, 2007

Steve and I had started spending quite a bit of time together at camp.

One Saturday (a day off from campers), Steve and I walked down to the lake at sunset. Steve asked me if I wanted to go out on a rowboat with him. I spent every afternoon that summer putting kids in canoes, kayaks, and paddleboats, so I pointed out that no one ever went out in the rowboats because they had holes in them. He didn’t seem to mind that fact, and of course I wanted to go with him!

As we got into the boat in shallow water, we passed my friend Kristen and a couple other girls on the dock. They started humming “Kiss the Girl” from Little Mermaid, and I tried to quickly shush them.

Steve rowed, and I bailed every so often with a small bucket.

We talked about our jobs at camp, campers, our families, school. It was  the first time that he really opened up to me about his life. It got dark out as we were out on the water. The moon was up, and bats were low in the sky.

We were out on the water for a long time…. hours. At some point Steve stood up in the boat, and pretended to rock it from side to side. (Steve told me later that the rocking back and forth was to buy him time—he was trying to build up his confidence.) I stood up next to him. It had gotten cold, so we were freezing in our shorts, tee shirts, and life jackets. And then we kissed for the very first time!

Eventually we realized that the boat had drifted pretty far from camp, so we headed back to shore.

And that was the very beginning!

baby, baby

Feeling so blessed and so excited!!

steve’s superman birthday

Last year, “The Dark Knight Returns” came out at midnight on Steve’s birthday, so I put together a little Batman birthday spread and gave him tickets to see the movie the next morning. This year, I knew I couldn’t top that, but I liked having a little theme to work with… so here’s Superman ;)

This was last year’s table:

I went with the same dark chocolate cake this year, but switched it up with an amazing cookie dough frosting.

HB, Steve!