Brent and Laura Updates

Alright already!

2009-09-12T18:08:00.000-07:00

Yes it has been a really long time since I posted anything. So I'm not going to try to fill in too much of the past year right now. So my pictures will all be out of order in the coming blogs. (I'm being optimistic).

We have a new puppy, his name is Beau!

This is Beau! He is a Weimaraner. I think he looks just like Brent. Look at my pretty blue eyed boys!
Beau was born June 9, 2009. He is 3 months old and he already weights 17 pounds! He has humongous paws, so we think he will be a pretty big dog.

More to follow... I promise!

Home Improvements

2008-07-06T10:12:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since the last update. These are some pictures of the house while we were in the process of taking down a wall and adding a bar in between the living room and the kitchen.

It seemed like it took forever! And the dry wall dust was everywhere!

But it's finished now and Brent and I both love it!

Brent did a great job on this project, he did almost everything by himself except some of the wiring, and a little of the framing. But everything else was all him and he will be happy to tell you all about it.

Tami Goes to Virginia

2008-03-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

Tami, my old roommate from college, came out to visit us for about a week just before Christmas. We had so much fun. We went dancing and hiking, we explored an old abondoned building and the VMI campus at Lexington.

This is one of the buildings we explored. It is in Sweet Springs, WV. It is an old hotel and resort that was designed by Thomas Jefferson and has since been used for several things like a retirement home. It had been abandoned for some time but now the owners are fixing it up to be some sort of museum. Exciting!

The "bathroom" or what is left of it in one of the cottages to the side of the main hotel.

Hallway in one of the cottages, creepy huh?

The old hotel. You can tell it was designed by Jefferson.

This is where the spring comes up and there is a pool inside those brick walls. The spring was thought to have been a place of healing. This is one of the most dilapitated buildings on the site, it is also the first that there is visible work being done to help with preservation.

This is on the inside of those brick walls from the photo above. You can see the spring with the reflection of the wall in it. They made it like a very shallow swimming pool.

This is Bella getting to know Tami and her camera.

Bella in motion. We were on a hike, she looks a little asian doesn't she?

We went on a hike to a place called Devil's Marble Yard. Here we are only about 1/3 of the way up the marble yard.

And now you can see why its called "The Devil's Marble Yard" and you can see I had very very red hair. Not so much anymore though.

Tami climbing one of the boulders, she's an enthusiastic rock climber, she's always at the rock climbing gym when she is at home in Utah.

What a lovely face and the coat and the hat match nicely don't you think?

Awww, look at Brent on the hike with us. He was really out numbered that week, 3 women! (Tami, Bella, and I) I think he was secretly liking the pink dog leash though. It matches well with his outfit.

Thanksgiving

2008-03-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

Here's little Aiden in Bella's doggy bed, I don't think Bella minded.

Cute Aiden again look at his golden blonde hair.

Here's Bella getting lots of love from Brent and Leah. I don't think Bella minds this either.

Ah my dorky brothers and husband playing a fantasy game. Don't even say it isn't dorky. (Stephen, Alex, Danny and Brent)

Alex with a corndog and danny doing something in the background. They are getting so grownup!

And the whole family together. Can you pick out the one's that are not genetically related? It's kind of like a really easy game of "Where's Waldo."

More Pictures of the House

2007-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

We rearranged our bedroom a little. We decided to move our china cabinent into our bedroom and use it as a dresser for now. We must have too many clothes or not enough furniture.

Here is our kitchen, it looks cluttered in this picture but it really isn't. Take a closer look, you'll see what I mean.

Our kitchen again, just the opposite wall. We painted this color because I wanted one room in the house that was a bright, fun color. The kitchen seemed logical.

Our sweet, tired puppy...

2007-10-31T14:10:00.001-07:00

This is where we found Bella this morning, well actually we find her here every morning.

As soon as we get out of bed she moves from her normal spot (the middle of the bed right between Brent and I) to laying on one of our pillows, normally where we just were, because its warm. She really likes to lay down where ever we have recently been sitting or sleeping.

Isn't she so sweet? She loves to cuddle in the morning. After Brent and I are dressed and ready for the day we normally go back to the bedroom and cuddle with Bella for a few minutes. Then she wants her tummy scratched and then she wants kisses and then she wants us to carry her to the door so she can go outside and go potty. She is so cute, how could we not spoil this puppy?!

The Deadly Pumpkin

2007-10-31T13:58:00.001-07:00

This is our scary pumpkin, what makes it so scary though is that it decided it needed some blood to be complete. So it took a little of Brent's.

Brent was carving out the mouth of the pumpkin when he thought it would be funny to scare me and act like he cut himself with the knife. Well, he actually cut himself. And it was a pretty big cut I thought he might need stitches the way it was gushing blood at first.

But we bandaged him up and it seems to be fine. Except Brent is milking his injury for as much as its worth. He "needs" me to carry him his plate and cup for dinner while he is sits in the living room watching TV. And he has reminded me several times today that he only has ONE hand. Poor baby:( Hopefully he will recover soon.

Holloween Decor

2007-10-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

This is our house. We have 3 grave stones in the front yard but they are very hard to see in this photo, and of course the ghost in the tree and we've got a scary pumpkin on the porch (it hasn't been carved yet in this picture.)

Our house again from further away.

This is our front room, its the room you walk into when you come into our house. Brent and I thought the piano looks pretty spooky, its supposedly over 100 years old.

I was taking these pictures before Brent had time to make a mess on Sunday afternoon. He's twiddling his thumbs on the couch waiting for me to come and play "St. Petersburg" with him. (It's a board game.)

Vantage point from the hallway into the front room.

2007-10-26T08:24:00.001-07:00

September 8th Brent, me and Brent's family went to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. We spent a whole week there. It was one of the best vacations I've ever had. We stayed in a 5 bedroom house with a private pool in the backyard. We were about 8 houses down from the ocean. All we had to do was walk about 3 minutes and we were standing on the beach staring at the ocean. Every morning we would get up and go swimming in the pool for some exercise and then we would eat breakfast and head for the beach. Some of the days we were there we just spent all day on the beach and others we went shopping and did a lot of site seeing around the islands. We went out for lunch everyday to different restaurants. In North Carolina it must be law that everything is FRIED because everything on the restaurant menues was dipped in batter and deep fat fried. I think we all gained some weight on that vacation. If you plan on eating out in North Carolina you better be prepared to diet before and after! This was the beach that was down the street from the house we stayed in. It was fairly private; there were only about 20-30 people on the beach as far as we could see.

This is the view from the rear deck of the house facing towards the ocean. If you look closely you can see ocean on the horizon, its just a little darker blue than the sky.

We ate a lot of seafood. Most of it was fried, but these clams weren't. They were steamed. Brent played with the clams after he ate their insides.

This is the view from the rear deck facing the sound side of the island. One of the nights when it rained the small pond just in front of the deck overflowed and filled our street with about a foot of water. We were afraid the water would rise and start getting into our cars but luckily it didn't and by morning there were just large puddles in the street and nothing more.

This was a secluded beach we went to and spent most of a day at. It was very beautiful but very windy. Bella had a great time at this beach. She kept escaping from her leash and harness.

Bella had a great time chasing the seagulls and other birds on the beach, for some reason she thought she would catch them even though they could fly.

Bella also chased the little sand crabs that were everywhere on the beach. She did catch some of them and ate them. What a wierd dog!

Bella didn't much like getting wet but if she was chasing something it didn't seem to bother her. One time she tried to run away from an incoming wave but wasn't fast enough. She looked like a drowned rat when she came up from the water. We had to bath her every night, she would get sand, seaweed, and little briars stuck all over in her hair and she also smelled like sea water so she wasn't very pleasant until we did bath her. She went swimming a couple of times in the pool but only because we threw her in. She didn't like that. But she did like running around the pool as we did laps, barking and growling at the splashes we made.

Brent playing in the water. The whole time we were there he was always trying to body surf and was successful some of the time. I have no idea what he's doing in this picture, he assures me it was something manly.

This is the Cape Hatteras light house, we toured the inside and top of it. It is amazing how high it is! I think it is one of the oldest light houses in the U.S.

Scenery from our beach.

Brent and I built two sand castles while we were there. This may not look like much in the picture but we had built two walls and two motes to help keep out the rising tide. This took us a while and was the better of the two sand castles we built. Alas, there was no trace of it when we went back to check on it in the morning.

Another beach at the end of Hatteras Island.

There were several para-sailers one evening because it was so windy. It was pretty cool to watch them sail up and down on the wind currents. We also watched kayakers out on the ocean, the hardest part for them was getting past the shore line.

This is Brent's pretty smile.
This was inside the Cape Hatteras light house.

This is on the sound side of the Outer Banks. We went jet skiing on the sound side one morning, it was a lot of fun. But I think jet skiing on a lake is more fun.

Our Bella Dog

2007-10-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella... She is a year and 4 months old and she still acts like the most hyper-mischeivious puppy I've ever seen.

Our new house

2007-10-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

There are only 2 rooms in the house that are mostly finished meaning unpacked, decorated, and cleaned. This first one is my sewing room/office/scrapbooking/craft/whatever I want room. Kind of bland but we are hoping to turn this or Brent's office into a baby's room when we have one, so nothing too permanent here.

This is our bedroom, easy to see with the large bed in the middle of the room, but lets just say I like to be obvious for obvious' sake. I like the way this room turned out, after 3 years of going for decor like this I finally got all of it together. Except for the furniture but eh you can't have everything.

Stay tuned, more pictures of the house to follow as soon as I get a day to clean up the fantastic mess Brent has been working on for a while. Maybe I will do before and after photos of the disaster zone he calls his office...

An Affair to Dismember (How to Host a Murder)

2007-10-22T19:11:00.001-07:00

Brent says he borrowed the cape from Dad (Roger) but he couldn't borrow the permanent horns.

We are really grown ups. Promise. See...