twelve hours + basement update

What would you do on a lovely Saturday for twelve hours? Well, here in the Williams' household we think a quick trip (4 hours each way) to Ikea sounds fun. On Thursday of this week, we are excited to be bringing on our first employee, Ryan. But, he'll need somewhere to sit. Therefore a trip to Ikea for a desk and some chairs was in order.

We woke up bright and early and headed north. We found everything on our business list, family member request list and personal list...or so we thought. We rounded the corner to the check out lines and were almost in line, until I realized we forgot the "as-is" section. So we wheeled our cart over to check it out. AND there she was, the couch of our dreams....and our budget's dreams, it was 45% off!
We talked about it for about two minutes and decided we would be foolish to leave this little gem behind. So, we told the as-is dude we'd take it! He and Alex loaded it up on a cart and we then headed to the checkout.

Why was it in the as-is section you ask? It was the showroom model and has a teeny tiny little hole on the bottom by the leg.

Fitting Ikea furniture in any vehicle is like a tricky game of Tetris. But, we got it all to fit and the ride home was very cozy. And now, what you've been waiting for: the couch in it's natural habitat! 

Why, yes! Those are our new floors...very observant of you!

Our lovely grey new couch. I need to make some cute pillows and re-cover the ottoman (or as we affectionately call it: The Turd)

and in case you want to know what it looks like to sit on our new couch: Tada! Regarding the red spacers in front of the fireplace, we still need to put the baseboards down, Alex's deadline is my birthday (in September) so we have a little time. 

Thanks for stopping by our basement and checking out our new couch. I'll post pictures of the other side of the basement that we've been working on putting up walls, drywall and the same flooring. It's all coming together very nicely!

Seattle + Port Angeles, Washington

If you follow my Instagram feed or Facebook, you may have noticed that my parents, Alex and I headed out west for a bit of a Seattle and Port Angeles, Washington adventure. We started our trip in Seattle and spent all day Friday exploring. We did a quick 90 minute bus tour which was fun and we got to see the highlights. After that we headed to lunch, explored Pikes Market, found some local wine to take home and headed up the Space Needle. It was a great afternoon but we weren't done with Seattle yet! We ate dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant to carbo load (more on that soon) and then we headed to Safeco Field to watch the Seattle Mariners play the Detroit Tigers. It was fun to go to a different stadium and cheer on a different team. But, no worries, we're still Cardinals fans at heart!

If you look reeeeeeally closely, you can see Bill Gates' home

The troll under the bridge

We enjoyed watching the fish fly

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to the ferry to wind our way north to Port Angeles. Once we got there (after my dad's wonderful detour....) we checked into our hotel, went downtown to pick up our race packets and t-shirts and then headed to my sister, Sarah's house. It has been almost five years since we've last been together, so it was a much needed reunion. She and Patrick have two lovely little girls: Lily (4 (almost 5)) and Leah (2) and a handsome little man, Will (3). We played, talked and had a great afternoon and evening. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to get some rest.

Aboard the ferry

Hanging out with miss Lily

Dad and Will playing

Not quite the ocean, but just as lovely; enjoying the view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca

It was windier than I expected...

Mom and Dad packed a bit more appropriately than I did. 

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early, donned our running shoes and race bibs. We ran our second half marathon along the North Olympic Discovery Trail. We did great and Alex pushed through with his knee injury (which shouldn't have any long term side effects, but to be safe, he's resting for a while). After the race, we ate lunch and headed up Hurricane Ridge to see the Olympic mountain range. It was beautiful and worth the trip up the winding mountain. We ate dinner and said our goodbye's to the Lovejoy's. Monday morning we headed home and re-entered the real world.

Before the Race

After the Race

Our time was 2 hours 22 minutes

Bear Hug

Mama and Lily

Will attempting the figure out the binoculars

Leah playing in the snow in June

Where we roam, our Gnome roams

We had such a great trip and race and we are very thankful my parents let Alex and I tag along. Thanks Mom and Dad! As always thank you to Greg, our chauffeur and Moose sitter, we're going to miss you so much in August!

Wedded Bliss

Last Saturday my friend Darcy got to marry the man of her dreams, Cody. It was a beautiful, God centered ceremony and that will continue into their marriage. Darcy and I have been friends since cheering together in jr. high and for the last year we've been in community group together. We've laughed together, cried together, prayed together and become good friends. It will be weird not seeing her every Wednesday and Sunday, but we are so very excited for this new chapter in her their lives.

Congratulations Darcy and Cody! 

Becky and I got to make the flower poofs for the reception. 

Who doesn't love a good photo booth?!

Most of our community group was able to celebrate with the lovely bride and groom!

Where have we been & what have we been doing?!

Hello there! It has been one hectic May (not that I'd change it)! We have been here there and almost everywhere...in the Metro East. I don't have many pictures, so this will just be a lot of words, here goes:

Our weeks are filled with work, Cardinals games (woohoo!), meeting with the youth group, meeting with our small group, training for a half marathon (which is in less than two weeks....eek!), getting coffee with friends and of course hanging out with our main man Moose. As if that is not enough awesomeness, we jam pack our weekends with all sorts of fun. Here is a look back at our past three weekends....

The weekend of Friday May 2 to Sunday May 4:
Friday was the Trailhead Students Lock-in! It went great and we had a lot of fun and so did the students. We slept for a few hours but not nearly enough for the work we made for ourselves on Saturday.

--Back Story: When we purchased our home we knew that the landscaping on one side was not ideal for water to flow away from our house. We also knew that the basement had a history of moisture. Our inspector told Alex what would need to be done to (hopefully) remedy the situation.--

So on Saturday, after maybe four hours of restless sleep, we decided that we should tackle the landscape. We dug out a tree...yes with a shovel, then removed about 9 full wheel barrel loads of dirt to grade the landscape away from our house and down the hill a bit (the rocks and such were above the siding with no visible foundation, we now see some of the foundation). Then I Face-timed with my Dad who was the engineer from afar, to get his approval. He said good, not great and then after my defeated sigh and a bit of coercion, my parents agreed to come over and help us on Sunday afternoon.
I'm not sure if my parents qualify for sainthood yet, but mark my words, they meet all the requirements! On Sunday, they came over and my Dad and Alex removed even more dirt, moved the paver/brick things three feet further from the house, dug some sort of a trench to get the water to flow how they wanted it and added half a ton of rocks, literally, it was half of one ton! After the hard work was done, I planted some flowers to give us a cute little garden and both Alex and my Dad slept well that night! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

--We are pleased to announce that after a few storms with substantial rain, we still have a dry basement! Hopefully the landscaping did the trick.--

I don't have an after picture of the front yard yet. We're still planning more projects, more on that later.

The weekend of Friday May 9 to Sunday May 11:
On Friday I rested...Alex played poker with some friends. Not too wild of a night in the Williams' house. Then Saturday we woke up went on our long run and came home to manicure our lawn. We mowed, weed eated...ate? I even got to use the blower and we made sure everything was clean and ready for a party. Alex's brother, Greg, graduated from SIU-E with his Masters degree and we had the honor of hosting his party! It was a great evening full of eating and hanging out with friends and family. We are so proud of Greg and are exited for his next adventure at University of Kentucky, but we will really miss having him around. On Sunday, we headed to Carlyle to celebrate our niece and nephew's birthday's. These kids are growing up far to quickly and frankly I'm not ok with it. The party was great and the kids did not go without. We got to see Alex's mom at the party and wish her a Happy Mother's Day and I called my Mama about 3 times to make sure she felt loved.  :)

Last weekend:
We had no plans!! It was great! We did a little shopping, a little eating, a little cheering (Go Birds!!) and a little resting.

We are so grateful for everyone and everything in our lives. In this season of our lives, we are truly enjoying  the hustle and bustle of life and all the celebrations involved. We have an amazing family and group of friends, God has given us far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. It's hard to imagine that he could have so much more in store for us. God is so, so very good.

We have two more weekends left in May and they are quite full, so hopefully I get back on track blogging and there won't be any more super word-y posts!