A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I planned a fun little shower for Kelly in celebration for the baby on the way. The gender was a surprise so we themed it as a competition to see what gender everyone was guessing the baby to be! It was a surprise party, so it was hilarious when Kelly came in sporting blue (and she told us later that she had almost worn pink that day). It was fun getting to spend some time with her and getting to shower her with freezer meals (we did that instead of gifts so that we might bless her in upcoming hectic days). As you can see, most people were voting for a boy (I actually thought it was going to be a boy too but I thought Susanna was going to be the only person on team girl so I sported pink with her) Anyways, Kelly went into labor this morning and had a healthy 9lb 10oz baby boy this afternoon! Congrats to Kelly and Barry on their new addition as well as to team blue for guessing the correct gender! Can't wait to see him!
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Thanks to my friend Becky, I have been informed that I never posted the rest of my tutorial on our ottoman that we converted into a storage ottoman and reupholstered. I remember writing it, but I guess when I hit publish, the website refreshed, the data was lost and I didn't realize it. So here it is, half a year later, part 2 of the recovered ottoman. To see part one, go here. The reason why I had to do this in two parts is because we didn't have everything we needed when we jumped into the project that first day. To make it into a storage ottoman we needed two boards: one for the bottom to hold stuff in the ottoman, and one for the bottom of the top cushion to turn it into a lid. In a nutshell, on day one we took the ottomans elements apart, the next day I went shopping for the two boards. The nice man at Home Depot cut them to size for me. Unfortunately this only works if you write down your measurements correctly...which I did not. So on another day we had to ask a friend of ours if we could use tools to cut them down again (thankfully they were too big, not too small). Finally, we got the boards to the correct size and that is where this post picks up. We cut a piece of fabric that was long enough to wrap all the way around the ottoman, ironed it, then wrapped it around. Make sure that you have a couple of extra inches in length so you can fold the raw edges under. Fold the raw edge under and staple the corners of the edge to the bottom and the top inside. Stretch the fabric tight as you work your way around stapling the fabric to the bottom of the wood and to the top inside edge of the ottoman. When you get all the way around, tuck the unfinished edge under and staple in place. Once you are done with that, screw one of your boards to the bottom to cover up all of your staples. Since ours does not sit flush with the circumference with what's above it, we chose not to paint it since you don't normally see it. Measure (or if you are good at eyeballing like I am, guestimate) to where the feet of the ottoman were screwed in originally and screw them back in. The bottom half is now done. I kind of made the lid up in my head so I don't know that this is a great method for making a lid or not, but so far it is working for us. We put the other board on to of the cushion, stretched fabric around the cushion and stapled the fabric into the board. If you do this, just make sure your staples are not longer than your board is thick or you might sit on a staple one day. I don't have a picture for the next step, but we trimmed off the extra fabric, measured a square of fabric the same size as the board, tucked the raw edges of that square under and glued the square onto the board so you cover up the board and the staples. And that's it! I love having a place to put our throw blankets in the living room now. Its surprisingly spacious so I can fit a few blankets and my current crochet project inside. Thanks Becky for letting me know that I never got the post up!
So many of you know that Will and I vacationed with his family a couple of weeks ago. I didn't get a chance to blog about it earlier because I had to make up all of my hours that I missed at work last week. I've updated some of you on what happened...but since its such a long story, I've only given the summary of it out. So here is the extended version. Will and I left Sunday afternoon for Williamsburg, Virginia. It was smooth sailing, a good trip even (for the first 5 or so hours). We listened to an entire secret church by David Platt, traffic wasn't too bad and the a/c worked so it started out as a good trip. Then when we were 110 miles away, my car started shaking really badly. It felt like we had a flat tire so we pulled over. Will checked all the tires and they looked fine so we thought we were imagining things. I got back on the road and only made it back up to 40 miles an hour and the car started shaking violently again and fishtailing. Needless to say we pulled over again...the only problem is it still looked like nothing was wrong! We were about to call AAA When we saw there was a weigh station half a mile in front of us thankfully. So we waited for a break in traffic and drove to the weigh station going 20 mph on the highway. I'm so thankful it was there because it was an hour and a half or so before AAA could pick us up. They got us and we finally pulled into the hotel around 11pm When Will and I took my car to get it fixed, AAA wouldn't have time to even look at it until Thursday (the day we were leaving) so we had to take it to the Toyota dealership. When they called us back in later that day after inspecting it, we walked up to the mechanics and politely asked them how they were doing to which they responded that they were doing a lot better than my car (yikes). They then walked us through every thing that was wrong with my car. The list was as follows: 1. One of the bands in the back tire had busted, leaving the tire really lumpy (this caused the violent shaking). 2. The two front tires were starting to reveal steel on the inside edges because my car was so unaligned 3. All four struts on my car had apparently been shot for years but someone had tried to cover that fact up by propping them up with foam pieces...the guys couldn't tell how long ago that had been done, but by looking at the pieces its been at least a few years (that was super reassuring) 4. The boots on the two front axels busted awhile ago so the axels now need to be replaced because it will start to rust soon. 5. Everything that can leak is leaking (except for the gas I think) 6. The back breaks are at 20% 7. Something with the rear sway bars was wrong as well The guys were sympathetic and said that they would fix the bare minimum that we needed to get home which was the first three things that I listed. The bad part was that replacing the tires and the struts cost us more than what our car is worth. The two things that topped it all off: 1. Will's mom got into an accident coming to pick us up from the Toyota dealership. Thankfully no one got hurt. 2. On the way home on Thursday, we picked up our car and started on our way home. Within 45 min my car made 3 loud popping/cracking sounds and on the second one, we definitely saw something metal flying from my car. We then drove all the way back to the dealership and they looked at/worked on my car for another 3 hours. The guy then came out and said it was this little rubber piece that cut down on noise. However, It was one of those conversations where he was just being a little too sweet....The kind of nice where he is being nice to cover his own butt and serve his own purposes rather than to serve us. I believe that little piece was a partial truth but I also believe that he was covering something they had done wrong the first time around because there were too many holes in his story and explanation (real assuring I know)...so we didn't get home til 11pm and we had left at 10 that morning...What a day and what a week. Though through it all I could still see the grace of God working. That one tire revealed the issues my car was having and if the problem was revealed by one of those foam pieces failing, the situation could have been much worse and other pieces of the car could have been damaged so in that God protected us in that. I'm so thankful that God allowed us to break down right beside a weigh station so we weren't waiting on the side of a busy highway. I'm thankful that God gave Will's mom a feeling that she should up her towing service on AAA from 100 miles a year to 200 mile towing because that extra 10 miles we would have had to pay for otherwise would have cost $50. I'm also thankful that God provided for the repairs through money that we had saved for some thing else and through money that had been given to us the week before. I'm also so thankful that we finally made it home safely from that long week. Don't you hate it when you are so glad to get back to work so you can de-stress from your vacation? Anyways, here are some pictures from the happier moments of the week... We went to Busch Gardens on Monday. This is the first roller coaster Will and I ever rode together...and it was a good choice because it had a little bit of everything This is my niece...and yes, she is on a leash...hilarious! Will tried to catch a ride with Kennison, until the guy running the ride chased him off Gondola Ride! Can you tell how hot and tired we are? Kennisons first big girl ride. I love how you can barely see her over the shoulder pads. On the 4th of July, we went to historic Williamsburg. Please note that Will chose to wear a hat that says England in colonial Williamsburg where they were doing a reenactment of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They had a lot of great actors who were dressed the part and stayed in character really well. I wish I had gotten a picture of her, but there was this really funny lady who acted just like Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice and she kept going around an causing trouble with all of the clergymen. I think my nephew Taylor enjoyed seeing his dad in the stocks a little too much This guy was actually making shoes the old fashioned way and explaining the process to anyone who asked...it was awesome! We found the pew that George Washington sat in...and believe it or not but this is still a functioning church and it still holds a service everyday. Can you tell Kennison loves her Super Ray! I don't think I mentioned before but our niece and nephews call us Super Ray and Wonder Susan instead of Aunt and Uncle. Its funny. It also gives us reasons to make up all kind of fun stories for them. We told them when we got there that we called the tow truck, not because the car broke down on the highway, but because we had been carrying it the first 5 hours of the trip and just wanted a break.
Anyways, that was our adventurous vacation of the year...and I'm kind of glad we have a nice break before our next vacation! |
AuthorWe are the Rogers. We have been married since August and are loving it! Will recently graduated with his PhD in Civil Engineering and I am currently an IT assistant by day and a photographer by night. Categories
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