... I'm speechless.

Between my amazing parents who came to visit and volunteered to weed my yard on THEIR vacation (which turned into a jungle while we were on our vacation) and my ninja of a husband... Who did all of this in a DAY while I was at work today... I'm speechless. I couldn't have done it without you guys. Thanks for making my yard pretty! I'm pretty speechless at the moment and pretty lucky, needless to say. 

Home

I did a LOT around the house this weekend, but they were all things that make our house feel like home. Our home... not a time-warp-to-the-90's home. Just getting around to a few of the details that make me happy :) 

The man cave

Please note the posters in the man cave... They're quite amazing. 

This started out completely unfinished and maybe had half a wall of drywall. Jerrod has insulated, drywalled, mudded, ripped out a flight of stairs, primed, and now started to paint his garage. He's been working his butt off and I'm so proud of him. 

New bathroom

We "finished" the basement a few months ago, but there were still two areas that needed work: the basement bathroom and the stairway. I honestly needed a little break from painting trim, but now I'm back at it. 

I finished up everything in the basement except for the stair case... that'll be a bigger project for another weekend. The bathroom is pretty big, which is nice, but it was also kind of depressing with the horrible 90's tile. Here's a little reminder of where it started...

This is after with the new floor, new paint, painted trim, and new hardware. 

Yay, grass!

Haha, oh I never thought I'd be excited about grass growing in our yard, but our backyard (although small) was completely covered in tarp and topped with dirt and mulch. Add dogs to the mix... It's been a bit of a messy nightmare. 

It's getting there :)

Little miss Roxy

Or as Jerrod sings to her... "Rooooxxxxxanne..." in his best impression of the Police.

After only two short months, it's hard to believe that this is the same girl that we brought home in April. She's done amazingly well in our home and she completely bounced back from the first rough 7 months of her life.

I'm very proud to say... Roxy went to her forever home last night.

We will miss her so much especially since Jerrod and I discussed adopting her at least 5 different times. Deep down, we knew that it just wasn't the best possible fit though, because let's face it... two very energetic, 60+ lb puppies can just be a lot to manage. It's kind of like two bulls stampeding through your house, bumping into walls, thrashing around, lots of snarling... you learn to keep your knees bent at all times. Believe me, if we didn't already have a big puppy, we would have adopted her in half a second. 

She went to the best home that I could have possibly asked for. The family is so patient with her, loving, and they just get it when it comes to handling abused dogs. They were so good with her. She will be a boy's dog, be able to run in a big fenced-in yard, and she'll have a partner in crime when it comes to stealing socks (her new doggy brother is a pro). 

Of course, we sent her with her favorite stuffed toy Python and tiger ball :) 

The start of summer

It's been pretty quiet here lately here in good ol' Wisconsin.

Last week, I went to State College, PA for work. It's a really beautiful place, especially for visiting a factory. Those two things rarely exist together. For once in my life I didn't take any pictures, and probably because I was too smitten with the rolling hills and countryside. It reminded me of parts of the east coast and made me incredibly homesick for my home away from home. I guess I was too busy day dreaming for most of the drive. Guess that means we'll just have to go back to Rhode Island this year... twist my arm.

We spent Saturday hiking around in Willow River state park, which is a couple miles away from our house. It's a great place to camp (which we'll have to do at some point), hike, see some waterfalls, and get a little work out.

Sunday was spent working on the yard - mulch, flower beds, weeds, weeds, and more weeds. Here are some before and after shots. It's slowly getting there, but it looks so much better than it did. This whole side of the yard didn't have grass before, or a flower bed.

We also built a doggy gate for the front porch. We've been using a wooden baby gate, but the baby gate wasn't quite long enough, so we had to fold up towels and place them in between the baby gate and the porch... it was getting a little too hillbilly-ish and kept falling down, so we figured out a better solution. It'll be painted to match the house, once we eventually get around to painting the house. 

We ran 12 miles last night... followed by ice cream. And a beer. You better believe I thought of both of those during our entire run. We've both been training for our first half marathon, which is next weekend. I should rephrase that. It's our first NORMAL half marathon (not a Tough Mudder). I will not miss jumping into a pool of ice water, being shocked, or crawling under barbed wire. Jerrod, on the other hand, willingly signed himself for another 13 miles of torture and will be running the Tough Mudder with his co-workers in July. He's insane. I'm sure I'll go to cheer him on, but no, one Tough Mudder is enough for me.

Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend and thank you to everyone who has fought for our country.