In an effort to finish off the blue room I have been in search of a nightstand. And when I say I’ve been in search I mean I started looking yesterday and I found something yesterday :) I didn’t want to spend too much money, maybe $20-30 tops. Here is what I found:

Two TV tables from a garage sale…

…primed…

…and painted black.

And the total cost…. $1.50 for both!! That isn’t counting the painting supplies because I already had everything I needed from the dresser project. Here is how it looks in the room:

Not too bad for $0.75! I’ll be taking out the picture of Tony and putting in a more guest-room-appropriate picture. He is extremely good looking, but I think I should be the only one who gets to roll over in the morning and see his handsome face :)

Now I just need to be brave enough to put some pictures and shelves on the wall and the room will be complete!

We planned on going to South Haven on the Thursday of that week, but canceled our plans that morning because the weather was kind of overcast. Tony came over and decided “last minute” that we should just head out there anyway since we didn’t have anything else to do. I told him he couldn’t propose because I my nails hadn’t been done yet and he said no problem, he hadn’t ordered the ring yet.

We walked down the pier and took some pictures (because Tony knew I would want some pictures of the night!), ate dinner at Clementine’s, the restaurant where we had our first real date, then drove down to beach to watch the sunset. Tony took a blanket out of the trunk of my car and to my surprise pulled out his guitar as well.

We found a nice spot on the beach, laid out the blanket, and hung out for a while before Tony told me he had something for me. He took out his guitar and began to play, singing a song he had written just for me and this night. I was trying to soak in every second and listen to every word, but I also couldn’t help but think that if tonight isn’t the night this is a very mean trick!! It turned out it was, as the last few lines of the song said, “Alison will you please wear my ring?” Then he stood me up, got down on his knee with a beautiful sparkling ring, and asked me again to marry him. We hugged, kissed, stared at my ring, prayed, and spent some time on the beach just the two of us before we headed back home to start sharing the news.

We quickly set the date for January 7, 2006 and began planning our wedding day!

We’re so thankful for our beautiful backyard!

One of my goals while I am off of work this summer is to paint all or most of our house. We painted our living room this spring, but had yet to paint anything else until last week.

Dana stayed with Tony and I for a few days and the two of us decided to paint one of the guest bedrooms that I have had a “vision” for for quite some time. The room isn’t put together yet, but here is what we have so far: (I don’t have any specific before pictures, but here is a picture of the other bedroom that looked exactly like the bedroom we painted)

And here is a picture of the newly painted room:

We love it! I could just stay in there all day. My goal was to find a light, icy blue color that was NOT a baby blue, and I we definitely got it right! The color is much brighter in person; the picture doesn’t do it justice. Now I just need to hang shelves and pictures and paint a nightstand to match and the room will be complete!

A day or two later I was still in the painting groove, so I painted our front hallway the same color as the living room. We are really happy with the way it turned out (aside from a few touch-ups I need to take care of!)

Next on my painting list:
~ The kitchen: some form of a burnt orange color
~ The staircase and upstairs hallway: same color as the living room or a shade lighter
~ Our bedroom: some form of tangerine orange

Bring it on!

Before we got ready for bed, I asked Tony if he was going to set the alarm to check the sump pump in the middle of the night. He casually replied that he’ll just make an alarm that will go off when the water reaches the danger zone. After spending a short 15 minutes, or maybe even less, he came up with a system in which a piece of wood with a light ball attached to the end would raise up with the water level in the sump pump and loudly ring a bell when the water reached a certain point. Here’s a clip of how it ended up looking and working. It’s dark, but fun to watch just the same!

Sure enough at one in the morning Tony woke me up saying, “Alison! The alarm is going off!” He went downstairs, used his hose system to siphon the water out of the sump pump, and came back to bed knowing that he didn’t need to worry about it overflowing. His newly created alarm system would let him know if he was needed in the basement again!

I biked to work for the 2nd time yesterday (Wednesday). The ride was great, even a few minutes faster than the first time on Monday. I have a lot of gradual hills in my commute, but i think the biggest challenge is the stop lights. Cruising down a long hill just to stop for a red light at the bottom is a bummer! I also learned the hard way that I should use more than just my bedroom window to check the weather in the morning… Fortunately, Alison was able to come pick me up after work and rescue me from the torrential rainstorms! I’m working on figuring out a good way to track all the stats coming from my GPS- i’m a geek like that…

In addition to spending some time at the Grand Rapids Arts Festival a couple weekends ago and we had the opportunity to listen to the band Righteous play at our friends Jeff and Jess’s wedding reception. Tony and I know the lead singer David from church, and David called Tony to the dance floor to play the cowbell for a song. Tony, of course, totally rocked it. He never ceases to amaze me with all of his hidden talents :)

Last weekend we went to a festival called Cutlerville Days where we saw the band AG Silver perform. Tony’s brother-in-law Phil played bass with them at a festival last summer and Tony and Phil know the guys in the band, so it’s fun to watch them play.

Sunday afternoon we attended a small group leader’s celebration that our church puts on for all the small group leaders every summer. The afternoon was planned to a 50’s theme and the organizers went all out! Tony played a 50’s set, mostly Elvis and Johnny Cash, with three other musicians. It was a blast!

Last night we drove to Ann Arbor to see Grahm, Tony’s friend from high school, play with Matthew Santos. They put on an awesome show and were followed by an Australian band called The Waifs. We didn’t know what to expect, but we were really impressed!