On the Beach

Sunday Jul 19, 2009

On the Beach

That's where I wanna be

On the Beach

Baby, baby come go with me

-Chairmen of the Board

I am a beach bum, for sure. And from the looks of things, we're turning Jay into a little beach bum too. We went to the beach last Friday night, and on Saturday a big crew of friends came down for the week. (By the way, it's only appropriate that I use a Chairmen song for this entry ... this crew of friends are serious Chairmen junkies! We used to go to every show, stand in the front row, sing along and dance to every line of every song. Good times.)

It was a great beach trip for everyone. Jay got to spend lots of time hanging out with his buddy P, and while he wasn't especially fond of sharing his toys, he did get really good at saying "MINE!" No, they did really well together. Jay enjoyed the sand and the ocean more than on any previous beach trips. Derek and Wayne dug the boys their own private lagoon on Saturday morning, which gave me & Bethany plenty of time to sit on the beach and catch up on our busy lives.

Here are a couple of pics from our adventures. If only we could have stayed the whole week!

Posted at 09:03PM Jul 19, 2009 by Jen Foster in General | Comments[2]

I'm a yankee doodle dandy...

Monday Jul 06, 2009

I'm a yankee doodle dandy...

We have had the most wonderful July 4th weekend that a little family could have. While I can't say we did anything all that exciting, we just had fun hanging out together, working on our remodel, going to the mall, and enjoying family time. On Saturday night, our plans to watch the Mudcats game were thwarted by the lack of tickets to said game (perhaps we should have called ahead before driving to Zebulon!). But instead we drove back to Raleigh to watch the fireworks at the fairgrounds. We had a fantastic view from the parking lot of Carter Finley, and there were lots of kids running around and playing with sparklers as we waited for it to get dark enough for the real show.

Jay was completely mesmerized by the sparklers ... he called them "karklers." And then, when the real fireworks started, he was even more excited to see the big karklers in the sky. He didn't get cranky a bit, even though it was WAY past bedtime when we finally got him back home.

All in all, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend together with my 2 favorite guys.

Posted at 10:15PM Jul 06, 2009 by Jen Foster in General | Comments[2]

That it's all just a little bit of history repeating

Friday Jul 03, 2009

That it's all just a little bit of history repeating

... and I've seen it before
... and I'll see it again
... yes I've seen it before
... just little bits of history repeating

Shirley Bassey - History Repeating

As many of you know, Derek, Jay and I live in the house that I grew up in. My parents got married under the tree in our side yard, and our backyard parties are continuing a long line of summertime pig pickin's. Jay's nursery is the same one I came home to. So our house has a lot of sentimental value. My parents (with some major help from my grandparents, Appie & Papa) put a ton of work into this house. They built an addition with a great room and master bedroom and made some major changes to the kitchen/hallway/bedroom where we're now re-renovating to create a pantry.

Nevertheless, we occasionally want to take a bulldozer to it. Every project is 10 times more complicated on a house that's 50+ years old and has had numerous layers of renovations already. On this latest remodel, we've found holes in the floor where shower drains used to be, and created our own holes in the floor where the wood has rotted out. We didn't exactly budget for replacing the subfloor.

So to minimize the work (and $$) involved, my dad keeps encouraging us to save what materials we can. "Don't rip down sheetrock if you don't have to," he says. "Just patch it where the mirror used to be, and you'll never know the difference." Sometimes we ignore his advice. Derek priced sheetrock at ~$6/sheet this morning, so we decided we'd replace the whole wall rather than try to patch those major holes.

And in this case, I'm glad we didn't listen, because we found a really cool piece of history behind the wall...

That's "Michael J. McLean, Builder; Laura McLean, architect; Jenny age 3, helper; Matthew age 1, nuisance" We told Jay that he can get on the wall, too. Still determining whether he gets the job title of "Helper" or "Nuisance."

Posted at 09:50PM Jul 03, 2009 by Jen Foster in General | Comments[4]