Hawk Eyes

When it comes to eyesight, I'm pretty much blind.  The eye doctor once told me that my vision is around 20/200 (where most people can see something at 20 ft away, it looks like it's about 200 ft away to me).  So, I'm pretty much legally blind.

Even though my eyesight is awful without glasses or contacts, a blind person could of spotted what I saw this morning.

I was going about my lazy Sunday, and walked into my bathroom and spotted this:

What is that! An owl?? Once I got closer to the window, I was convinced there was an owl just perched up on a tree right near our backyard.  I freaked out and had Ryan come look, and he confirmed it was NOT an owl, and instead an animal eating, ravenous, sharp clawed HAWK.

Just a few days prior, some of our neighbors told us that they saw a hawk swoop into a tree down the street that was hosting a squirrels nest and IT FLEW AWAY WITH A SQUIRREL.  They said they have been at their house for 15 years and have never seen anything like it.  Immediately I start to think, "THIS HAWK IS GOING TO EAT OUR DOG!".  I mean really!  Zoe doesn't weigh that much more than a squirrel.

My next thought, "I need to google this and see how many dachshunds have died from hawks." Extreme, I know.  But this is what I came across:

http://ohiothoughtsblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/mean-dachshunds-sidekick-kitty-trick.html

and this:

http://dachshundlove.blogspot.com/2011/01/louisiana-dachshund-barely-escapes.html

Scary!

I went in the backyard (without Zoe of course) to see if I could get a better picture of it with my camera.

There Mr. Hawk is, just hawk-eyeing away into our backyard.  I then realized since Zoe hadn't been outside the whole time that I spotted the bird back there, that it probably had it's eyes on the mole that lives in our backyard.  I would be happy for Mr. Hawk to take that mole away!  He's destroying our backyard and Ryan hasn't gotten anything to scare it away or kill it yet.

Once I realized this big ole bird could help us, I calmed down a bit and just let him be.  Someone walking their dog eventually scared him away, but I'll be on the lookout every time I let Zoe outside to see if Zoe might become prey.  Let's all hope this never happens because my life and everyone around me would be miserable for a long, long time if something ever happens to her.

On another note, here are some other pictures I've taken lately:

Zoe was subject of my test holiday photo shoot.  What a good sport :)  (Yes, that's our Charlie Brown christmas tree in the background....I've had that tree for years and suddenly it's WAY too small for our living room.  I'm too cheap to buy a big one right now, so I'm going to wait until after Christmas to get a good deal on a huge tree :) )

Our decorated fireplace mantle :) 

Patrick flew in from the UK for Thanksgiving!  Dinner out before he left us again :( 

I was visiting a daycare at one work day, and came across this gem of a car.  Just a mom, her kid, and her 9 cats.  Purrr.  My favorite is the hand drawn cat on the tire.  WOWOWOWOWOW people. are. crazy.

Just another day in the office.  I love my job!

We're famous!  

I will update more soon!  I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving! I know I have tons to be thankful for! 

Random Thoughts

Randoms:

1.  Truck Yeah by Tim McGraw is the worst country song ever.  Actually, take that back.  Worst song ever.

2.  My knees now hurt when it's raining outside.  Is this normal?

3.  I'm starting to appreciate when someone tells me I look younger than 28.  My mom used to tell meThis means I'm old.

4.  Don't lock yourself out of the house.  If you do, don't do it while your husband is at work.  If your husband locks himself out of the house, make sure you aren't in Va Beach for a work meeting so your husband doesn't have to pay $100 for Pop A Lock.  So that's what they mean when they tell you to hide a key outside somewhere....

5.  I'm having a hard time admitting this, but I shop at Wal Mart way more than Target now.  ONLY because we have a Wal Mart 5 minutes away.  I suddenly have a confidence boost after leaving that place.  Every. Single. Time.

6. Facebook should not be used as a diary.  I don't understand that people can't understand this.

7. I know nothing about plants.  If there is an app out there that will allow me to take a picture of a plant/weed so it will tell me what it is and how to take care of it, then I need to know what it's called.  If not, I need someone to invent one.  ASAP, please.

8.  It's upsetting we aren't going to spend any time with Ryan's family in TN for Thanksgiving OR Christmas this year.  Hmph.

9.  I'm thankful to have holidays this year that we can spend around family.  Thanksgiving last year was spent at Cracker Barrel and even though it was nice not to cook and I at least had Ryan by my side, I don't want to do that again....ever.

10.  Just thinking about decorating for Christmas (will do it day after Thanksgiving - Ryan doesn't like it if I do it before then) gets me all giddy inside.  This year, we actually have a fireplace mantel to decorate. 

11. Real Housewives are ridiculous   All of them.  And I can't stop watching it.  

12.  I really want to start volunteering soon and can't figure out where I want to volunteer.  Ideas?

13.  I've created a 2 page list of To Dos around the house.  Out of probably 20 things, we've crossed off 2 things on the list.  Things like "rake 10 tons of leaves" don't even make it on the list.  

14.  Global warming scares me.

15.  Christmas music never gets old. 

Camera Pics

I finally uploaded pics from my good camera and wanted to share some!  Also, today was a monumental day due to the fact that I deleted all the pictures off of my camera, dating back to December 2011.  Oops. I meant to delete them because they're all stored on my computer (and online for backup), but didn't meant to wait almost a year to clean it out.

Lovin on sweet Rena

she's getting so big!! 

Driving her mommy & daddy around, no big deal.

The CUTEST

She was NOT a fan of the train.  That's her "get me off of here now" look.

Rena found something to push...game over.

She plays with her tongue when playing/thinking....love it!

The Dalton's family portrait

Obligatory first house picture :)

You thought there were going to be more, didn't you?!  Sorry...somehow my days and weekend FLY by, and trying to get some of this house stuff straight takes up a lot of my old "spare" time.  Boring, I know.  I'm working on it!! 

Excited!

I love love love the thought of the holidays coming up and us spending it in our new house!  Halloween went well last night and we probably had a total of 40 kids come to our door!  Somehow we still have candy left which is not good for me.  As a friend said, I'll probably have diabetes by tomorrow. :P

Things have been busy as usual, and I just realized that if I don't get out and plant some bulbs now, we probably won't have any pretty spring flowers.  We do have flower leaves (is that what people call them??) out in our yard now, but I have NO CLUE what they are, if they are flowers or weeds, and what I need to do to maintain them??? Does anybody know anything about gardening that can maybe help me?!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from randoms lately:

We tried to give Zoe away with the Halloween candy, but nobody would take her.  Poor thing.

Intense game of tug of war...guess who won?

I got to spend time with Norah Mae <3 already="already" changed="changed" much="much" p="p" s="s" she="she" so="so">

Chris, Emily & Rena came down to visit last weekend!  Rena feeding mama some Sweet Frog! I took lots of  other pics on my good camera - I'll upload them soon!

View of the sunrise over the reservoir right near our house one morning...so pretty!

I'll post more later!  Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!

Woah woah woah

Did September go by as fast for you as it did for us?  It's like I blinked and the month was over and we somehow bought a house in between!

We officially closed on our house Friday :)  I had in my head that we would be surrounded by a million people with stacks of paper to the ceiling and after we signed papers for 2 hours Ryan would whisk me away and carry me into our beautiful new home. Something like this:

How it really worked:  we signed about 20 papers, it took about 30 minutes, we were handed the keys and told congratulations.  After that, it was off to go back downtown to get our small Uhaul van.  We then went to our friends house where we had to get stuff out of their storage room because they just so happened to be moving that weekend.  After that, we went back to the south side to drop off these things into our beautiful home that not only had the For Sale sign still up in the yard, but they also didn't even have a SOLD sign on top and the lock box was still sitting on the front porch.  Really Realtor who sold the house?  We dropped the stuff off, waited 30 minutes to have dinner with my parents, went to get my car at the title company where I left it, went to drop off the Uhaul van then went to get Ryan's car.  We finally got to go back to the apartment to sleep after that.  WHEW.

Ryan doesn't know this yet, but we'll OFFICIALLY be living in our house this Sunday.  I bought Ryan tickets to a show he wanted to go to in DC months ago, so we weren't going to back out of going to Fairfax just because we bought a house and needed to move.  After Ryan got off work on Saturday, we went up to Fairfax and I hung out with Amanda while Ryan and Justin went to their show.  Sunday Ryan & Justin entertained themselves at a gun show while Amanda and I took a nice long trip to Ikea.  That place excites me and gives me a ton of anxiety all at the same time!  We didn't get home until almost 8 last night and the next thing I know I was waking up to go to work this morning.

Since Ryan was off today, he was at the house today installing a new digital thermostat and put together the kitchen island.  I'm proud of him for installing the thermostat all by himself!  Here's a pic of the island he put together:

Obviously that isn't the exact one he put together, but you get the idea of what it looks like!

Our master bedroom is getting painted Wednesday and we'll hopefully have some living room furniture picked out by Friday!

I already can't wait to be settled and have it feel like HOME! :)

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Pictures!

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks and this weekend has been the first weekend home in about a month.  Instead of boring you with stories, I'll just share the last couple of weekends through pictures:

Loving this weather in Richmond this weekend!  Came across this view while walking Zoe near the Canal Walk. :)

The look she gives me when I hit her soft spot

Kristin & Mikey's first dance.  Beautiful wedding!

Newlyweds

Laura & Bryce

Ryan & I...duh

Laura was the only one who got the "put down your drink" memo  

Riley looooves to wear my shoes.  Adorable!

Bubbles with Rena! Love my little niece to pieces!

"I love my dada!"

We're set to close on our house THIS FRIDAY so please keep your fingers crossed!  We spent our Saturday night shopping for appliances because we're old and that's what old people do. ;) We've been packing up what we can at the apartment, but we don't have to be out until October 20th.   I obviously want to live in the house before then, but since I got Ryan the dj tickets to a show in NoVa the weekend we close on the house, we plan on moving bits and pieces and then move the big stuff the following Saturday!

Getting so excited!!!! 

Warning: Major sappiness

If you don't like romance, sappiness, or somewhat corniness, I'd stop reading right about here. :)


I heard this quote today and couldn't help but think it's how I feel about Ryan and I:

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same"

After being married for a couple of years, I've come to realize that there are some characteristics about Ryan that have been consistent since we started dating 5 years ago.  These things that he does for me solidifies our relationship and makes me love him even more than yesterday. I understand that we have a LONG road ahead in our marriage and we've experienced few "trials and tribulations", but I think as long as we continue to respect each other, support each other, and encourage one another, we'll be okay. :)  Just a few things that come to mind that I love about him:

-He doesn't let me go to bed mad...he even senses when I'm upset about something and I don't tell him, and he'll make me stay awake until I share what's on my mind.  I'm stubborn - he knows this - and doesn't settle until it's fixed.

-He ALWAYS supports me.  He's my biggest fan.  Who wouldn't love that?

-He becomes better looking by the day.  Just sayin.

-He kisses Zoe and I both goodbye in the morning before he leaves for work.  I know it's little, but I can't imagine my life without it. It's the small things that mean the most.

-I cook, he does the dishes.  I take Zoe out in the morning, Ryan takes her out in the afternoon.  He pays some of the bills, I pay some of the bills.  We have a teamwork mentality when it comes on taking on chores and I appreciate him pitching in more than some guys do.

-I tend to be big picture and Ryan tends to be small details.  This works out in most situations.

I've had a good month at work, and I randomly told Ryan one night that I had my biggest sale to date.  The next day I came home to this:

I don't know what I did to deserve this kind of love, but I thank my lucky stars everyday and pray we have 70 more years of this! 

Picture updates to come soon :) 

There's no place like home!

I planned on posting pictures of our soon to be home today!  I'm comfortable enough with where we're at in the home buying process that things won't fall through and it will be a done deal as of September 28th. :) Fingers crossed!

I have to admit, I searched for a good 10 minutes on Google and could not find ANY pictures of our house!  I know we've been under contract for a couple of weeks now, but come on! Once the blonde hair stopped seeping through my brain, I realized I was searching for an address that didn't exist.  Oops.

So, without further ado, our humble abode:

Pretty sure nobody realizes that garages are built to house cars

What you see when you walk in - feels more open then A LOT of houses we looked at!

Part of the kitchen/eat in kitchen

Dining room/sitting room (from these framed pictures and from others, I'm convinced this family consisted of mom, dad, and 12 boys)

Living room that opens to fenced in backyard for Zoe :) 

Master bedroom....we will be painting :)

Master bathroom complete with soaking tub & double sinks :) I think the owners really liked blue!

The scary lion that is in the very intense hand-painted jungle room....should we paint over the room or no?! 

We're supposed to close on September 28th, so we're really hoping things go as planned and we're out of the apartment before our lease date is up!  We love, love, love the house, so we're excited the sellers are motivated and willing to compromise to make this deal happen!  Ryan drives a hard bargain! 

Our weekends are soon going to consist of fishin' on da water, paddleboatin', and lots of trips to Lowe's.  Can't wait!

AHHH-mazing photos!

I found this website through Pinterest, and I'm seriously floored by these pictures.  Check them out!

http://twistedsifter.com/2012/06/top-50-pictures-of-the-day-for-2012/

HOUSE UPDATE

I'm so scared by talking about this I'm going to jinx something!  And I don't even believe in Jinx's! HA!

So, to compromise with myself, I'll talk about the house but not post pictures or list the address. :) I'm weird...I know this.

Anyways, we're in LOVE with this house!  We probably looked at 20 houses before this one, so we really knew what we were willing to compromise on and what we weren't willing to compromise on.  The house has almost EVERYTHING we've wanted in a house!

Seriously!  Great schools.  Great community.  Open floor plan.  Near water.  2 car garage.  Perfect master bathroom.  Fenced in backyard and squirrels around for Zoe.  Renovated kitchen.  Fresh paint. Fresh carpet.  Within 5 miles of a Plaza Azteca (okay so maybe that's more me than Ryan :)  ).

We negotiated and our offer was accepted on Friday.  We're doing the home inspection on Thursday, so we'll have a better idea then how the rest of the month goes and if everything will still go through as planned.

As of now, we're planned to close on September 28th.  :) :) :)

As scary as a loan is and as scary it is knowing how much money we're going to have to fork up for things we've been living without the past 28 years (lawn mower, grill, furniture, etc), we are SO SO EXCITED!

Wish us luck and I hope everyone has a great rest of the week!!!!!!

Happy Marriage

`

House Hunters - Hibbard Style & Pics

I don't know if I mentioned this in previous posts, but Ryan and I are in the process of finding and buying our first house!

This is all very exciting because after moving 8 times in 10 years, having a permanent address is more appealing than having a million dollars (almost).

I don't know if it's because I've seen one too many episodes of House Hunters, but I really didn't know it would be this HARD to find your first house.  We've done all of the things we've been told to do - decide on your 'must haves' and 'can compromise' items, narrow down the location, and look past easy cosmetic fixes.

I guess I'm more amazed by the condition that home sellers choose to sell their house in.  It's pretty disgusting.  I understand life gets crazy and it's hard to find the time to clean yourself much less clean the whole house, but I'm amazed.  For example, we looked at a house that had an outdoor pool but it had a nice deck around it.  When we looked at the pool, it wasn't even being used (had a tarp on it) and had dirty deflated floats all around it.  Really, homeowners?  You couldn't take the 2 minutes to throw away the old floats so we could possibly PRETEND the pool was somewhat maintained?  It's insane!

Anyway, we've found a few that we're interested in but we aren't ready to make moves yet.  We have to be out of our apartment by October 20th, so we figured we should have an offer in and accepted no later than mid September.  Eeek!

Enough boring talk - here's some pictures for you:

Saturday night beer Olympics - so much fun!

Newlyweds!  Can you see the love?

Love

From left to right: Greece, Ireland, Australia, and USA.  We won GOLD! Woot Ireland! 

We will never grow up

Cindy, Kendall and myself at Isabella's & Jayden's birthday party in Fredericksburg!

Birthday boy Jayden!  Can't believe he's 3!

Taiten cheesin' it up

I had the cutest picture of Bella eating her bday cake but I think I deleted it by accident. :( Boo!  

I love our life back in Richmond. :)  If only Ryan can find a job he loves and we can find a house we love, then all will be right with the world!