Random Thought Thursday

This has been a pretty busy week around the Grey house between after-work commitments, season finales and getting ready for a long weekend at the lake. I’m worn out! Since I don’t have anything too exciting to update you on, I thought I’d just share some random thoughts on this beautifully hot Thursday afternoon.

• We’re in the midst of getting a couple of estimates for cutting down a big, dead pine tree in our backyard. Geez… tree removal is EXPENSIVE. It’s one of those things you just hate to spend the money on, but it really needs to be done. It’s been on the “to-do” list since we moved in three years ago, but recently more and more of it has been falling either in our yard or the neighbor’s yard during storms. Guess it’s time to just bite the bullet.
  
  
• I was happy that Lee won American Idol last night. We’ve been Crystal fans since day one, but for once I thought this was a really great Top Two. I was fine if either one of them won, and I’m actually glad Crystal didn’t because now she can have a little more artistic freedom and record good songs, not the cheesy crap. I thought the finale overall was pretty good. We fast-forwarded through almost everybody except Alanis Morissette, Bret Michaels (who looks great) and Joe Cocker. Oh, and I totally cried when they brought all the former Idols back out on stage to say farewell to Simon. I’m a dork, I know.
  
  
• I’m excited to see Sex and the City 2 tomorrow night with girls from work!!! We already bought our tickets! When I saw the first one, it was absolutely crazy. It was like a stampede of crazy females, and I’ve never seen anything like it. This time we even have t-shirts to wear. Mine says, “I’m A Charlotte.” Don’t be jealous.
  
  
• We have sneaky squirrels that keep eating our flowers. They’ve eaten all our daisies and most of our hibiscus blooms, and not only do they eat them, they SHRED them beside the pot so they make sure we see the damage. We’ve had this problem before, and we thought that leaving Bentley outside during the day would help scare the squirrels away, but no such luck. Probably because Bentley just sleeps underneath the deck while we’re gone. He’s not so ferocious when he’s asleep, that’s for sure. I’ve heard of mothballs and cayenne pepper. Anybody had this problem?

I am sooooo ready for a long holiday weekend!!! I’m ready for the sun, the water, the boat, cold beer, the annual fish fry and an extra day off to recover!

100% Summer

We officially kicked off the summer with our first weekend at the lake. This was a special occasion as we celebrated Katie and Zach's birthday and Katie's last baby shower before Frances arrives. It was a perfect weekend!

Katie and Neil got lots of great gifts and got prepared for diaper-changing duty...

Derek went for a flight over the lake in a tiny little two-seater plane with Robert's dad...

We took a boat ride with a boat full of munchkins...

Josh tried a little knee-boarding...

We boiled THREE HUNDRED pounds of crawfish and helped Ryan Hadley catch fireflies. There had to have been a thousand out there last night...


It was an absolutely perfect and wonderful way to kick off the summer! Eagle Lake is definitely my happy place, and I'm SO glad it's summertime again! Happy Birthday, Zach and Katie!

Plant Daddy

The green thumb in the family definitely does not belong to me. I love plants, but I’d much rather admire them then take care of them. Lucky for me, Derek is a great father figure for our plants.

He is so dedicated to watering and probably even talking to his plants that he keeps our deck and front porch looking quite tropical. After three years of springtime planting for gorgeous summer flowers, he now knows what works and what doesn’t, even in our hanging baskets in the carport.

So, here's to you, Plant Daddy. Keep those flowers happy and pretty. They really love you. And so do I. :)

Beach Bums

We're back from a week in Destin, and as I promised, I have a pretty fantastic sunburn that is starting to turn into a fabulous tan. :)

We had a wonderful time - two days spent just with Derek then three days with my family, too. The weather could not have been more perfect, and it was so nice to be at the beach for longer than just a couple of days. We even went parasailing, which I've never done and it was INCREDIBLE!

Family shrimp boil at the cabana on the last night...

Granny getting ready for dinner out. She's so cute with her little color-coordinated outfit and purse that was a "gift" from our friend Claire...

The only downside to the whole week was that Derek chipped his front tooth the first night we were there on a crab claw, but luckily it didn't ruin the vacation. We ended the week with a stop in Mobile for Katie and Neil's family baby shower. Only a month or so to go before we get to meet sweet Baby Frances!

It was so nice to get away for a while and just enjoy beautiful Destin and spend time with family. We needed this vacation and enjoyed every minute of it. I'm definitely not looking forward to following up on a million emails tomorrow when I go back to work, but at least I'll have a great tan while I do it! :)

Next time you see me...

I'll have a fabulous tan. Or a not-so-fabulous sunburn. I'm hoping for the first...

Meet the Jetsons

We had a work weekend at the Grey house this past weekend with the help of my parents. We had a couple of projects on the to-do list, the big one being some built-in shelves beside our fireplace. It was the ugliest possible weekend to work around the house, but at least we had the carport as our “construction site.” After a lot of thinking, measuring, sawing, sanding, nailing, gluing, cussing and painting, the shelves are DONE and look fantastic!

They’re very modern-looking, and I think they’re a mix between something that Frank Lloyd Wright would have built and something that belongs in George and Judy Jetson’s house.

Let me tell you, floating shelves are NOT easy to build. We only had one structural failure on Saturday when the top few shelves fell, but it was quickly resolved and now those shelves are not going anywhere. Even Izzy the Fat Cat jumped up on the bottom shelf (while we all held our breath) and the shelves didn’t fall. I think I can finally relax and enjoy them now.

We custom-built them so that our cords could be (for the most part) hidden and so we would have an enclosed box to store some of our Wii accessories. We still need some funky hardware for the door, but other than that, we couldn’t be more thrilled. Now all we need is more books to fill up those purty new book shelves. :)