Spring 2008!

Here's my yearly tribute to Texas Wildflowers. Enjoy! (I put common names with flowers that I recognized/looked up...correct me if you see I made a mistake).

Some sources call it a Blackeyed Susan...others a coneflower...I'm not an expert by any means so I just call it pretty!
Grasshopper on Blue Eyed Grass

Herbertia (or prairie nymph according to another book) - I think it's my favorite this season.
More blue eyed grass...and a purple something - maybe some kind of phlox???

See the tiny grasshopper?

Don't know what these are called - I love the burgundy color of the pods before they open.

Laisy Daisy??


Indian Paintbrush
An albino (or at least all yellow) Indian Paintbrush...I've never seen that before!
Ohio Spiderwort

Rain Lily??
Spotted beebalm

Whitemouth Dayflower - see the spider on the stem?

The Biles Clan in Texas!

Well, I didn't do very well at taking pictures of our outings because I was having too much fun just enjoying hanging out. So here's a recap and a few pictures that I snapped.

We went to the Botanical Garden at Zilker Park in Austin. It was fun to see all the blooms and all the new life coming out with spring!

Bamboo!

Later we went to the State Capitol building. (Lots happened in between, but I don't have pictures...it mostly involved eating and talking...not much to take pictures of, but fun to do!)

It's a really cool dome. The Texas capitol building is actually taller than the nation's capitol building in D.C. This is a view of the dome looking up from the bottom. At the very top, the letters T-E-X-A-S are around the points of the star.

I didn't take this picture - I stole it off another website. But I wanted you to see the outside of the building.

While we were there, at least 3 wedding parties were inside taking pictures. The photographers were at the top levels looking down at the bride/attendants, etc. It was pretty interesting - I don't think I would ever even think to go to the capitol for a wedding photo. The place was full of people the whole time we were there. Most people would walk to the center of the dome, lay down, or look straight up, and snap a picture.

More House Projects...

Earlier I mentioned that the only thing left to do in the living room was to pull up the carpet and put the floating laminate wood floor in. Sounds easy because on the commercials people just line up the boards, click the board down, and it's done - like legos for grownups. And overall it was an easy project (especially for me since I didn't do any of the work). But somehow we managed to re-arrange the whole living room in the process of laying floor so the room looks a lot different in many ways.

After my parents and Rachel left, Paul's parents arrived. They stayed at the camp with us, but spent lots of time driving back and forth to Austin so they could visit Philip, Felicia, Lydia, and Corban. I think they really only came for the grandkids, but that's just my opinion. :) Paul and I went back and forth with them a few times, and Philip and the kids came out to the camp too, so it was fun because all of us got to hang out together. But I'm getting sidetracked from the house project...

For about a week during their stay, Steve (Paul’s dad) and Paul were found pulling up old carpet, laying the new floating laminate wood floor, switching out dishwashers and rearranging all the furniture (yes, some of the pictures that Rachel and my parents helped hang had to be re-hung on the opposite wall since all the living room furniture was swapped around). So here’s the week in pictures and the NEW final product.

Steve doing all the work...

Paul inspecting all the work Steve did...
Child Labor laws?!? What child labor laws? (Corban got to stay an extra day with us since he's not in school yet, and he was a good helper)
Okay, here's evidence that Paul worked, too. :) Note the air vent at the bottom of the picture. I was pretty impressed - they covered the air vents with the wood, and then came back after everything was clicked in and cut the hole for it. They measured from the walls to remember where the hole should be. And they got it right!
Vacuuming up all the dirt that was under the carpet...I don't even want to think about how much was under there...and we had steam cleaned the carpet twice!!
Admiring their handiwork...

Since we had the couch under the window during this process, Paul decided that he liked the open feeling when we walked in the door. So he convinced me to switch the furniture around a bit so we could keep the open feeling.
So the whole time that Evelyn and Steve were here, I never cooked...except in the camp kitchen for 300 people. But not in my home...because it was torn up. And those of you who know me well know that even if my kitchen wasn't torn up I probably wouldn't have cooked. But this way I had a great excuse for eating out instead of cooking!

(the dishwasher is on it's back in this picture) We actually got a new dishwasher that is much quieter and has many more options for loading dishes (the top rack will raise up higher so there's more room for big dishes on the bottom, plus other movable racks are available to hold all kinds of dishes). I hear that when they hooked up the new dishwasher there was a small incident in which water started spewing from under the sink but they had it all cleaned up before I got home from work that day.

Here's the new arrangement. The tv hutch/cabinet thing used to be next to the piano, but now the couch is there.

The next project will be our master bedroom – new paint and new floor (we had extra laminate wood flooring that will be enough to cover our bedroom). But we’re waiting for Philip to help with that. We don’t want to leave anyone out of the home improvement experience. He mentioned that he wants to put a floating floor in their house, so if he helps us, it will be good practice for him, and then we can go help him. (When I say “we”, I mean Paul – I’m not a floor kind of person…but I’ve gotten better at painting walls!)

The Finished Product...

Before my parents and Rachel got to Texas, Paul and I (but mostly Paul) put up old/weathered and some new wood on the hallway walls and the half-wall that separates the living room from our kitchen. The wall behind the tv and piano still wasn't painted or primed, and there weren't any pictures on the other walls that were already painted.

So when my parents and Rachel arrived, after hanging out in Austin for a day, the first project they helped with was hanging pictures on the walls that were actually finished.

(They also hung pictures in the guest room, but those walls weren’t painted, so I’m not posting pictures.)

Dad and Paul picked up stain for the weathered wood, and stained it a cedar color to match the existing trim in the rest of the house.

Then we all participated in priming and painting the chair rail that was put up around the living room and hallway.

After that, Rachel and I started priming and painting the wall behind the piano and tv. While we were painting, Paul and Dad used the router to make the decorative chair rail.

While the girls watched some episodes of the Cosby Show, the men put up the chair rail around the living room.

Then we hung pictures. We had originally put our meadows collage pictures on the green hallway wall. But the picture that my grandma gave me last Christmas looked better on the green wall than on the peanut butter wall. So we moved it around.

So here’s the semi-finished product. We haven’t gone around to do touch up paint yet. And eventually we want to pull up the carpet and put laminate wood flooring down. Maybe we can convince Paul’s parents to help with that project while they’re here this week. :)

Our friend Courtney painted these 4 pictures - Faith, Hope, Love, and then the verse from 1 Corinthians 13:13. She's the person that helped us pick out paint colors and got this whole project started for us in the first place. (She also decorated all of our new rooms at the camp, and if you've seen any of those rooms, you'll know that she's super talented).

These pictures are hung above our dining room table, but at the time the table was cluttered and I'm not going to post evidence of a messy house on the world wide web. :)
Paul's mom brought this painting back from Tanzania (I think). It wasn't in a frame originally - that came from Hobby Lobby. I believe the napkin rings (on the ledge) were also from there, but I'm not 100% certain.