White Christmas

It's been a peaceful few weeks around these parts.

Despite the typical holiday rush about this time of year, Southern Maryland received a blessing the weekend before Christmas which slowed everyone down. I honestly can't remember a time in December that we got this much snow. Bobby and I slept in late, drank our morning coffee together in front of the TV, then bundled up to brave the outdoors. We shoveled the driveway to get the Jeep out (and by "we," I mean Bobby) and drove to Panera for lunch! On the way home, Bobby wanted to shake the dust off his 4-wheel drive, so we took the Wrangler up to a local school parking lot and proceeded to "4-Wheel" around the lot. It lasted for a good 10 minutes until I got scared and made him take me back home.

The snow lasted all week and we even had a White Christmas, the first one I can remember.

The week before, we spend cooking and cleaning. I made sure to take some time out to remember the beautiful things about Christmas - to forever engrave them in my memory. This is our first Christmas in our new home and what a beautiful one it was.

Since I'm behind in blogging about our life here in Southern Maryland, here are some pictures from the week leading up to Christmas!

We got 18 inches all said-and-done! This is before we got 6 more inches!

Mmm...our home!




Bobby throwing a snowball. About 10.5 seconds after it hit me, I ran inside crying. (Just kidding)

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"




Also, if we didn't get to send you one of our Christmas cards (my address list ran away from me), then this is for Y-O-U!

'Tis the Season to be Merry!

Here are the top 10 reasons why I hate it when Bobby leaves me to go on travel:

10. There's no one to make me coffee in the morning...besides Starbucks.

9. Our electricity goes up those weeks due to all the lights being on during the night.

8. Killian follows me around the house like a lost sheep.

7. I have to sleep with a heating pad.

6. I have to keep a fan on over night to make up for the snoring I've been getting used to.

5. There's no drill sargent to get me out of bed in the morning. Self-motivation, baby.

4. I'm forced to clean up my own messes (i.e. dishes)

3. I have to drive the Jeep to work and literally launch myself to get into the car.

2. Recycling comes tomorrow and there's no way I can lift the bin by myself.

1. Killian thinks he's boss without Bobby here.

The "#1" item on my list brings me to my first point. Killian hates me.

I try to avert his hatred by feeding him EVERY DAY of his life, but it continues and is only enhanced when Bobby is away.

I came home singing Christmas songs and in order to get Killian out from under my feet for two seconds, I offered him a treat.


"How can I possibly pry that treat out of her hands..."

Meanwhile, I'm whistling to myself, trying to catch Killian sitting still... "Deck the halls with boughs of holly..."


Then Killian chimes in: "FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA." Just kidding.

It's just you and me, Boss. About .346 seconds after this, Killian proceeded to jump face-level and snatch the treat out of my hand.

And then I moved on to photographing inanimate objects...like Christmas trees and ornaments. (Please note my reflection in the ornament.)

In other news, I am about 90% finished with my Christmas shopping. And now I pose a question for you: how does one inconspicuously gift-wrap a large broom?

Slow Boat to China

I gotta cut the man some slack though, right? I mean, he can only work weekends. I gave him a raise for working in the freezing snow last weekend. What more does he want?!

Lunch. That's what he wants... and so did his 4 other friends. Greedy, I tell you. (Just kidding)

So our deck is coming along. It'd be great if the weather would cooperate! Poor Bobby has been working out in the freezing cold, sleet, snow, pouring rain, all just to build our deck and have it finished before Christmas. He's actually more than half way through. Please tell Santa that we would like a fire pit for Christmas. Thank you.

(From the inside... it was too cold and wet to actually go outside and take a picture.)

I finally had a less-than-crazy weekend last weekend and was able to start my first craft project in the new house! A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to this Antique Store (The Vintage Source) down here in Leonardtown. Of all the things we need to furnish the house, I procured an antique window, complete with lead paint and a crack. I'm not sure why I was drawn to this window, but now every time I say I'm going shopping, my friend asks me if I'm going "window shopping." Then she giggles. It's very funny, but I'm afraid it's an inside joke. Regardless, this puppy needed to be sanded and refinished, so I worked in the basement for most of Saturday while it mercilessly rained down freezing ice. Oh, what? You want to know whether I wore a mask while sanding my lead paint-infested window? Nope...no. I didn't. I just held my breath ;)

Hello, lead paint.



It has a lot of charm, don't you think? All those cracks, dust, and chips.

Among other home projects, I snuck away to Lowes, where I acquired 4 mini cans of paint, which I promptly brushed onto our new, naked walls to test some colors. And no... this paint color is not black. (Oh, I can hear my mother now!) We will start to paint after Christmas - yay!

In other news, I bought a glass artichoke for decoration today. Don't hate...it's very chic.

Is Christmas here yet? I need a vacation!

The Wise's Take Thanksgiving

I woke up in my old bed, in my old room, with my groggy husband beside me. My nephews trophies were scattered about and multiplication charts hung from the walls instead of my beautiful Jack Vettriano. But it hasn't been my room in almost three years.

Familiar smells floated upstairs as Mom already had the turkey in the oven. I had stayed up until 3am the morning before to decorate gingerbread cookies with my oldest sister. I still had some icing stuck under my fingernails. This is the way it always was in the Wise house. Everyone was buzzing with excitement in anticipation of the crowd we would receive later on that day. The sound of little giggles and teasing were contained in the porch, although it's a difficult thing to contain the laughter of seven children! Dad was in the kitchen fighting with the coffee machine while Bobby and I plopped down at the kitchen table like little kids waiting for breakfast. Without hesitation, Mom sat a big bowl of cereal in front of us. Happily fed, both Bobby and I were clean-plate-clubbers and we just sat around and listened to my nieces and nephews make-believe stories in the next room over.

A thick fog hung over Severna Park that morning, and although it looked cold out, it was actually quite pleasant. Uncle Bennett organized a baton-toss relay game in the back yard for the kids. The adults moseyed outside to watch and swarmed the kids with cameras. There was some serious competition going on, and after the games were complete, each team lined up and slapped hands while exchanging a "good game." They are such good sports. Grandma Wise had some hand-drawn awards (compliments of Aunt Jen) to give out to all the kids for their efforts... "Most Team Spirit," "Best Encourager," "Most Creative Runner..." They were happy for the rest of the day.

It was finally time for dinner. I filled my plate with turkey and left room for little else, except my Mama's Corn Pudding. The crowd didn't stay too long after that, but all of us siblings made plans to meet up again at 12:00 Midnight at Arundel Mills mall for some early (TOO early) Black Friday shopping! I had to resist the long line at Starbucks, so coffee-less, the Wise's took on the Mall! And then we slept. And ate some more.

Saturday, we came home - to OUR home - and Bobby worked on the deck all day and made some amazing progress! They are about 50% finished... another 2 weekends and it should be complete!

I love this time of year as it makes us reflect on our lives and be thankful for everything we have. I've already broken out the Christmas music and decorations! I hope that all of you had a nice Thanksgiving and look forward to the Christmas season!

Dad can always be found - without fail - with at least two cameras in his hands.



Uncle Bennett was in charge of the games.



Oh Neilson, how competitive of you.



Grandma handing out "major awards!"



Their outfits reminded me of candy corn... what a group!





Bobby and his deck! It still needs stairs, railings, and the top boards.



I'm already visualizing what things I'm going to put on here!

Blogging, what?!

I hate to be "that girl."

You know, "that girl" who shows up to parties late. (Ok, so maybe I'm "that girl" more than I'd like to think.) Or, "that girl" who has a little too much to drink and becomes slightly inappropriate. Or "that girl" who can always be counted on for a tactless comment. You know... "that girl."

Well, I'm "that girl," the one who blogged faithfully with every little step of the new house and kept you informed with all the slightly annoying nuances of our builder. Or even kept you informed with Killian's every move, or the latest stories somehow involving Bobby rolling his eyes at me. I've gone over a week without updating the Barrick Times, and when I was photographing a wedding this weekend, I was scolded by a Barrick Times follower who told me I left them hanging with my last story.

And just when you thought my lack of blogging was not enough, I don't even have a picture to follow up my story!

THE OUTRAGE!
Well, I have a laundry list of things that I've been doing this week, and every single one is a good excuse:

- Weddings and photo sessions have joyfully abounded onto my calendar. With Christmas around the corner, families from around the globe...well, the county...have been banging down my door...well, my e-mail box...booking photo sessions for their Christmas cards. While this is great and I love doing it, I have been editing almost every night. While I love every second of it, it just makes for a very long day. Very long.

- Oh yea, I have a full-time job, too, ya know...

- With the release of The Twilight Saga's New Moon movie, I've been consumed with finishing the final book before I'll let myself see the new movie.

- I have three very full bins of laundry that are eagerly waiting a ride in our new washer/dryer, but they can't load themselves.

Ok, so that's it... but they are good excuses. So let me back up and fill you in with what's been going on 'round these parts.

- Bobby and I had the fabulous Megan Beth come visit us today to take some pictures. All I'm gonna say is that they involved Killian, some sweet new boots, and a vacant field...with some bones in it. Yikes!

- Bobby started his deck project. Due to it raining the past 37950 weekends, it's been delayed. (See pictures below)

- I photographed my last wedding of the season yesterday... fabulous. Now I have about 15 more on the calendar for 2010, starting in March. Have I mentioned I love photographing weddings? I cry at each one. I'm not gonna lie.

- We pick up some more of my office furniture this week from our favorite PB. Once it arrives, I can begin decorating my office. Pardon, OUR office...

- {Heads up BJ!} Regarding our terrarium story from last post. I was unable to get pictures before the circle of life descended upon our little habitat. At one point in time, we had about 45 spiders in the window well. It rained for a week straight, and then we collected 4 or 5 frogs/toads (what is the difference, anyway?!). After a few days, all the spiders were gone. Then we had high winds for a few days and we acquired some kind of rodent (mouse, vole, who knows?!). The frog and rodent were in there together for a few days, until we noticed that the frog population began decreasing. Suddenly, there were no frogs left, and there was a very satisfied, very fat rodent left in the window well. I'm assuming that the frog had some kind of bacteria on it that made the rodent sick...so now, the rodent is...no more. Survival of the fittest.

So, not much else has been happening around here. But let me leave you with some pictures. Because honestly, what's a blog without some pictures!?

About our deck: there is something attached to the house, the footers have been dug and inspected, and as of today, the concrete has been poured for the posts are in place! Next weekend over the Thanksgiving break, we will be thankful for power tools so we can get that baby up! For now, here's a picture of the guys digging the holes. They rented a huge auger and Bobby had 2 ex-Marine's help him dig the holes!

Lastly, I'd like to thank EVERYONE for all your kind e-mails, letters, various gift cards and coupons, and just encouraging words over the past month. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. Every day I've been skipping to the mail box in anticipation of some more snail mail. If for some reason I missed you with our moving announcements and would like our new address, please e-mail me separately and I'll give it to you :)

Adventures in Barrick-Land

There are a few things that happened this week:

- We had our first over-night guest.

- We filled out garage with WOOD instead of cars.

- We've missed the trash collection every day last week.

- I used these three gardening tools in one day. All by myself.

- I bought an outfit specifically to do yard work.

- We experienced torrential amounts of rain in one weekend. The weekend Bobby was supposed to start the deck. The arrows are where the deck will go.

- We've started a terrarium in our egress window including a variety of spiders, toads, frogs, and...mice. (No worries, they can't get into the house). Survival of the fittest is playing out. More pictures to come.

- Killian has permanently parked himself next to the window to watch the show.

- Killian has learned how to open our front door. When we're not home. Then proceed to run outside. Ahem... did I mention he's an indoor cat? I have yet to catch the little turkey in action, but I'm determined to get a video of it.

That's all. We're short on pictures this week, but I promise more by the end of the weekend. Don't hold me to that though.

Amen.

P.S. I've started listening to Christmas music.

And Then There Were Projects

Our "To Do" List has quadrupled.

I can hear your laughing. Please, spare me your giggled. We've heard that this is what happens once you get a house.

But seriously.

Officially our second weekend in the new house, I was actually home to enjoy it! I've been running off taking pictures of strange, but wonderful, people almost non-stop for the past few weeks. Since I was home, Bobby decided to take full advantage of his slave labor, I mean loving wife's hands, and put me to work.

Since we had Friday off, I went to Annapolis while Bobby finished installing the garage door openers, drove to Alexandria to pick up our new desk, and put all of that together. We also turned in our keys to the apartment on Friday - woo hoo!

After a long day of taking pictures and shopping, I came home to THIS!

The desk is "Espresso Stain" and the chair is just gorgeous (and comfortable). Any ideas on what color to paint this room? It's going to be where I spend a lot of time, so I want it to make me really enjoy being in there. I'd like a room where I can be super-modern/eclectic and extremely organized. There are two more pieces coming that match this desk... a book shelf and more file cabinets that will go on the opposite side of the room. Any cool organization stores out there that sell modern-looking components? Help a sister out.

On Friday, Bobby also finished installing our blinds. Now, we can live in privacy! Yay for privacy!

Saturday, we wasted no time and woke up early. I unpacked the last few boxes in our dining room and put our china away where it will stay until y-o-u come to visit us! I believe we're through with the boxes, everything is unpacked and put away, for the most part!

While I unpacked, Bobby installed dimmer switches on some of the lights downstairs. So now when we have a party, we can have "mood lighting." We tried it last night while we were watching a movie, and it was actually very nice!

And the big project for the day was that we (and by "we" I mean Bobby) installed kitchen cabinet pulls! It looks much more "finished" than it did before. It only took me two weeks to decide which pulls to put on. I must have my Mother's gene for that!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! We enjoyed a night at home so we could give out candy... lots of kids in our neighborhood! It was fun to see them all and meet some of our new neighbors!

This week, we'll be trying to get a deck approved through our Home Owners Association. Shouldn't be hard, but it normally takes a few weeks. Yikes!

In other news, it's November. What?! Also found out that I'll be an AUNT again for the 9th time to a baby GIRL!!!

There Are No Words

Funny thing...cause this whole blogging thing? It's all about words.

So anyway, since I'm being summoned to join my husband downstairs to watch the World Series Baseball game (something about CiCi's and a bath?? I don't know), I will leave you with some updated pictures on the house. Please note, that they are super boring because we haven't done a thing but unpack and put stuff away. I still trip over boxes every morning. And suitcases. And shoes. And Killian...

And now, for the pictures:

Here's where I keep myself busy editing. Yikes! The table shakes when I write. No worries... our poor card table will be replaced with a shiny, new desk from my favorite furniture store this weekend! Please don't laugh.

The view from my bedroom window! The colors are beautiful!

Yay! Now we HAVE to do laundry! My washer and dryer sing to me when the load is done. Does that make laundry more enjoyable? Who knows.

I think Killian has used this bath tub more than we have. He's here every morning while we get ready for work.




When did I start getting excited about kitchen fixtures? Our new faucet, isn't she beautiful? The other one was kinda ugly, so that's going in the basement along with a big 'ol utility tub. That's down in the basement. Please don't ask me to take pictures of it. There are spiders down there.




Really, my kitchen isn't this bright. OR-GAN-I-ZATION! Kitchen stuff is put away. I have enough baking supplies to put Martha Stewart to shame.




Killian is GLUED to this door (that is, whenever he's not in our bathroom). The window is only about 3 feet off the ground, so he can see squirrels and other vermin spritz across our backyard. It tempts my poor baby.




When we closed, our Realtor lady brought us this beautiful blue bag from Tiffany's. It even smells fabulous. Oh, how I love this color. Inside was a crystal serving bowl.




Bobby wasted no time in hanging this sign in his special parking space in the garage. I parked there the other day and he gave me a ticket. I had to pay him back in cookies.




Please locate my kitty in the bottom right corner of the window. Don't make fun of me for having Killian in most of these pictures. He's our baby and I love him...even though he may not love me back so much. Here he is at yet another window. And the only form of decoration I've put up so far is my doormat. Thank you, Super Target.

Well, voila! There you have it... maybe I can stop drowning in photo editing from being "out of the office" with my photography last week and actually start decorating! More to come, uh...later.

Happy weekend!!! Oh yea, it's Halloween??

The Scent of a Moving Box

Dear Diary,

It's been exactly one week since Bobby and I have become home-owners. Hoo-rah! Who knew having a home could be this much fun! We've had all week to get ourselves into trouble around the house. Bobby's "honey-do" list has grown exponentially, the number of boxes I have to unpack is slowly shortening, and Killian still hasn't learned how to go down the stairs so that he doesn't fall on his face each time.

Last week was such a blur...I look back now and think, "what the heck did we do all week?" I'll tell you what we did and it rhymes with a whole lot of stairs! But seriously, let me recount the list for you:

1. Climb 3 flights of stairs about 3859302 times
2. Trip and fall down said stairs approximately 4-5 times
3. Proceed to curse said stairs
4. Carry 68 boxes worth of stuff down said stairs
5. Made approximately 8 car trips from our apartment to our new house
5. Tote 1 small cat to new house
6. Unpack about 50% worth of boxes into kitchen cabinets
7. Distribute furniture around house
8. On first trip, proceed to scratch freshly painted drywall with a box (go me!)
9. Open one bottle of delicious champagne
10. Sleep 3 nights on the floor
11. Attempt to hang blinds in all the windows
12. Return blinds to Lowes because they cut the sizes incorrectly (trip #5)
13. Install garage door openers
14. Replace kitchen faucet with a fun and shiny one
15. Washer/Dryer delivered
16. Trip to Lowes for extra parts to make said washer/dryer work
17. Place highly-anticipated Adirondack Chairs on front porch
18. Abuse the Chinese Take-Out menu
19. Cable installed
20. Cat-Door installed
21. Man room set up in basement
22. Test out smoke detectors when cooking first meal
23. Eat said Chinese Food on the floor 3 nights in a row
24. Host first house guest (thanks J-Money!)
25. Make pancakes for breakfast for our first weekend
26. Spill ice cream on brand new carpet
27. Break glass on rock-hard granite
28. Get locked out of house with no one home on the inside
29. Meet new neighbors to borrow their phone
30. Computer hooked up (YAYY!!)
31. Enjoy every second of this milestone in our lives

As you can see, we've been really, really REALLY busy. And no, I haven't had time to take pictures yet and I still have 4 sessions worth of pictures on my memory cards. Cut me a small break, diary, please?

Anyway, back to burying my head in more boxes and photo editing until the cows come home.

Until next time,

XOXO

Melissa

Got Keys?

We do!

The day has come and gone. FINALLY. Can I get the Hallelujah chorus?!

Bobby and I closed on our house yesterday without a hitch! We were in and out of the lawyer's office in less than an hour with a new set of shiny new keys. We wasted ZERO time and got to moving. We drove over with a full Jeep and started unpacking right away! With just the two of us, we moved everything that was packed in boxes, along with all of the "stuff" in storage boxes. YEA!

Did I mention that our apartment is on the 3rd floor?? I don't even want to count how many times we ran up and down those stairs. My thighs will tell you....painful.

Nonetheless, we spent last night in our new house on the floor of our very large, very empty bedroom. Killian joined in with us, although he spent most of the night exploring his new lair.

Before we went to bed, we enjoyed a nice dinner (on the floor) and one of the best bottles of champagne we'll probably ever have. We toasted to this milestone in our lives, thanked God for His abundant blessings, then got to unpacking!

Before 11pm last night, we had the whole kitchen unpacked and put away.



And tonight, we will finish the bottle of champagne.

This week and weekend will be very busy as our washer and dryer get delivered, our blinds get installed, our cable gets hooked up (most important), and our furniture gets delivered. Thank you everyone for your kind words, e-mails and text messages these past few days. The encouragement is delightful and we can't wait to host each one of you soon in our brand. new. home.

Stay tuned for more pictures once things get settled! Stay tuned via Facebook and Twitter for more frequent updates, too!

R&R Carolina Style : Part 2

Well, after a week of frantic searching in my hard drive, I realized that I took a days worth of pictures on the beach with my Dad's camera when half the family showed up!! SO, there may be a Part 3 coming if I can get my hands on his memory card!

Anyway, we had a fun-filled 4 days in the Outer Banks with my family, the Wise's. We had a huge house right on the beach and our bedroom over-looked the dunes and the vast Atlantic. It's crazy to imagine where, geographically, we were because the Outer Banks are just so...out there... it's amazing that they even still exist considering they are the buffer for the mainland when the hurricanes strike.

Click HERE for a map of where we were.

Our first day down, we spent with my sister in law, Jen and my two nieces, Mary Claire and Ellie. SO much fun, we had, running around the beach, making sand mermaids, kayaking, a hot dog lunch... we even took a dip in the "heated" pool, which wasn't actually working. All of our lips were blue :)

That evening, Bobby and I took a drive down to Hatteras to get a glimpse of the famous light house. Unfortunately, we got there just as it closed, but Bobby enjoyed driving down the beach-y road with the doors off on his Jeep! We drove the Wrangler the 6 hours down for the sole purpose of driving on the beach, but we didn't have time to do that. Maybe next time! I can hear that 4-wheel drive calling your name, Honey.

Sweet Elle-Belle.

The famous Rodanthe House! Ok, so it doesn't look like much here, but have you seen the movie? Since the movie was filmed, a hurricane took out the house and the county deemed it condemned and unlivable.

This picture is taken at low tide...during high tide, I would imagine the whole bottom of the house would be under water.

I don't know why, but I love this picture. I feel like it should be a painting. Yes, I know it's a little blurry, but maybe that's why I feel like it should be a painting. This is on the trail going up to the beach.




Mary Claire and Ellie relaxing in the sand...love the over-sized sunglasses!




One evening, after everyone was there (minus Holly and the Boys), we had, what I believe was, the First Annual Wise Family Bon Fire. North Carolina allows fires on the beach (or so we think...), so Bobby and all the brothers built up a big bon fire on the beach! We had s'mores (with a hint of sand in each one) and the adults had as much fun as the kids did!







Christina and AJ



One of my older sisters, April, and her son, Neilson.



Sweet Patience.



I wanted to badly to get an updated picture of all the nieces and nephews together. Unfortunately, two of my nephews couldn't be down when everyone else was, so these are just five of them. I bought all the girls head bands from J. Crew and my sister's humored my while we took some pictures in matching outfits. The lighting was so terrible that this was one of the ONLY pictures that turned out. The rest are so blurry. Lesson Learned: bring tripod next time. Oh well, I still love this picture.



That wraps it up! We will definitely be making a trip back there sometime soon. Thanks Dad, for renting the house so we could all be together for a few days. What a blessing to have such wonderful, close family!