Mevois

It has been a while since I posted about movies.  Here's the thing though, who is that?  No, that was a Parks and Rec quote, sorry.  Here's the thing though, we canceled our Netflix account before we moved (and before all of the re-workings and price upages (that's a new word, did you know?)), so we haven't been watching as many movies.  "As many" is a vague term though because we still watch a lot of movies, just now we buy them and own them, or rent them from RedBox.  

Movies we have bought since we moved to South Carolina.

1. Alfred Hitchcock Classics
2. She's the Man
3. The Pelican Brief
4. 27 Dresses
5. Groundhog Day
6. What About Bob?
7. The Holiday
8. Runaway Bride
9. Young Frankenstein

Don't worry, I've apologized to Paul for the excessive amount of chick flicks on that list.  At $5.00 each that's $45.00, which is about $15.00 more than we would have paid for 3 months of Netflix, but now we OWN them.  Worth it?  Discuss.  Oh wait, also consider the following lists (and my one-word recommendations, because I'm lazy).

Movies that we have rented from Redbox (at $1.00 a piece).

1. Source Code (no)
2. Gnomeo and Juliet (meh)
3. Something Borrowed (meh)
4. True Grit (yes)
5. Rio (yes)
6. Just Go With It (no)
7. The Way Back (yes)

Movies that we have seen in theatres (at, we'll say, $15.00 a piece).

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (yes)
2. The Help (yes)

Television shows that we have bought.  You don't need to know how much these cost because the comedy is priceless.

1. Parks and Recreation Seasons 1-3
2. Modern Family Season 1

Overall I would say that I like not having Netflix.  Now we can start adding to our personal movie collection so that we can watch the movies we really like whenever we want to.  It is also just as easy to go to a RedBox to rent a movie as it is to wait 3 days (or more) for one to come in the mail.  And it makes it sort of like a date to rent a movie, ya know?  What I really like is that we don't waste time on our instant queue anymore.  We've been attempting to unplug a little (Paul's doing better than me, he even deleted his Facebook) and not having that instant queue really helps.  BUT since we don't have Netflix anymore we've been considering signing up for Amazon Prime.  Yes?  No?  Would that be missing the point?

What about you?

Dave + Jess

So, my big brother got married on September the 23rd at McMenamin's Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Hillsboro, Oregon.  Here are some pictures of the big day:

I didn't take very many pictures of the bride and groom, but the wedding was beautiful, David's vows were precious, and the dancing was crazy fun.

The next day we took a family trip to the coast, ate at Mo's, played on the beach, and successfully wore out Mckenna.

I love home.

Camping Kinda

Well it was raining last weekend so instead of going to the state park like we had planned, we camped in our backyard!  I set up the tent all by myself while Paul set up the BBQ.  Hot dogs and marshmallows and smores.  mmm.  I am a master mallow-roaster and I'm teaching Paul all I know.  Happy Camping!

Kitchen

I have such creative post titles . . .

Yesterday Paul had to work a 12-hr shift that he found out about last minute.  Luckily, we had paint and I decided to paint our whole kitchen all by myself!

It was a ton of work to prep the walls.  I had to do a lot of sanding and spackling and cleaning and taping that took me about 2 hours.  I wish you could see the cobwebs and grime in these before pictures but my camera is doing this weird thing where it won't focus so it takes a while to even get a decent photo.

Once I got to the actual painting part it took me 4 hours more.  Plus then I had to clean up.  Whew!

BEFORE and AFTER:

That lovely dark wood 70s door is the blue door in the patio pictures from my previous post.  And I'm feeling very amused by my inability to match . . . blue tablecloth, red rug, brown rug, green walls.  Oh well.  I still have lots of plans to carry out that will make it look fabulous.

And I'm also very much considering painting this side of the kitchen too.  That dark blue is just so weird.

Back Patio

One of the awesome things about the house we're renting is the back patio.  It's huge!  It's also screened in so it feels like you're outside but you don't have to worry about pesky bugs like mosquitoes!  It was also very dirty and gross and bug infested, so we decided to give it a makeover.

The before picture.  Please take note of all the ugly things: the dirty floor, the dirty walls, the water-stained ceiling, the bad paint job, etc.

 

 

Then we started experimenting with paint colors.  We knew we wanted yellow, but didn't quite like either of these.  We ended up just getting one that looked like something in the middle.

 

Here's the other side of the patio.  Big, isn't it?  Also very dirty and spidery and dusty.  I swear, the girl we're renting from never came out here!

 

Here's the place after we put on a coat of primer.  Already looking a lot better.  We even did the ceiling to get rid of the water stains. 

 

And the other side of the patio with a coat of primer

 

We decided to paint the storage/seating area the same color as the doors and windows because we didn't want to paint the doors and windows, but we wanted it to look like they were blue on purpose.  I actually really love the blue color, and it makes the storage stand out.

 

And there's the YELLOW!

 

It turned out quite school-bus-y, didn't it?  I think it looks pretty awesome.  It feels a lot like summer-time when we're out there now.  I'm hoping to make some pillows/cushions that match a little better than our current patio set, but for now it is just nice to be able to go out there and actually enjoy it!

What do you think?  Also, in the very first picture you can see some marks from where we took down an ugly shelf.  We were going to throw it away, but I was feeling creative and decided to paint it.

It is up in our living room now, which we just rearranged, and looks so cozy.  Don't you want to come visit us now so you can see for yourself??

Pet People

A while back, Paul's classmate Casey asked Paul if he would be able to watch her puppy over the long weekend.  He agreed, so we picked the little guy up one morning to watch him.  We let him follow us around the house and sniff around the backyard.  He was super duper cute to watch.  I enjoyed the tap tap tap of his little feet on the hardwood and the sound of his tags hitting the floor when he laid down.  He was so well behaved and cuddly and I wanted to just keep him!

When night rolled around we debated what to do with him.  We could let him roam around inside and hope that he wouldn't destroy our stuff, or put him in the kennel and hope that he wouldn't cry all night . . . So we decided to put him outside.  We took the kennel out, but when he wouldn't climb in we decided it would be fine to just leave him in the backyard to roam.  Dogs are good at that.

In the morning Paul woke up at 8 and went outside to get Tucker.  When I heard Paul come back inside without the tap, tap, tap of doggy paws my insides dropped.  Where was Tucker?  I knew we were in trouble when Paul told me that Tucker wasn't in the back yard.  What happened to him?  We walked around our large yard and sturdy fence and didn't see any signs of an escape.  How did he get out?  Slowly, we started to feel a little desperate, realizing that he really wasn't anywhere to found, and we had lost Casey's puppy after only one day.

So we hopped in the car to search for him.  We drove slowly around the neighborhoods, through the garbage alleys, glaring out the windows searching for that little guy.  It was very depressing.  We couldn't find him anywhere.  A few times I saw garbage bags rustling in the dirt and thought it might be Tucker but it was always a false alarm.  Even when we spotted some dogs and tried to follow them we didn't have any luck.  We started thinking maybe he got out early in the night and was on the other side of town.  I even suggested that someone might have stolen him.  After about two hours of searching we decided we were hungry, that we had given it our best effort, and came home to eat.

We decided that telling Casey was going to be the worst thing ever.  How could we dog-sit for one day and lose the dog?  We should have put him in the kennel, even if he would've cried.  At least then we wouldn't have lost him.  That was probably the most depressing bowl of Frosted Flakes I have ever had.  Then, when we were almost done with breakfast and talking about how we would tell Casey, I heard a weird scratching sound at the door.  Then some whimpers and more scratching.  Tucker!?  I literally ran to the door and shoved it open.  And believe it or not, there he was, panting and slobbering and stupid!  We both felt waves of relief (more like tsunamis of relief) as we got him water and asked him where he went and how he escaped and how he found his way back.  Of course he didn't answer, but at least he was back and we didn't have to admit to losing him!

We never found out how he got out, but I am sure glad he came back.  We let him follow us around for the rest of the day, but kept our eye on him.  And every time I looked at him I wondered how he escaped and thought thank goodness he came back.  Casey picked him up that night and we just smiled and told her that he had been a good dog. . . ha!

And the moral of the story is:  Don't let Paul and Abby watch your pets!

No really.  This is how we realized we aren't pet people.

Actually we learned that from another incident as well.

When we decided that we didn't want to take our turtles to South Carolina we tried to sell them on Craigslist.  It took a while but eventually we got a hit and we arranged to drop them off at this guy's house.  When we drove up to his old, battered house the guy was sitting on his steps wearing a grubby T-shirt.  He just stared at us.  I hopped out of the car and asked if he was waiting for the turtles.  He just nodded a creepy nod and so I walked over to him.  Paul and I decided beforehand that if he didn't give us the cash right away we would just give him the turtles for free because we really couldn't take them with us.  I handed them over and he said thanks and then just stared at us some more.  Awkward.  Okay, we realized he was sort of crazy so we jumped back in the car and drove off hoping he knew how to take care of them.

Although, maybe he didn't need to take care of them.  Paul thought maybe he wasn't going to keep them as pets but eat them instead.  Poor turtles.  The bad thing is we both laughed really hard at that thought when we probably should have been sad about the probable demise of our first pets. . . .

Yeah ... we really aren't pet people.

Sullivan's Island, Charleston, SC

A few weeks ago Paul and I went to Sullivan's Island down in Charleston.  It takes about two and a half hours to drive there, but that was okay with us since we have a new car.  Plus, it's the beach. 

We chose Sullivan's Island (over the many other beaches Charleston has to offer) mainly because we had heard that it's a family friendly beach and we are basically your typical married fogies now. Who wants to deal with all those surfing young people?  Not us.

Turns out Sullivan's Island has a permanent sand bar that makes a neat wave-less pool of surprisingly hot water.  And I mean hot, like a hot-tub hot.  Then again I'm from Oregon where the ocean makes your toes go red and your feet go numb.  Once you go past the sand bar the water stays very warm and has a strong current but only mild waves.  It was fun to play that game where you see who can stand in one spot the longest.  You know that game, right?  It's pretty self-explanatory.

We loved hiking around in the waves and getting some UV rays.  Paul found two whole sand dollars (big ones, too) but broke them both when we went back to the sand to lay down.  I sprayed sunscreen on Paul and did a horrible job (he ended up looking very splotchy) so I let the sand dollar thing slide.

After the beach we went to the Tanger Outlet Mall in Charleston and I got jeans (two pairs!) at Banana Republic for 50% off.  Major score.  We also outsmarted a cashier and got two oven mitts for the price of one.  All in all it was a fabulous trip.