Jay is famous!

Ok, maybe not really, but on our little island, our "little slice of paradise" he is.

I called him one day last week (or maybe the week before, I can't remember, but it's not really that important) and he said to me something along the lines of "I can't talk now. The female had baby ducks and they just fell down the drain. Tina and Denise are over here and we're trying to get them out. Denise is going to crawl in the drain and make them come out the other side and I've got a net." First of all, I was really excited to hear that we had baby ducks (''babies!!!"). We have a female and two male ducks (see picture below) that like to hang out in our yard (pretty much only because Jay gives them a tub of water to drink and bathe in, and scratch grain to munch on 24/7), and Jay had speculated that the female was nesting somewhere, so we were hoping for babies. Of course, I tell him to call me back with the outcome.

Tina and Denise are Clear Lake Shores police officers (the finest around, I might add!), and apparently Jay and the neighbors tried to flush water down the drain so that the baby ducks would swim out to the channel where Jay would catch them in the net. It turns out that they did that, but immediately swam right back in when they saw the net. So officer Denise literally crawled in the drain pipe to "usher" them to the other side and to the awaiting net that Jay was holding.

Baby ducks were ok, thanks to some great neighborhood teamwork (that's what we're all about here on the island) and there was an article in our newsletter, "The Islander," complete with a picture of Jay holding the net. He was rather embarrassed about it when the newsletter came today, but I was proud of him!

Check out the August issue of "The Islander" to read the story about "Nice Man Jay."

Way to go Jay, Sergeant Shelley and Officer Denise!

These are the ducks that Jay feeds and takes care of. The neighborhood is now affectionately calling Jay "Papa Duck"

Family time in Texas

It was so awesome to have my grandma and aunt in town last week from Ohio and my cousin Kim flew in from San Francisco. We had a great time! Didn't do a whole lot (except shop, which is what our family does best), but it was great just to hang out and spend some time with them. I haven't seen them in over a year, so it was nice. Here are a few photos from the visit (thanks Kim!).

Me and Jay in the golf cart after breakfast at our favorite Sunday morning spot

Me, my cousin Kim, and my grandma outside my parents townhouse

My aunt , mom and me in the park across from my house


After a golf cart ride around the island!

So Proud

My alma mater made the 2009 Princeton Review Top 20 Party Schools list. Wahoo! Indiana University (for those of you that didn't know what my alma mater is) is #14 on the list. And, there are four Big Ten schools on the list. How about that? Penn State tops the list. Way to lead the way Nittany Lions!!!

House pictures

A lot of you have been asking for pictures of the house now that we're back in, so here are a few. Still not a lot of furniture, but we're working on it. We haven't been able to find exactly what we want, so I figure there's no point in buying crap in the meantime. Might as well wait until we find what we want.

Kitchen

Kitchen

Living room

Living room

Living/dining room

bathroom (CK, this one is for you!)

Master bedroom

Master bedroom

Weddings

No, I'm not getting married (yet), but I do love a good wedding. Including first dances, and the two below. The first one would suck royally, and I'm not sure how I would react in the same situation, but to be an outsider, it's kinda funny. And the second, well, it's just plain AWESOME. Although Jay told me "don't get any ideas." Boo on him. Enjoy!

Worst Best Man Ever @ Yahoo! Video

Hello!

I don't have much to say today, as not much has changed since my last post. But I know there are some of you out there (who will remain anonymous, but you know who you are) who complain if I don't blog every 2 or 3 days, so I'm blogging.

We are slowly getting settled back in to our home. It's been hard this week with crazy things going on at work, and just being tired, so we didn't get a whole lot done during the week. But this weekend will be a different story. Actually, I got a lot done today (love being off on Friday afternoons!), and Jay was able to get some stuff done tonight. Most of the pictures are up on the walls, with the exception of our bedroom (not sure what I'm doing about furniture in there) and the bathroom (they still have to come in and install the mirror), but I'm beginning to see my living and dining room floors again. Which is nice, because they are nice, and I actually want to see them. It's amazing, though, to think that we lost a good percentage of our stuff in the hurricane, yet we seem to have a lot of stuff. I know we haven't accumulated this much since the storm, so there are times where I look at it all and wonder where it came from.

I hope you all have a nice weekend. For those of you who are getting rain, please send it our way. We need it desperately. We've been teased the last couple of days with the grumblings of thunder, but then it seems to fizzle and we get nothing. It's really bad here. Yet our neighbor thinks it's ok to burn his trash. Yes, we called the cops. Idiot.

Anyway, have a great weekend. Maybe I'll take some photos this weekend and post them for you all to see!

Skating babies

Ok, so we all know that I work in the marketing world, and I can't really view anything without thinking about the marketing effect. This one had a good effect on me (thanks RV for sending me the link!). Evian is quite crafty!

A Texas summer poem

SHIT!

It's Hot !

Need I say more?

Home Sweet Home

What sweet words those are. I apologize for having not blogged in the past week or so. We've been so busy at the house, getting everything moved over from the townhouse and put away. Plus, we haven't had Internet at the house until yesterday, so that kinda makes it hard to blog!

We are so happy and blessed to be back in the house. It'll be 10 months ago tomorrow (Monday) that the storm hit. If you would have asked me 10 months ago if I thought it would have taken this long, I would have laughed in your face and told you, "hell no!" Little did I know. We're actually very fortunate to be back so soon. Yes, you heard correctly. So soon. 10 months is soon for our area. So many people are still fighting with their insurance companies, or if they didn't have any insurance (hard to believe that you wouldn't have insurance, but some people didn't), thety're trying to find a way to pay for all of the repairs. So in that regards, we're so lucky. The last 10 months have seemed to go by at a snail's pace, but I know in reality it was pretty quick.

The house, in our own humble opinion, is gorgeous. We couldn't have asked for anything more. We really are so excited to be back and pleased with how it turned out.

I've got most of the kitchen together, and stuff up on the walls. I can't decide if I'm going to work on the living / dining room next, or the bedroom. All of the clothes have been put in the closet. Ok, well, actually, not all of the clothes. There are still some winter stuff left at the townhouse, but seeing how it's 100+ degrees outside these days, I don't even want to think about winter clothes. By the way - I love, love, LOVE my new master closet. Thank you, Jay, for agreeing to expand!

I've been looking here and there at furniture. I have some ideas, but we haven't bought anything yet. For someone who loves to shop, furniture shopping has got to be the most frustrating shopping experience ever. I know in my head what I want, but trying to find it is a totally different story. This could be a long process...

Anyway, that's all I really have to report. Just loving being back home, finally, in our home. Thank you to everyone who helped us get to this point. We couldn't have done it without you (even those of you who are in California and Michigan... your support helped get us here!).

We're in!

I am happy to report that we were able to move back in to our house this weekend after almost 10 months of being displaced. What a great feeling it was for us to sleep in our own bed in our own house after so many months of being away. July 4th was our first night back in. We spent most of the weekend moving, and still have some stuff to get from the townhouse, but the important thing is we're back in. And we're so happy to be back on the island. I'll post more and add some pictures when I can, but I just wanted to share the great news!

Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive during the last 10 months. It really means the world to us!