Happy Holidays!

What a great Holiday Season we are having!  I cannot believe that 2010 is almost over, but we have had so many blessing in 2010 that I am excited to see what 2011 has in store for us!

Travis and I have been as busy as ever!  We spent Thanksgiving Day at Travis's parents house in Brentwood.  Christopher and Emilie and our two nephews were suppose to be in, but Joseph was under the weather so they were a couple of days late in driving in.  Travis has been wanting to fry a turkey, and with the help of his father and a fire extinguisher close by, he successfully fried one and it was the best turkey I have had.  The day after Thanksgiving I flew up to Pennsylvania for a two day visit with my family and then was able to fly back early Sunday morning to hang out with Christopher, Emilie, Joseph, and Jacob. 

The weekend after Thanksgiving we woke up one morning to no heat in the house.  We installed a new heating unit the month before and could not figure out why it would not work until we went down in the basement and found that it was flooded.  After three days, and two trips from Hiller Plumbing and Heating, we had to install a new sump pump in our basement, Merry Christmas to us!

We have found time to do some decorating and our tree is up, we have a real tree in our house against Travis's wishes.  I also hosted a Kingsport Girl's Christmas Dinner, took a wreath making class with Alissa, went to the Nashville Symphony Christmas concert with special guest Martina McBride, went to Joc and Kaitlin's engagement party, hosted our best friends Joe and Becca for the weekend, and finally celebrated with Samantha at her baby shower.  Yes, our Holiday have been busy and it is going to continue to be.  

We are so blessed to have loving family and friends, and I hope that everyone is able to take a moment to enjoy your Holiday and remember that Christ is the reason for this Season!

 The new statue of General Neyland at UT's Stadium

I know it looks burned, but it was not and the skin was the best part.

 This is my Grandmother Grace meeting her 10th great-grandchild for the first time.

Travis's Grandmother Sarah with her second great-grandchild.

Joc and Kaitlin's engagement party.

Samantha's baby shower, baby Maggie is expected in February!

It is only December 12th and already we have had our second snowfall!

 

 

Fall Progress

I am sorry that it has been over a month since I have posted on our blog.  Besides still settling in to our home, we have been away every weekend so I have not had a chance to sit down and update our blog.  The last weekend in September we went to Kingsport for my 10 year high school reunion, I know I am getting old.  I was a little disappointed that more classmates did not come in, but it was great seeing everyone and had a blast the entire weekend.  The same weekend I was able to go to one of my bff, and bridesmaids, baby shower, and then I left from Kingsport and flew to Chicago for work.  While I was up in Chicago I went dinner with my cousin Mary and her fiance Louay, and at dinner I was asked to be a bridesmaid in her wedding.  Mary and Louay are getting married the first weekend in April in Birmingham and I am so excited that they asked me to be part of their special day!  When I got back from Chicago, my father picked me up from the airport and the next day Karen joined us and we were able to enjoy a hot October day in Middle Tennessee at Cheekwood visiting the Chihuly exhibit.   I then spent the following weekend with my mother for girls trip to Massachusetts to attend my cousins wedding.  I have a large family, 42 cousins and second cousins, and I have not seen my cousin Matthew since I was about 7, so I was  happy that I was able to see him again after all of this time.  As soon as I came home, Travis left to go to San Diego for work, but he took the red eye home and arrived back in Nashville at 9:30am just in time for us to drive to Knoxville for the day for the UT/Alabama game.  We spent the day tailgating in front of Travis's fraternity, Phi Sig, and was able to see some old friends and spend the day with family.  We have had such a fun fall so far, and I am looking forward to the holidays in our new home. 

Although we have been busy on the weekends, we have still managed to get a lot done around the house.  Travis installed a peg board in the garage so that we can better organize our yard tools and such.  Travis also has been spending some quality time in our yard with his new leaf blower, although we love the shade the trees provide in the summer, I think we are fighting a loosing battle with our leaves.  As for me, after several trips to the furniture store, I finally was able to decide on some furniture for our front living room, which will be my living room once everything comes in, but unfortunately it will not be in until the first of January.  We also did have to have our heating and air unit replaced, and while they were cutting a new vent in our floor, they managed to split the wood in our bedroom.  The company is covering the cost to fix it and they will be out next week to install a new section of hardwood floors for us.  Our chandelier and some sconces are still on back order, and I just hope that they come in time for our holiday entertaining. Other than this we love our home and could not be happier with our neighborhood.

Kristen, Myself, and Becca after the rival Dobyns-Bennett vs. South football game.  This was the first time Travis went to a DB football game and he was entertained when a fight broke out in the crowd...welcome to Kingsport!

At the DB reunion with two of my BFF's Jacqueline and Brooke.

Kristen and I at her shower for Baby Jonah

Chihuly exhibit at Cheekwood

Matthew and Joy's Wedding in Massachusetts

 
I loved her shoes!

Mom and I

UT vs Alabama tailgate with Ashley and Nathan

 I still get excited about the running of the T!

 Trav and I at the Pearl Ball


Some before and afters of our Master Bedroom

The green wall is from the original bedroom and the yellow was from the bathroom.  We ended up taking some space from the original bathroom to enlarge the bedroom, and we covered up the two windows on the right.

Another view of our bedroom reno.  The closet to the left is now my closet and was part of the original bathroom.  The closet on the right is Trav's closet and it had been the powder room.  Straight ahead was another bedroom that we turned into our bathroom.

Framing for our new shower area.

Since we did not need a door to our bedroom, I had them add an archway leading in to our master bedroom.

We added shelving in the corner that had been part of the original closet,  the closet was itty bitty and there is no way that we would have been able to make the original closet space work.

A very small portion of our shower had been part of the original closet, again the closets were very small.

After

It has been four weeks and four days since we have moved into our new home, and there are still so many things going on that I have not had a chance to sit down and relax.  After the first week of moving into our new home we spent the first weekend at the lake for Labor Day, the second weekend dealing with workers, and the third weekend watching the Vols lose to Florida.  This weekend we have more workers lined up, and unfortunately we still will not be finished the work that we were hoping would be completed by the end of September.  We still need to have our under cabinet lighting installed in our kitchen, and we need to have our new heating and air unit installed.  Other than this we have made great progress on the house, and it already feels like home to me.  I love everything about our home and have even accepted that we will probably always have spiders living in our basement.  We have had some visitors over but before we have an official housewarming party, we need to buy some furniture!  Coming from our townhouse with only five rooms to a house with eleven rooms, we have a lot of empty space that needs to be filled.  I plan on continuing to blog as we finish each room and want to show a before and after of each room.  The finished project comes to no surprise to me because I envisioned the finished product the entire time, but I want to show the best I can the transformation of the house over the twelve weeks of renovating.  I am going to start with the outside and I will post a before and after of each room after this.

Labor Day weekend at the Collignon's Lake House

 UT vs. Florida

 First picture of our house that we saw when it was listed for sale on Realtracs.

Some pictures of the first day of construction

 

And now....The After!

Our goal by the end of Spring for the outside of our home is to install a privacy fence, build in a custom grill on the patio, and professionally landscape the yard.