the yard

This spring has flown and the summer is quickly approaching. We have slowly began making headway in the yard. This spring we rented a mini excavator and dug up shrubs in the yard. Here are a couple of before and after pictures.

We removed shrubs and trees at the front of the property and it opened up our front yard. The section was overgrown and had more vines than anything else. We are simplifying the yard and planting grass.

This is the side of the house and these shrubs left because they were too close to the foundation. I planted a garden because this spot gets more sunlight than any other location in the yard.

The little garden has tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, basil, cilantro, chives, parsley, dill, rosemary, and oregano.

Current picture of the garden. I have enjoyed using herbs from the garden and can't wait for some vegetables.

We dug up these shrubs because they were over grown. They are currently twice the size they should be so we decided it was easier to start over.

We planted 5 hydrangea in front of the house. They will look nice when they get bigger.

snow in Ruston

We got our first snow storm since we moved to Ruston. School was closed. Students on campus were up till 4 am building snowmen and having snowball fights. We just enjoyed the comfort and familiarity with snow.

Looking down our street



This is a tree blooms from the end of November through February.

The snow started melting yesterday and will be all gone by the afternoon.

adoption

This blog is an avenue for us to share about our lives. I realized that we have not really shared anything about our plans to adopt a child from Ethiopia on the blog.

We have begun the process have been accepted by an agency that has Hague Accreditation. Right now we are working on saving and fund raising so we can submit our contract and begin the home studies & paperwork stage. Adoption is a slow process and there are many steps along the way.

This Christmas we received the first present for the baby. My parents gave us the piggy bank in the picture. It really represents where we are in the adoption process...saving, fund raising, and saving some more.

We will keep you updated as we come up with more concrete ways to fund raise.

the house

The past two days have been really nice; 6 weeks and lots of work is coming to a close. For the first time since we have moved into the house, it feels like a home. There is no roof caving in or massive amounts of work we need to do on the project. It is a blessing and we are simply grateful for God's help finishing it all before Christmas.

I decided to post some pre-remodel pictures...it is completely different.The picture of the den from the kitchen. Got to love the 4 by 4 and bucket catching the water...the reason this project began.
The picture of the room pre-remodel from the corner by the fireplace.
Picture of the den from the new hallway by the kitchen.
The view of the den from the fireplace corner.
The working fireplace...thanks Leland!
Before the ornaments went on the tree.
Leland's creative picture.

update

On Monday, we flew out to Disney World. Leland had a conference and I tagged along. While we left the work continued at the house.
We have walls that look like walls now. It amazes me that the den is physically smaller than before but it looks bigger. They have been prepared to paint and we will start painting next week.
Now our hallway actually looks like a hallway...it has been a crazy to watch the transformation over the past couple of weeks.
Now we also have a big mess inside as well as out.

the house

Two weeks ago our house started a major project. The major problem was discovered over a year ago and we have been working on getting it fixed. Here are just a couple of pictures to show the work that has been done.
This is one of the before pictures. We said goodbye to all of the wood paneling.
The next thing we said goodbye to was the roof. The only way to fix the problem was to take all of the roof off and rebuild the structure. This was a good reminder for me that sometimes the pathway to something being right means it needs to be broken. I also learned that the kitchen is incredibly bright without a roof in the den.
They worked hard on Saturday to rebuild the roof structure.


On Sunday they worded to roof the house and frame up the rooms. They also took a lot of debris away.
We are splitting the den into two rooms. It will add a bedroom to our house and two closets! (Closet space is very exciting) We will use the extra bedroom as a train room/office.

This past week was full of the plumbers, electricians, and heat & air people. The work will continue next week...more to come.

the living room

This weekend the living room got a little bit of a face lift. We moved the faithful futon into the den and couches into the living room. We drove to Shreveport with a trailer to pick them up and got the couches in typical Weiss fashion. We faced many obstacles throughout the day but at the end of the day, we watched the Hawkeyes win and the first half of the Coug game...or Jenni slept through the Coug game (I never realized how spoiled I was watching football in the pacific time zone...but that is an entirely different blog).


My favorite part of the new layout is that now the pretty rug is visible...no coffee table on top of it.

There are some pictures of the new couches and our long living room.