Why do weekends have to go so fast?

What a great weekend! The weather has been beautiful here. We started out the weekend by going to a retirement party on Friday night at the Urbana Country Club. It was for a teacher at Jeremy's school that is retiring. I actually work with her daugther as well...small world. Very nice party, they served Lasagna which was fabulous and really fun cupcakes from the Cake Artist Studio. Saturday, Jeremy played in the Pia's Sports Bar golf outting with some buddies. My Mom and I took advantage of the great weather and headed South to Tuscola to the Outlet Mall. We found some great bargains and ended up shopping for a big part of the day. By the time he got home from the golf outting and I got home shopping we were wiped. We watched the movie Taken. It was pretty good, but some of it I had to distract myself with the computer. Our dogs, or should I say mainly Lucie, didn't think we needed to sleep in this morning, so we got up early and went to breakfast at Le Peep. It is always fun to go to breakfast on weekends but we hardly ever do. We always end up having our every Sunday ritual of waffles (even the dogs get a waffle), but today we decided to go out. We went to Lowe's and looked/priced appliances for our new house. Jeremy fished quite a bit in the pond today, he actually caught a bullfrog! Nasty! Of course he threw it back, but I am betting it won't be croaking tonight. They have been awfully noisey at night when we have our windows open.
This weekend we look forward to another garage sale. This time at my Grandma's house in St. Joe. We hope to get rid of some more things and what we don't get rid of is going to Goodwill! We also hope the framing on our house will be started this week. No new news on the selling of this house. It has not been shown in exactly 2 weeks from today. We hope to get in touch with our realtor this week and schedule another Open House in the near future. We are getting rather anxious to get some more traffic through here!
It is going to be a long week! Since last week we only worked 3 days, it will be hard to deal with the normal 5 day work week. My work has a big deadline on the 5th and Jeremy's last day with kids at Urbana Middle School is this Friday. It will be a little bittersweet for him as he has grown to love Urbana, but also very excited about Gibson City as well.
That's all for now, have a great week!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!!!

Today was a very fun day for Jeremy and I. We both took the day off to meet with our builders to pick out a bunch of important details of our new house. We went over to Bloomington to several businesses to pick out things such as tile, cabinets, carpet, hardwood floors, etc. We got a lot accomplished today and feel good about our decisions. And the good thing is, we agreed on EVERYTHING! Our tour guide was Pam at Executive Homes, which she was very helpful and super nice!
The first stop was Creative Kitchen & Bath. There we picked out our kitchen cabinets which will be Maple with a Ginger colored stain. We also picked out how our cabinets will be laid out. We picked out our counter tops for our bathrooms which will be an Ivory color. Kitchen countertop will come later but we know we are getting a darker colored granite. We also still need to pick out the hardware for our cabinets, but we know what we want because our builders have a style we like at a house in Champaign we used for comparison in deciding the house plan we chose.

The next stop was Carpet Weavers. We chose our carpet for the entire house as well as hardwood floors for our formal dining room. It was funny because we were both drawn to the same hardwood instantly. Our hardwood is a thicker cut board and is considerend an Aspen Burch. Our carpet I believe is called Brownstone color and is the style of carpet that is popular right now in new houses (kind of like a shag). It is a neutral color that has hints of browns and grays in it. Again, we were both drawn to the carpet color as well.

The next stop was Keen Tile. (From the pic it looks like Ken Tile, but it is Keen tile:)) Here we chose our ceramic tile for the kitchen and all baths. The color of tile is hard to explain so everyone will have to see it when they come visit our new house. It is large square tile, however, around our whirlpool bath will be some smaller tiles with some mosiac design. If I had to try to describe it is a neutral beige color with hints of different colors throughout.

And lastly, Pam was so nice, she took us to lunch. After all those decisions we worked up an appetite. She was so personable, we loved hanging out with her for the day. We went to CJs at the old Bloomington Airport. It was nice to go to a place we had never been before...since we will be living halfway between Bloomington and Champaign, we will probably frequent Bloomington a lot more for a change of pace.


Some of our many decisions of the day.
On the way home, we stopped by 3 houses built by Executive Homes to compare our choices and get any other ideas we can for our house. We are both very excited about our new home and look forward to September 1st. (Our tentative closing date)
Check back for more details along the way and enjoy our journey in building our home.

And finally, we are happy with all our choices and decisions today! It was a great day!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

We have had a great weekend. You got to love 3 day weekends! Saturday we traveled to Vandalia for a family reunion with Jeremy's Grandma Darnell's family, the Herzog side of the family. It was great seeing everyone and meeting people I had never met before. We were tired from traveling so we just came home and relaxed that night. Jeremy was able to get some yard work done this weekend. When your house is on the market, it takes a lot of work to keep it clean and the yard looking nice. We had a nice time on Sunday at a cookout at our friends Mark & Carrie Lockhart's house in St. Joe. I love cookouts when the weather is so nice and it is a long weekend and you don't have to worry about going to work the next day. The guys busted out a game of wiffle ball while the girls sat around and chatted. It was pretty funny because they split the teams up between Cubs fans and Cardinals fans. I think the older guys were the Cardinals and they ended up winning! Today, Jeremy got to golf with buddies, while I relaxed at home with my dogs. I have a cold right now and am feeling a little under the weather. I am hoping it does not last too long. Our soon to be neighbors in Gibson City sent me some pictures on facebook letting us know that they were working diligently on our house Friday and got the basement floor poured. So that is exciting. We get to take the day off on Wednesday and head to Bloomington to pick out all of our stuff for the new house. We are looking forward to that. Here is a review of our weekend in pictures.
The first pic is Jeremy playing wiffle ball at the Lockhart's.

Our friends Mike and Erin got a new dog. His name is Dexter and he is a poodle and he is the cutest, most calm dog. He just layed around at the cookout.

Jeremy did some fishing this weekend in the pond and of course his helpers had to be there. The Dogs had a great time this weekend swimming in the pond and playing ball too.

On our way back from Vandalia we stopped in Tuscola to look at some furniture for our new house. Well Lucie's hometown is Tuscola so we decided to stop and see her brother. Long story short, the nephew of Jeremy's Aunt Jeanine got Lucie's brother and this is a picture of him. He has the same mannerisms of Lu Lu. He jumps really high just like her and likes to lick the older dog in the face just like her. His name is Scanner.

And the newest addition at the Darnell household are some baby birdies. For the second year in a row, a bird has made a nest in my wreath on the front door. Well they are now starting to get out of the nest and make their way into the world.

Happy Birthday Jan!

I would like to wish my Mother-in-law Jan a very Happy 60th Birthday on Friday, May 22nd. Jeremy and I are very grateful for his Mom! Jan is a very creative, loving, giving person! She has done so much for us since Jeremy and I have been together and played a big role in helping us plan for our wedding almost 2 years ago. I can thank Jan for raising such a wonderful son, cause he treats me so well. His Dad will say she can take the credit for that but I know he had some to do with it as well. Jan and I have such fun together. We like to go shopping together and I am thankful she has a green thumb and can plant flowers at our house cause that is not something I am good at. Jeremy is good at it, but his Mom is good at picking things out! And the best of all, My Mom loves Jan too so we all 3 can go shopping and do things together which is very fun! As a matter of fact I had to shut those two up when I was trying to find a parking spot the day after Thanksgiving in all the Black Friday madness this past year. Ha..too funny!
So I asked Jeremy to chime in on this post and all he could say is "He loves his Mommy"! Oh how sweet! What a sweet overgrown Mama's boy!
Dee and Lucie want to wish their Grandma Jan a very Happy Birthday too!
Thanks Jan for everything you do for us! We love you very much!

We have a basement!

Exciting stuff! The basement has been poured on our new house. Jeremy and I had to go to GC tonight to get some samples for shingles, siding and pick out a front door. I took these pictures tonight. Progress is being made. We go on Wednesday the 27th to pick out everything else from light fixtures, sink fixtures, paint colors, cabinets, tile, etc. We are looking forward to having the day off to do that.
Another positive note, we had a realtor that showed our house on Sunday. She was having an open house at one of her own listings down the street and called at 3 to show our house at 4 or 4:30. Our realtor spoke to that realtor and our house was the favorite house the people saw. So that is great. Let's hope they decide to put in an offer. We have received no negative feedback on our house. So we are hoping some action happens soon!

Weekend recap

Jeremy and I had a pretty good weekend. Thursday, we met Jeremy's Dad in Bloomington to pick up our dogs. We missed them so much we thought we would bring them home for a little bit. Give their Grandma and Grandpa a break. So with that being said, of course we got a call for a house showing Friday and today. So we loaded up the dogs and left the house for a while. Friday night we attended a happy hour hosted by one of the assistant principal's at Jeremy's school. It was fun and they have such a cute house! But since the weather decided to be nasty, we came home early to get our vehicles in the garage out of the hail and to get home to our precious dogs.
Saturday, Jeremy ventured to Gibson City for the Middle School sectional track meet. Some Urbana kids were running in that sectional and it was held in our future home town. One girl from Urbana placed 1st in all 4 of her events and our friends Vashoune and Stacey's son placed 1st in the discus. While Jeremy was in GC he had to go by our lot and check the progress of our house. We are excited that they have poured the basement. I forgot to send my camera along with him so we don't have any updated pictures. But that is great news seeings how we have got a ton of rain lately.
Saturday evening my uncle hosted a cookout at his house. My cousin Jordan is home from Iraq for 2 weeks. He has been there since October and we are all thrilled to have him home for 2 weeks. Before he left for Iraq he was lucky enough to be stationed in Hawaii. Of course he met a girl there and she flew in to Illinois this week to meet the rest of the family. Poor Jenny, she is never going to want to come back to Illinois. She left 90 degree weather and this weekend was very cold here. We were excited to meet her! She is soooo cute!
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My uncles wife Kyla has horses and I did get a picture of the "showoff" Sunny. And that is her Mom Pixie standing next to her. Sunny is the lighter horse and Pixie is the darker horse. Kyla says that when a car drives by Sunny likes to twirl around like "look at me"! Too funny.

And of course I have to add this precious picture of my dogs. They are such sweet little girls! They are so spoiled.

We hope everyone has a great week!

Quite the scare!

Well yesterday was a very eventful day! My Mom scared a lot of us! She got to work and was not feeling right. She was having tightness in chest, chest pains and tingling in her arm. So she called her Dr. to make an appointment and they instructed her to call 911. So the ambulance came to work to pick her up. I received a call from her boss about 9a.m. indicating my Mom was on her way to the hospital. So I immediately left work to go check on my Mom. If something would happen to my Mom I would freak out!!! Me and her are really close.
So she is at the ER hooked up to many monitors, they did chest x-rays and made her do a stress test. The stress test came back positive which was not good news so they had to go in and do a heart catherization (not sure if I spelled that correct). Luckily the heart cath came back ok. If it would have shown some blockage they would have had to do a stint or a balloon procedure. My Mom had to stay the night in the hospital for monitoring. Needless to say it was a very long day. She was in the ER room til about 4:15, then moved to the heart cath area, did not get into her regular room until about 8, which she had not eaten anything all day so she finally got to eat at about 8 last night. Jeremy and I did not get home until about 9 and her boyfriend Steve did not get home until after 10.
Good news is she is fine and they think it is just stress causing the problems. So she is gonna have to take it easy. Glad she is gonna be ok! I felt really bad for her though because she just had to lay there all day, be hooked up to IV's and all sorts of things, not able to eat!
We have gotten so much rain today, I am hoping I am able to get home when I leave work. A co-worker said that some streets downtown Champaign were flooded!
I am also excited that my co-worker Jen had a baby boy Monday night! Jameson Howell Quinn! While I was at the hospital with my Mom yesterday, I ran up to see Jameson and Jen really quickly. He is very precious!
Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

Happy Mother's Day!

First I would like to say Happy Mother's Day to my Mommy! And of course Jeremy's Mommy too:) They really do a lot for us and words can't even describe how much we appreciate it!

Today I hosted a wonderful Mother's Day Luncheon. There were 10 people there. My Mom, my Grandma, my Mom's two sisters Sherrie and Tammie, Sherries Mother-in-law Alice, Tammie's daughter Rachelle and Rachelle's daughter Christasia, my Uncle's wife Kyla, and My Mom's boyfriend Steve's Mom Janet and myself. On the menu was Chicken salad on croissants, cold cuts, pasta salad, deviled eggs, veggies and dip, potato chips, chocolate covered strawberries and homemade New York Style cheesecake with strawberry topping. I slaved away in the kitchen pretty much all day yesterday while Jeremy was gone. He picked a great time to be gone because I did not sit down until after 9:30 last night. I was pooped! But it was well worth it. I will include some recipes at the end of this post. I also let the Martha Stewart come out in me and I made everyone the cutest little vases with flowers. I thought it would be a fun little gift and it was very fun to make.

I hope that by Mother's Day next year, I can celebrate being a Mommy myself. That is Jeremy and I's hope and although things have not gone quite as planned thus far, we hope that what has not broke us, only makes us stronger and we will keep trying to add to our family.

A few recipes to take note from the luncheon today...

Chicken Salad
4 large cans chicken-drained and shredded
1 stick butter-melted and cooled
15 oz. Hellman's mayo
1/4 c parsley minced
1/2 t curry powder
1/4 t minced garlic
pinch of marjoram
pinch of salt
pinch of white pepper

Mix and serve

Deviled Eggs
For every 6 eggs you hard boil...
1/4 c Hellman's mayo
1 t prepared mustard
1 t distilled white vinegar
1/4 t salt
a little pepper
Add to the yellows and beat, fill egg whites and sprinkle with a little paprika

New York Style Cheesecake
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
4 tablespoons butter melted
4 8oz. packages of cream cheese
1 1/2 c white sugar
3/4 c. milk
4 eggs
1 c sour cream
1 T. vanilla extract
1/4 c. all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350, grease 9 inch springform pan
In medium bowl mix graham crackers and melted butter, press into bottom of pan
In large bowl mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth, blend with milk, and then mix in eggs one at a time, mixing enough to incorporate, mix in sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth, pour filling into prepared crust.
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, turn oven off and let cool in oven with door closed for 5-6 hours, this prevents cracking, chill in fridge until serving.
****This is Jeremy's all time favorite dessert I make. I made it for our 1st Valentine's Day together and I think that is what won him over:)

Supreme Strawberry Topping
1 pint strawberries
1/3 cup white sugar
1 t vanilla

Cut 1/3 of the strawberries in half. In a saucepan over medium high heat, combine strawberries, sugar and vanilla. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. In a blender puree about 1/3 of the sauce then mix back into remainder. Store in refrigerator.

Pasta Salad
Tri-color pasta
olives
grape tomatoes
brocolli
Cheese crumbles
Sun Dried Tomato vinegarette dressing
Mrs. Dash salad seasoning

I hope everyone else had a great Mother's Day! It was a beautiful day.

Just Because

Meet n Greet!

Wednesday, Jeremy and I traveled to Gibson City for a Meet n Greet at the Middle School. We got there as school was dismissing and got to see all the kids walk by. They were all sooo polite and funny as they walked by! Like oh boy, I better behave around him. The school also hosted a little social with punch and cookies and we got to meet many of the teachers at the Middle School and some of the Elementary School Teachers and High School Teachers came by as well. It was nice to meet some people and put some names with faces. They sent us home with a container full of cookies as well as a nice card welcoming us to the community.
As we were driving down the street to the school, I could see a heavy machinery digging the hole on our new house! I was so excited to see that they have started working on it. You can see our lot from the school so when people asked where we were going to live we could point to it and tell them that hole right there!
On the house selling front, we have now had the house on the market with a realtor for a little over a week. It has been shown twice and an open house this past Sunday brought 7 families through. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
This weekend I will be home getting ready for a Mother's Day Luncheon at our house I am putting on for some of my family members. My Mom, Grandma and a few of my Aunts will be coming over. Jeremy will be going to Farmington to have a "boys" weekend with some of his college buddies. They plan to fish, hunt mushrooms, not take showers and sleep in their cars!!! I am sure there will be a few drinks and some story tellin going along as well.
And, lastly, we cannot forget about our precious doggies! They are still enjoying their vacation in Pekin. Lucie has made friends with the beagle next door named Cooper! They are keeping their Grandma and Grandpa company but I can tell you we sure do miss them! Can't wait to have them back home.
The pictures are of the Middle School where Jeremy will be the Principal, The view of our house from the Middle School, that is how close Jeremy will live to work, Our hole in the ground where our house will be and the view of the Golf Course from where our house will be.

A Great Weekend!

We had a great weekend. First and foremost, we got to go see our precious dogs that we miss so much! They were very happy to see us and not so happy for us to leave them today, they thought they were gonna go back home with us. As much as they love their Grandma and Grandpa, they miss their Mommy & Daddy. Lucie was so cute last night, she slept right between Jeremy and I in the bed, under the covers sharing both of our pillows, stretched out like a human.
Yesterday, my Mother-in-law and I had a garage sale. I have never seen so many people at garage sales in my life. We made over $350, pretty darn good seeings how we didn't have a ton of stuff and we priced our stuff very cheap just to get rid of it. Jeremy was very happy, he was able to fish and golf with his Dad and go mushroom hunting. Jan and I went shopping today and spent some of our earnings, so all was happy this weekend:)
Today, our realtor had an open house at our house. Had 7 couples go through, 2 of which he hopes to follow up with tomorrow. We also have a showing tomorrow. Wish us luck so we can get our doggies back to their home.
On our way back from Pekin today, we drove through our future home town of Gibson City. We drove by our lot and saw that the builders have it all staked and ready to dig the hole. So progress is being made.
We hope everyone has a great week and we hope to post some more good things soon!