Ok. Now I still do not have the mini laptop up and running which pains me so, so much. Storm is in the process of working with HP to get the restore date back to where it needs to be to see if that fixes the virus that I picked up while cruisin' the blogs one night. We need a software thingey that costs under $100 (we are assured by the Geek Squad) and I cannot wait for it to be fixed! I am using the PC and posting during work hours which will make Storm fume as I always complain that there is never enough hours in the day for me to do my work stuff. But in my defense I have questions for him about the stuff I'm working on right now and since he's on his "Daddy-date" with the girls and since his phone has run out of charge (they watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse whilst at the DMV getting my car registration done!) he is uncontactable! Hence I have some free time...
So, now you have the background of the laptop saga I am going to provide you with some background and piccies of what we've been doing (to help balance out the amount of text that has been on this blog lately.)
Moving on...
Ok, so that we can learn more about the area we've made a promise to ourselves that our weekend will be spent with one day doing errands/chores etc and the other day will be spent on daytrips to various places that take our fancy.
So far we've managed to do the local festival - Freedom Weekend Aloft - here in Simpsonville, the little town of Landrum, SC for antique consignments shops, pub lunches and a covered bridge and this weekend we're hitting Tryon, NC for a BBQ and Music Festival. You can imagine storm's excitement at the prospect of BBQ!
So let's cover the first two daytrips.
First, I'll start with the Freedom Weekend Aloft here in town.
Now we went on the Saturday which meant we did not see Colbie Caillet and Gavin DeGras which was a little disappointing but since I'm not one for crowds it was probably for the best. The weather was sublime with sunshine and a breeze which made for a really pleasant afternoon. We checked out some stalls and made our way to the frisbee/dog show. The girls love - I mean seriously love - dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, bugs..yes bugs, well practically everything in the creature kingdom so they were fascinated at this dogs and made sure to throw a frisbee for Rudy when we got home.
And yes, we missed the proper gate to go in and see them and watched the pups through a fence.
The amphitheatre. And before anyone asks - no I am not pregnant. I am back in the sugar saddle again and the beer doesn't help.
We found the place we wanted to sit and the girls were enthralled with a couple of boys playing frisbee!
And then the music came on (yes there is a band on stage) and the girls got their wiggle on.
Kendall with Daddy.
Sydney with me.
Check out the "I love Simpsonville" sticker Syd has on her dress. It was given to her by a rep from the Chamber of Commerce. And just in case you're wondering, we all do. Love Simpsonville that is.
After "dinner" (and I use that term so loosely) the girls wanted to get a birds eye view of the boys playing frisbee.
Yes, if you look closely enough you can see a tick floating in the watermelon juice. Yes, this little sucker decided that my skirt was a good place to crawl across and paid the ultimate price - death by sugar (sound like me huh?). According to Woody (our next door neighbour) the ticks are running right now but shouldn't be as prevalent in a month or two. So far I've pulled a total of nine ticks from us all (only two had latched on to Rudy, the others were dead or going to be dead when I finished with them).
The balloons started to blow up (there were about 30 of them blown up in the end) but the take off was cancelled due to the breeze picking up. Who knew what was so pleasant for us sitting on the ground would be so yukky for them to take off?
We left soon after this as it was 7.30pm and the girls were getting bushed. It still took us 40 minutes to walk back through the festival and carpark to get to the car. That was so frustrating as we live quite close to the back entrance to the amphitheatre but that was only for staff and entertainers to use. Not thrilled. We could have been home in 10 minutes from where we were sitting. Oh well.
So, the next weekend we headed here to Landrum, SC. Now I didn't take any piccies of the town or the pub and it was quite cool in a small town main street kind of way. My hands were full of lamps (yes, I'm into brass lamps at the moment - but that's for another post) and other assorted pretties that we had bought. Between that and holding a child's hand to cross the road meant no piccies. Sorry, you'll just have to visit and insist that we take you there. I was disappointed that the Amish shops were closed so I do need to get back there to check them out.
Anyway, after lunch we decided to hit the oldest covered bridge in SC.
So cute and iconic huh!
Yes, the puppies Lolly and Py came too. They come with us everywhere and usually end up in my bag within 10 minutes.
Posing with Dad.
Yes, posing again.
My turn to pose with the kids.
In the water underneath the bridge. Quite cool at first but lovely once you got used to it. Not sure if I could go swimming in it though. Kendall had no qualms about going in and was quite happy to slip and slide on the rocks finding it hilarious each time. In fact she was a real giggling gertie that day.
Syd joined Storm and Kendall walking through the water too. But she wasn't as amped about the slipping and sliding.
It was a really nice way to spend the day. We're really happy p here. It's lovely to get back to seasons and greenery. We've missed green so much as between the rocks of Vegas and the dryness of Portland there really wasn't much green. Yes, the house is bigger than what we need but it's nice to have the space and who knows? Having two teenage girls in the house may warrant such space. We'll see. There's lots to do within a four-five hour drive and it's mostly stuff that we enjoy. I'm not a beachy chickee anymore but it's nice to be able to drive there in 3 hours. I enjoy being outdoors but not when it's stinking hot so here is a nice compromise for me. I cannot wait to see the seasons unfold (well maybe not winter but I'll accept it as the other three seasons should be beautiful!).
I'm also really enjoying being able to get into the garden again. Currently we have planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers (capsicum)s, squash, zucchini, herbs, strawberries (even though I have wild ones growing!) and watermelon. I have prepping to start from seeds with pumpkin, peas, brussel sprouts, more types of squash, arugula, beans, broccoli and carrots. I've been looking for the heirloom varieties and am desperately hoping that because something is purple (ie. the purple carrots, tomatoes and beans) that Sydney will eat them. Kendall? No problems with any of them. Am loving having this space and looking forward to a bumper crop so I can start canning/jarring - yes, I want to can/jar my produce. Time consuming but good nonetheless.
Anyway, enough ranting from me and I look forward to the next day trip tomorrow and will get pics up as soon as I can. Woo hoo!
Ok, so this is a just a quickie to let you know that I have all good intentions of posting pics of life up here in beautiful SC but have encountered a techy problem.
Yes, my laptop which has all of my precious piccies and is the main tool that I use for posting has been compromised and I am unable to log in and get things done. Storm was able to get copies of all the pics off it before the "C" drive became inoperable so I'm hoping that it can be fixed as I am lost without it.
I do not post at my PC (I know I'm doing it now but it's an emergency) and only use my laptop as I do it at nighttime on the couch so you'll just have to wait and see how lovely it is here.
In a nutshell we're all so happy that we moved. This is definitely home. Finally - our forever home....
So, some of you may (or may not have) heard that we had three tornados touch down all within 2 miles of us here in Portland early this morning.
The first touched down 1/2 a mile away and luckily did minor damage to houses and landscapes etc.
The second touched down one mile away in an open field behind some of our friend's houses.
The third touched down two miles away and caused damage to houses.
Luckily no major injuries or deaths.
A couple of things disturb me though...
- We did not hear the siren. Both Storm and I were awake as the girl's had just woken up and come into bed with us. They have a real fear of thunderstorms and seem to sense when one is about to happen and have no hesitation in letting us know that it's time to come into mummy and daddy's bed. Needless to say I do not sleep very well at all when they are in bed with us. Guaranteed I will have a dodgy neck the next morning so it really has to be a good reason for them to be in bed with us.
- We were extremely vulnerable this morning and did not have a radio playing to know what was going on. We thought it was just a bad storm that was going to blow over really quickly. Little did we know that there was serious flooding, tornados and blocked roads everywhere. School was also cancelled in the area and when there was a lull in the weather we actually got in the car to take the kids to school. It was only once we were on the road that we heard the radio announcements with more tornado warnings. Luckily we were able to make it home before the second wave of storms hit.
- 14 inches of rain in less than a 12 hour period caused a few failings in the sunroom's roof but we've figured out a way to fix it but had to cope with some minor flooding and leaks.
I have piccies from our drive around town this morning. Unfortunately, they're on the other computer and you'll just have to wait for me to get some time at the PC to upload them.
Anyway, this was my closest encounter with a tornado and that's the way I want it to stay. No more encounters ok?
On another note it's 4 more sleeps until my mum gets here and four more sleeps until Storm leaves with the dogs to drive up to Simpsonville. It's also one week to the day that Storm flies home from Simpsinville and two weeks until our first full day at the new house.
Exciting but oh, so stressful. So much to do and I am so thankful to have my mum here to help!
I know, I know..I've been avoiding putting up any piccies lately and writing more about the drama in the household versus the good stuff.
Well that's changing today!
Here comes the first of some piccies that I have been hanging to put up. Yes, it's the pics of the house in South Carolina.
Now to set the mood I am going to give a little background.
The house has been owned by the same people who built it - The Rudy's {yes, what a coincidence!} - and was built about 45 years ago by a master builder to Mrs Rudy's specific design. This design was based upon a historic house originally built by {I want to say} George Wythe. It is on 2.6 acres and needs a big step forward into the 21st century. As stewards of this house in this century we are tasked with this important task and it is one that both Storm and I are looking forward to. You'll understand when you see the pics.
So here is the front. Unfortunately, I could not find a view from the street as you would get a better idea of the house. I think that it needs a portico or something but I'm not sure that we'll use the front door a lot once we move in.
Here is a close up for the front door. There is beautiful woodwork around the whole door but we're currently debating the colour of the trim of the house. I didn't like mission brown when it was hip back in the 90's and I most definitely don't like it now. We're tossing up between brick red or an olive green. We'll see...
Here is the view looking back towards the garage side of the house. Look at the beautiful magnolia tree on the right. It's going to be lovely in bloom.
This is the fireplace in the formal loungeroom. It's the beginning of our workload. Good bones though. The fireplace has been converted to gas which is nice but I would have loved to have had one of the fireplaces being a wood one. Oh well.
This is the formal dining room. Both corners have built in shelves which are actually quite deep. Great space for my formal platters etc.
The view from the formal dining room into the kitchen. Love the double oven.
Another view of the kitchen. Hate the hardware and the cupboard colours. Storm likes it so we'll see who wins this battle!
This top portion of the cupboard is most definitely on our "first thing to go" list!
And this wall too! This will open up the kitchen and the family room.
And here is the family room!
This fireplace is huge! It's like 8 of my feet across and I love, love, love it. The wood, the brick - just needs a good clean.
My laundry/mud room. This multi-purpose room leads {from the left} from the front of the house and {the door leading away from the shot} to the bottom full bathroom and to {the right} the family room and {behind} to the garage.
And this is a shot of the hardware on all of the doors. All hand hammered and made specifically for the home. Yes, not my type but it's hard to argue with that kind of attention to detail. Also it's going to cost a bucketload replacing every door in the house with new hardware! I mean every door!
My new craft room! Lots of shelves and there's also two wardrobes that can store all of my crafty stuff so that little hands don't find it. It's also going to double as a toy room of some nature. We'll see. It so needs a complete update and redo doesn't it? And the lighting - well it may be practical but it's so ugly!
The view to the right of my craft room where you will find an understair storage room {on the left and huge!}, a coat closet {on the right and gigantic!} and the front door {straight ahead!}.
The view from the front door up the stairs! Cannot wait to paint the risers and update it.
The view from the spare bedroom to the front yard and the road. The house across the road was also recently sold and we checked it out online and it seemed lovely and had a wonderful, large pond also on the property. It was a little bit more than this house but I was worried about the pond - for the kids and also the dogs. We'd never get them out of the water! What I love a lot about this street is that it's like a P. When I say that I mean that it's not a cul-de-sac but a road that comes back around on itself so no through traffic, only residents, visitors and looky-lu's. Oh and by the way, it was winter (32'F, 0'C)when we took the piccie so the grass is in dormant, winter mode. It will be greener come spring/summer.
The kids bathroom. Double sinks with a separate room for the bath and shower. From here there is also a door leading out to a separate storage area...
Yes, this is the storage area. Huge! The door leading to the bathroom is in the background, past the hot water heater next to the light. Yay, so no more storage units for my christmas decorations!
The view from the girl's bathroom - the door jam on the left is the spare bedroom, the stairs are also on the left, the two bedrooms that the girls will eventually have are on the right separated by a linen cupboard. The door straight ahead is the master bedroom. Don't you just love the lighting? Gotta go!
One of the two bedrooms that we consider to the girl's. Both are identical with three windows and a whole wall dedicated to wardrobe.
The view from the bedroom. We're not sure but the land goes way back past the clearing and more to the left. So much clearing to do. Mind you that's where the creeks are so we'll see.
The master bedroom and the view from the door. Wardrobes are to the right - the whole wall - and the ensuite is to the left.
The wardrobes - his and hers. The one on the left has extra storage through another hole in the wall access via a panel. Very cool.
Ahhhhhh....the ensuite/master bath. This is going to be a major renovation for us as we're thinking about taking out the wall behind the shower {to the left of the loo} is another storage cupboard accessed from the main hall. We're tossing up moving the shower back there and making a stand alone shower/bathtub or alternatively removing the door jam {which actually leads to the sink and then via another door to the left of the camera to the bedroom} Confused? Anyway, the green has got to go!
Back downstairs. This is the sunroom that runs along the back of the house. The door on the left leads to the kitchen and breakfast nook, and the window frame you can see on the left is the one that is above the sink. All of the sliding doors open and have screens on them so it'll be interesting to see how cool it will make that area. It certainly wasn't warm on the day we visited but it's good to note that the area has it's own heating system so we'll see how that goes on a cold winters day....
Oh and the mission brown again - ah...the bane of my existence! Gotta go.
The view from the end of the sunroom back towards to the door.
Just outside the sunroom is the back porch with BBQ area. It's great that there's a gas hook-up there too so no propane tanks! That's the cottage at the back. That's going to be our office so it'll be nice to be separate and not to be woken up to phone calls at all hours of the day
The view from the back.
The time has gotten away from me so I'll have to post more about the outside, the office and views of the block another time.
You can see that the house needs a fair amount of work to bring it into the 21st century and Storm and I cannot wait to get our hands into it.
As if it wasn't enough that today has been spent cleaning very sore bottoms from a plethora of poo (yes, the antibiotics that the kids are taking for their pneumonia is taking its toll!) a whole bunch of times - it seems that mummy's throat is now sore and I'm starting to wheeze.
I wish I could sleep (as I think that not sleeping well is running me down) but it seems that sleep doesn't want to come to me until well after 3am at the moment. The kids were responsible for a lot of it (I mean if it wasn't one kid it was the other - I swear they organize who is going to wake up during the night before they go to bed and alternate so that each one gets a good night's sleep but daddy and mummy don't!) but now I'm in a pattern and trying to get back is a nightmare (pardon the pun!)
Anyway, back to the cough medicine and vitamin C drinks and hopefully some sleep!
So, against my better judgement, last weekend we went to the Oysterfest in Rockport (about 1/2 hour away). The reason it was against my better judgement was because we have SOOOOO much to do to get ready for the move and at that time we needed to get deadline over and done with.
But to the hell with it we both said! And it appears that we're paying for it big time!
The Oysterfest was held in the bayfront park with minimal parking (but they were expecting 30,000 people over the three days mind you!) and boy it was laid out awkwardly. We've been to a couple of festivals since we've been down here - one with the tents configured too far apart (Rockport Art Festival) and then there was Shrimporee. It was laid out well but the food choices were poor and minimal.
Oysterfest was cramped with no seating (apart from what was under the tent) and even though there were fantastic tents providing wonderful shade, the guy ropes were in everyone's way due to the two main tent's proximity to eachother. For a festival that was expecting the amount of peeps they were expecting they needed to create some more public space for the loitering people to (obviously) loiter in.
Oh and because I really need to vent about it here is my last rant about it. They (the organizers) came up with this splendid idea that all the vendors who were selling food couldn't sell anything that the other vendors were selling so despite the fact that there were 15-20 various vendors, the main oyster vendor and three separate tents selling beer, there was only one place selling water and soft drinks. Their sign was minimal and none of the other vendors were happy to advise us (the non-drinkers) of the location of this small vendor - of course that's if they even knew it existed in the first place!
Anyway, I digress.
The real ticker of the whole day was the fact that it was sunny but windy. As a result the dust and dried up grass was a'floatin' all around and ended up irritating Kendall so much that by nightfall she was coughing up a fit!
Sydney ended up coming down with a cough on Monday. Yay! What fun just when they were cough free for a week and a half - what did I expect huh?
So after a couple of nights of sporadic coughing and sneezing (but no fever - important to note!) with Kendall, Sydney really got hit hard on Wednesday night. I mean she was exhausted as she didn't stop coughing every 10 or so seconds the entire night. How do I know this? I spent the entire night listening to her struggle with it, trying to figure out what I should do. Humidifier, medicine? Nothing worked so in the morning we went to the Dr's.
Luckily we saw the Dr this time and not the PA. I love the PA though and think she is really good but Dr Almouie gives me a bit more confidence. He took about 3 seconds listening to Syd's lungs through the stethoscope and told me it was pneumonia. He kept listening at other positions on her back and chest and kept a-ha-ing about it. Yep, it was. My heart sank.
Kendall was confirmed as the same but she also has bilateral ear infections. God bless the child as she had not complained of anything considering how bad he said they were! My heart sank further.
The kicker into my already pounded heart was when the Dr told me that it was good that we had gone in on that day otherwise we would have been in the ER come Friday night with Syd.
So, two breathing treatments and two IM antibiotic shots later I left the office carrying both children to the car with orders to return the next day for another IM shot for each child.
How do you tell a child that to make an IM shot much less painful you just need to not flinch after you feel it go in? When I laid them down on the table for their shot on the second day both girls went into hysterics and it only got worse from there.
Anyway, I forgot to mention that on Thursday I came home from the Dr's visit to find Storm in pain and needing to get to bed ASAP before he got worse (he has a certain pattern to his descent into sickness so we know the drill)? So he worked on to get the magazine to print and then went to bed. More yays!
I made soup.
So, to summarize:
Two kids with pneumonia? Check
One sick husband? Check
One puking dog? Oh yes - this happened yesterday...puke all over the dining room and loungeroom!
And one very, very, tired mum. The nights have been rough and we've been sharing our bed too which (until we get a much bigger bed) is always rough because I always end up in a position that puts my neck out. So I'm one very, very, tired mum with a sore neck that needs adjusting. I gotta wait until Monday for that one though.
I take the girls back to the Dr's on Thursday for a follow-up. We will be discussing asthma prevention as Dr Almouie believes that it is asthma that caused all of their issues that we've had since November.
Yes, six colds in five months (now including RSV and Pneumonia!).
Yay. I hope South Carolina doesn't cause the girls to have these kinds of issues. Although the Dr did say that the fact that they were preemie and had immature lungs will only be an issue until they're about five. Fingers crossed. Until then they'll take meds.
So, there it is...my rant and evidence of my descent into the madness that is caused by nights of minimal sleep.
So here's a little something about a conversation overheard tonight.
Location: Hallway outside the girl's room
Time: Way past their bedtime with no chance of sleep even close to happening
So it went a little something like this...
Syd: I go shops at HEB (local grocery store)
Kendall: I go shops Wal-mart (other local variety/grocery store)
Syd: HEB!
Kendall: Wal-mart!
Syd: H-E-B!
Kendall: WAL-MART!
Syd: I GO SHOPS AT H-E-B!
Kendall: NO! GO SHOPS AT WAL-MART!
Syd: H-E...(sentence unfinished)
Kendall: WAL-MART!
And so and so forth for a couple of minutes. Storm and I had to stifle our laughter while the intensity and volume increased and stepped in only when each child decided that jumping added to the joy of the argument and an injury was imminent!
Yes, this is what my children argue talk about!
It is really cute though.
