Fishing for Christmas!

This year we got a visit from our Michigan family. Nick's mom and dad came down to warm sunny Florida for Christmas. We got to spend Christmas day opening gifts and fishing. We all had fun catching SeaTtrout, Mangrove Snapper, Weak fish, and many others. The Christmas catch of the day was a 10lbs 24inch Black Drum that I reeled in at the last min. Hope you had a Merry Christmas and may you have a wonderful New Year!!

Lights, luz, la lumière!

This is the first year that we were able to decorate the exterior of our home for Christmas. Every year we will add to our collection and next year, we are hoping to add some icicles to the mix. :)

Our new meter has arrived

We have been off grid for about a month now and our solar is working great. We have been waiting for our electric company to officially switch our meter to allow us to sell electricity to them. This means that any electricity we do not use, we will be receiving credit ($$) for. We got home the other day and happily received notice that our meter had been switched! The second picture shows us selling 6 kwh. :)

The tree is up!

This year we went for a 7 foot Fraser Fir and were very pleased with our choice. Christmas is just around the corner and we are excited to celebrate another holiday in our home. :)

We're Back and Blogging!

Hello! We had some technical difficulties that left us computer less but we are back and blogging. November was a great month. Lots of fun and exciting activities happened.

First of all, we did complete that solar project in time for our rebate and we are at the moment off grid now! Nick did an amazing job and God definitely had his favor on the project.

Secondly, we got a chance to visit our families before Thanksgiving. Due to some work scheduling conflicts, we chose to take separate family vacations for the first time. I went to Texas for Veteran's weekend and Nick went to Michigan for the week of Opening Deer season. Even though we were not together for the trips we each had a wonderful time visiting our families and enjoyed some much needed cold weather. Nick did shoot 3 deer while in Michigan so we've enjoyed adding deer meat to our menu. ( Nicks is pictured preparing to grind some deer meat.)

Last but not least, we had a really nice and delicious Thanksgiving. We got invited to participate in a delicious and family filled Fryauff Thanksgiving dinner. We had a lot to be thankful for and were blessed to celebrate family with great friends! Thank you again Chris and Erin!!  :)

Solar panels are up!

We were blessed with great weather and great friends who helped us get the solar panels installed on the roof. It is exciting to say that the solar project is quickly coming to an end. Nick is finishing up the wiring and getting everything ready for the BIG upcoming inspection. :)

Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween we decided to be the famous Peter Pan and Wendy! We planned ahead and were able to find our costumes at a very reasonable price! We attended 2 parties this year, both were a lot of fun and we had a great time. At one of the parties, we were able to carve pumpkins! It was my first time carving a pumpkin and I think I would like to do it again next year. Now, we have some carved pumpkins to display in front of our home for all the trick-or-treaters to see! :)

Solar with the chance of cotton?

We are busy at work on the solar project as it is crunch time because our deadline is quickly approaching. We have successfully put up the racks where our panels will soon attach to and Nick rewired our entire home to make the transition to solar. During one of our many solar working days, I noticed that we have cotton growing. Nick found it hilarious because he had planted cotton as a joke and it actually grew! :)

Picture Perfect!

While attending a wedding, Nick and I were photographed dancing. I thought this was a very lovely picture and had to share. :)

Welcome to Miami

Everything is lining up nicely for the solar project and we are getting closer to installing our system. Nick and I got the chance to take a Miami trip to pick up some solar equipment for our solar project. Our trip went smoothly and we were very blessed to be able to borrow a work truck from the Farm. While we were at one of our solar destinations, we got to see a solar oven at work( see the first picture ). They showed us the oven which was cooking bacon. Lol. :)

Fall Owls

This year we were excited to start decorating for fall. We spent an afternoon replacing our green summer things with our fall color decors. Our fall collection was small from last year so while looking for some new fall deals to add to our collection ,we found these adorable 2 owls and knew we had to bring them home with us. They are a good reminder to us of our special visitor we had a couple years back. :)

It's that time again...

We are excited for fall to have arrived because it begins small group season! This year we are participating in two small groups, one with our church and another with our previous marriage group. We look forward to immersing ourselves in weekly bible studies and fellowship! :)

Patio furniture for fall dinners!

We were excited when we walked into Lowe's and discovered that some patio furniture was 50% off. We took advantage of this clearance to purchase our first patio set for our home. Since Florida is slowly getting into the fall mode, we look forward to enjoying dinner on the patio very soon. :)

All dressed up!

Nick and I got the honor to attend our newest friends Andrew and Nicole's wedding this weekend. It was a lovely wedding themed around the ocean. We are continually being blessed with friends and are so grateful for the chance to grow in Christ through friendships. Congrats Mr and Mrs Blystone! :)

Our future solar powered home!

We are in the process of installing solar in our home. The pictures above are drawings that Nick put together for our contractor. Isn't that neat! Nick used his solar class knowledge to engineer our entire system. :D We are very excited to be moving forward in this project, as it will allow us to no longer have an electricity bill and will help keep us comfortable during power outages/hurricanes.

Patience at it's best!

We are slowly updating our kitchen with more energy efficient appliances and we had our eye on this fridge for over 2 years. Patiently we waited for it to go under $1000 and our patience has paid off! Not only did we get the fridge at price we wanted, but it is much more spacious, and it matches our dishwasher. :)

Our first weekend get-away!

We got the chance to take our first get away in 3 years. We drove to Pompano Beach FL (2 hours south of us) and got to enjoy a very interestingly fun weekend. Unfortunatly I got a severe migraine on the trip down. We had intentions of attending our friends wedding but had to make an emergency stop at Solantic. We were able to make it to the reception and salvaged the evening with a great ocean side dinner at Spazio. The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying the ocean and hotel pool and walking the streets of Fort Lauderdale which had it's centennial anniversary this year! Even though we had a rough start to the weekend, we look forward to more weekend getaways in the future.

Two are better than One

Nick and I got the privilege of joining the tech team at our church. We were "in training" this Sunday and enjoyed being able to help out with some of the "tech" responsibilities. Nick helped out with the sound board and I got to help run the camera and lights. We look forward in to serving together on a regular basis. :)

"MBW"

I finally got around to taking a sewing class to learn how to properly make outfits. I learned how to read patterns, sewing tricks, and get more familiar with my sewing machine. It took me 3 ( 2 hours) classes to complete my first patterned shirt! To complete the look, I decided to accessorize my "MBW" (made by Wendy) shirt with a belt. :)

We present our Caladiums!

After a couple of months, our caladiums have really grown into a beautiful bed. This weekend we spent some much needed time cleaning our garden and planting the rest of grass plugs around our front yard. Nick decided to try putting some dry wall around our plants to add calcium and to block weeds in our garden. :)