Happy Belated Birthday, JAN!

My dear uncleaunt-in-law, Colin Jan, recently sent me some photos from his her birthday celebration.  I won't mention his her age, but the balloon is sort of a giveaway.


UPDATE:  I obviously don't know my relatives' birthdays.  I thought Colin was e-mailing me, when it was Jan.  So happy birthday Jan!  It makes total sense, and I was wondering why Jan was holding the balloon.  Sorry for the mistake.


We were lucky enough to be able to spend several days with the other side of the English family, Sue and Graham, who made the great trip over to the States for a few weeks.  It got me thinking about how lucky we are to have the technology we do to keep in touch.  With all of our family in another state or country, using Facebook, e-mail, skype, and this blog...for free...is pretty amazing.

So thanks to the English group for getting us started with this, and for the old dogs for learning new tricks (you know how you are).

Photos from Sue and Graham's trip will be up soon, and I'm headed to the lake house with my Dad this weekend, so I'll post about the lake in coming weeks as well.

What's Cooking in Raleigh?

For those of you who are on the Adams side of the family, you'll remember the What's Cooking in Montvue? summer project, where I collected favorite recipes from my neighbors and compiled it into a cookbook.

One of our family's contributions included the Raggedy Ann Salad.  I think it was my mom's way of making us eat healthy food and thinking it was fun.  So I tried it on my own kids.  Charlotte was more traditional and tried to get her design to look a little more like the doll, where Anson went with the "quick quality" method, also known as "let's get this over with so I can eat."

Nevertheless, they both had fun trying to figure out what they could find to make each body part, and I was amazed that they each came up with pretty different ideas.

Has anyone else done this with their kids?

Dung Babies

No, not that kind of dung. I had a mini-reunion with my best friends from my first-year dorm at UVA this spring. It's been 20 years since we first met. The name of the dorm was Dunglison, and we had a dorm volleyball team. We needed a unique name, and somehow the Dung Baby name stuck. No pun intended.

We've gone our separate ways, from one side of country (not to mention Hawaii) to the other, but we always manage get together about every few years. It's always like old times. This was our first time back in Charlottesville since my wedding in 1998.

Mo, Tracy, Kerry, Morgan, and Leslie on the Lawn, looking like tourists but feeling young again!

Experimenting

Forgive me as I try out different layouts, formats, and colors for the blog. Don't be surprised if things look different or posts are missing or changed. This is a learning experience for me, and I am very out of practice. It's been eight years since I worked on Internet and graphic design, and technology years are worse than dog years. I purposely did a long blog about Molly's house to see if I could format it, and it's a bit strange, so I still have a ways to go.

Thank you for your patience!

Extreme-ish Home Makeover

Molly and Jason have a great home, but it needs a little updating, shall we say? They had already done some amazing work to it, but the main floor living spaces (which is where they spend most of their time) hadn't really been touched yet. As they have many big projects still on their agenda, we didn't want to invest much time and money into things that would be changed later (i.e., we did no painting or buying of furniture). However, they were getting a little tired of living in a 1970s bat cave.

So…Molly and I discount-shopped our little hearts out, ripped down dated curtains, rearranged and repurposed furniture and art, and sweated/ached all week to transform the house into an oasis (do I hear Molly laughing?).

We didn’t get to as many things as we hoped, so I’ll just share the family room/kitchen changes. We also spruced up the bathrooms, mudroom/laundry, front hall, and did a little work in their office and dining room. I did not really take any "before" pictures, but I do have this lovely one of the trash pile of curtains we had on the back deck. It provides a hint of what we started with. As for the afters, they are iphone candids with bad light and regular-people stuff sitting around.

 

Kitchen/Breakfast Area BEFORE

Original cabinetry and appliances, in that oh-so-lovely walnut, orange, mustard, and avocado green scheme. So, we worked with it!

Kitchen/Breakfast Area AFTER

We added a throw rug, dishtowels, and accessories to lighten up the space. I hid some ugly cords and odds and ends with a piece of art and some baskets, and Jason hung shades on the windows. He insisted the fake fruit had to go, but last time I checked, Molly said it was still there.

The breakfast table overlooks the family room.

A striped throw rug, dishtowel, and fancy soap go a long way toward sprucing up this area of the kitchen.

 

A light, a basket, and some tangerines hide the mess that was on the wall before.

 

The view from the kitchen through the breakfast area includes a sneak peek into the family room.

Family Room BEFORE

What can I say…DARK? Dark walls, dark table, dark couch, dark chair, dark ottoman...

They had a mishmash of furniture perfectly suited to their last house in Colorado, a mission style home, but it was too dark and not the right style for this one. We had no idea what we were going to do, so we just tried lots and lots of things until something worked.

Family Room AFTER
What worked was adding light-colored things. We replaced the curtains (with dropcloths from Home Depot), added some lamps, hung artwork (stuff they had as well as adding floral calendar pages to some old frames), got some throw pillows and rugs, and added white or light-reflecting accessories around the room.

Thanks to Jason for hanging the window treatments, watching the kids while we shopped and worked, and remaining tight-lipped about the “zebra” pillows.

[FYI: From here to the end of the post, I can't seem to fix the fonts, so sorry about the HUGE letters.]

The new reading nook by the sliding glass doors and breakfast area has a place to stash kid junk.

Bar/game table with lots of light streaming in...see the new curtains made from dropcloths?

View to the sliders from the living area, like a breath of fresh air!

The homemade art on the wall is made from inexpensive teak frames and pages from a calendar of botanicals.

The mirror reflects much needed light into the room.

A few books and photos personalize the space.

Indy with the Godbys

I took the kids on our first long road trip this summer (which went very well, by the way -- 12 hours each way). We visited Molly, Jason, Jake, Reese, and Mom in Indiana. The girls went to Y camp and the boys to Connor Prairie camp together, which they all loved. We squeezed in a few outings between camping, meals, and playing in the yard.

Molly and I spent most of our time sans kids on an (almost) whole-house makeover, on a very, very tight budget, in just a few days. I'll do a separate post on that, but it was so much fun. Can't wait to get back to Indy next summer!

Here are some highlights...

Reese, a master at work.

Charlotte at the Indianapolis Children's Museum,
designing a Barbie dress.

Mom and I having a ladies lunch with Molly
in the Village.

There's nothing like a hometown carnival
with your favorite cousins!

Anson and Mom at Robin Run in their
beautiful courtyard. Anson thought the place
was fabulous, and highly recommends the
dining hall's ice cream.

More fun with Grandma Lee in the courtyard, and then
back to the apartment to draw and play with dolls.

One last shot of the BFFs in the Robin Run gardens.

Back to School

Welcome! This blog is a way for me to keep friends and family better informed of what is going on in our busy lives. I'm new at this, so bear with me.

As it's the start of school, I'll begin with pictures from the kids' first days.

Charlotte heading to The Raleigh School for pre-K.

Anson ready for third grade at Lacy Elementary.

I hope you enjoy keeping up with the Fords, and I'll try to update it a few times a week. I'll be tweaking the look, because I've started with a simple template the blog software provides, so don't be confused if you visit and don't recognize it.  I'll probably be posting more often in the beginning, just to practice, so come back soon!