It's so hot hot hot in here!

Got to love some Rascal Flatts ;) Today is the first day in what seems like weeks that we've had a decent temperature outside. I am sitting out on my deck writing this post as the boys play. They aren't allowed in the creek today, because the past few storms have been dooseys and the water is rather high.   We were blessed to have only lost power for a few days compared to some of our friends who have been out of commission for over 9 days. Our yard is a mess from all the crazy wind! I see it as something that needs to be picked up while the boys see the downed tree limbs as endless sword fighting opportunities. There's boys for ya.

I can't catch up with all that we've been doing, so I won't try. We've made some progress on our home inside and out. Currently, I'm trying to decide the color for the entry, dining, and formal living room. They are all connected in a way so I'm doing a simple beige/tan color in all of them. It's so hard deciding on a beigey-tan color! I need to pick it out and get it on the walls. Not sure how long that will take. Remember people, I'm doing this all myself while watching two little people. It's takes a bit longer than desired.

While we like to DIY things ourselves most of the time, we try to realize when something just isn't going to happen unless we hire a professional. Doing bamboo floors landed in that category. We wanted to try and learn how to put them down, but lets face it, David is busy and I don't want him spending multiple weekends on his knees putting down floors. We hired someone while we were in Myrtle Beach to have the dining room, formal living room, and upstairs landing all laid by the time we got home. It was rather awesome to walk into a completed project. Too bad we can't just hire all our work to be done while going on multiple vacations. A girl can dream, can't she?

Don't mind the disheveled and/or empty look in these rooms. Just focus on the pretty new floor.

Like I said before, I wouldn't have necessarily picked Bamboo as our hardwood of choice, but since they had already laid so much of it in the house, we felt it was the best decision to just stick with it and we are really happy with how it turned out. 

In other improvement news, the outside landscaping got a cheap makeover. We didn't want to pour tons of money into it, but the drabness of the wanna-be flower beds wasn't working for us. Here's the view of the house when we moved in.

Yeah, the bush kind of blocked half of the house. Here's the new view.

We replanted the hydrangeas from the last house around the mailbox and brought up some rocks from the creek as an edging. It will fill in and look more established with time, but I love how much more open it is. 

The front beds were in sad sad shape.

We ripped up all the existing bushes and edging out. We transplanted the hostas from the pots to the ground and bought a few evergreens for up next to the house. We just added some annuals in the middle this year to save money. We'd like to add a few perennials every year til our landscaping is pretty, full, and established, but this year was just baby steps.

Better, huh? I know they are a little barren and lacking height/depth, but it's a start!