Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ....

And it's all ours! That big envelope in the photo above contained all the papers from the loan on this house. It's actually been paid off for several months now, but this past weekend the weather finally got nice enough to clean up the yard and have a little bonfire, so we capped it off with an official "burning the mortgage" party.


Yeehah!

We're making progress on the basement project too, although it's slowing down a bit now that the weather is getting nicer. Seriously, it will get done eventually, but when the sun is shining and it's above freezing we like to spend every minute we can outdoors!

Dad and Doug have been puttering away over the last few weeks, and since Doug is the drywall master we actually have some semblance of walls now!


Of course Dad is still the electrical wizard, so he was responsible for installing all the new lights. They will eventually be part of the new ceiling, which will be at least 4-5 inches higher than the old suspended ceiling, so all our really tall friends won't have to duck their heads anymore!



We'll have more photos soon, weather permitting .....

We're Back!

Oh how nice it is to be back home again where I can sleep on the couch! I spent the last week at Pine Tree Kennel because mom and dad went to Florida to visit Grandma Shirley. Even if they had taken the car instead of flying, I still could not go along because her condo association does not allow any pets. Can you believe that?!?!? A whole little village of 16,000 people and not a single cat or dog. There's no way my mom and dad will ever live there when they get older. Sheesh!

Despite missing me, they still managed to have a nice time. They went to the beach one day and had lunch at a really cool restaurant on the boardwalk, and it was in the 80s the whole week so they got to swim and just relax by the pool every day too. Mom also enjoyed shopping with Grandma Shirley at the mall and at the flea market, while Dad made three trips to Home Depot to get all the tools and supplies he needed to fix the screens on the patio and some other little projects around the condo.

Hurricane Wilma hit south Florida last August, and while the damage was nowhere near what Katrina did to Mississippi and Louisiana, it still caused a lot of devastation. Some buildings still have tarps on the roofs and plywood covering broken windows, because there just aren't enough workers to get everything done. It's especially hard because it's mostly old people who live there and they can't do that kind of work themselves, they have to rely on others, so Grandma Shirley was really glad to have Dad come down to help her.

We made a lot of progress on our basement project here since the last post too. Mom just didn't have any time to update this blog because she was working on a bunch of stories for the spring issue of the magazine she writes for, and they all had to be turned in to the editor before she left on vacation. We'll have more pics soon though. Dad and Doug made a Home Depot run today for drywall and other materials, and they're planning to finish the walls this weekend.

Looking for a good way to invest your tax refund? I have a hot stock tip for you: BUY Home Depot. Besides the booming business they're doing in the south these days, that's where all of our money is going this year too!