The Newest (and maybe the sweetest)

So I have an adorable new little twelve-year-old sister!

My parents just brought her home from China last Saturday, so we're still getting to know her of course, but I can tell already that she's something really special. I have lots of stories I could tell about her sweet personality, but I'll just say for now that God has blessed us above and beyond!

Meet Mia...

Mackinac Island

What a beautiful place! We went with Bry's family over 4th of July weekend and had such a good time. There are no cars on the island and it was a very nice change of pace...the sound of horse's hooves on brick streets is one of my favorites.

There are millions of pictures I want to post so this is going to be hard...

My hotty husband on the ferry ride over

Every day they fly kites over the island at this lookout. For some reason I loved the idea.

There were tennis courts high up on the island in the middle of the woods...it was a good hike and probably the prettiest place I've ever played tennis.

Miniature golfing (matching outfits not intended)...again, probably the prettiest place I've ever mini golfed. Not your average putt-putt course with giant plastic zoo animals.

Dinner on the lawn at The Carriage House with the harbor behind us. Very fun...I liked the antique china and silverware.

We visited the local library and it was absolutely adorable...this is the view from their back porch. I love libraries anyway so I was pretty happy here.

We stayed at the Island House Hotel so this is a fun picture. It was a very cute place with a big front porch full of rocking chairs and little fires on the lawn at night for people to roast marshmallows.

One of my favorite places on the island. Rolling green hill with beautiful trees and white stone benches. Bry and I spent a few heavenly hours here lounging and reading in the grass.

Fireworks over the lake on the 4th...amazing!

Our last morning. Waiting for the ferry to take us back to the real world.

My Husband, The Stud, Takes Out a Fridge

While trying to prepare our house to go on the market, we had a lot of "fun" little projects that needed to be done. Things like mulching, painting, caulking, planting, weeding, cleaning, organizing, fixing the malfunctioning garage door, fixing the malfunctioning toilet, replacing the non-working air conditioner, replacing the outdated appliances...

Unless little more than decorating is involved, home improvement projects are not on my list of favorite things to do. I'm even less thrilled when they don't go as planned...and of course they never do.

For example, when trying to replace our stove and refrigerator, we ran into a problem. A big problem. Literally. The old fridge was too big to fit through our doorways and was therefore stuck in our kitchen.

In the words of the encouraging Lowes delivery guy, "This fridge isn't going anywhere." Thank you for that.

Apparently someone had built cabinets after the fridge was in place, or something like that. Interesting predicament. So for a few days there it sat, looking ugly and daunting in the middle of our kitchen while we tried to figure out what to do with it.

And here's the solution my brave husband dared to attempt. (despite the many warnings of the dangers of freon)

Yes, that's our fridge in these pictures (half of it anyway)...though it's barely recognizable after Bryan got done with it. We could have tried to rip out our cabinets, but that didn't sound exciting enough for us. Actually, it just sounded a lot harder and messier. So instead, Bryan rented a saw and cut our fridge in half. For real. I have to say, it was pretty impressive. And no, we were not melted by freon in the process.

And there's our new refrigerator. Worth every bit of the effort it took to get it there. (right..?)

What I should have taken a picture of is the two pieces of our fridge sitting out on our front porch, waiting for the Lowes guy to come back and pick them up. Or me, six months pregnant and ridiculous looking, lugging the fridge halves out with Bryan. Hilarious. It was pretty ghetto looking, but at that point we didn't care one bit.