Honeymoon

I know its been awhile but I finally found the pictures of our honeymoon. We went to St. Maarten and it was very interesting. The small island was split down the middle and half is owned by the French and the other half is owned by the Dutch. That means there are two forms of money, two different types of license plates, even two different spellings for Sint Martin/St. Maarten.

This was the view from our back porch. We were about 20 yards from the ocean! We were blessed with great weather the whole week. Even the misty rain was perfect in the morning.



This was another island. St. Barths, and St. Lucia were within view also. Neil thought he could swim there. He couldn't. So we tried kayaking. He got sea sick. It's still pretty from far away.
(ok to be fair, Neil was on steroids when we went kayaking because he got poison ivy three days before our honeymoon....romantic, i know)

Playing in the sand.

We went on a day trip to the "other" side of the island. There was a cute marketplace with locals selling everything from bags to spices.

We went hiking and were rewarding with the best views of the island.

There is a small beach near the airport so on our last day we went about 2 hours early, checked in, and walked to the beach. It was one of the best parts of our trip.

notice the DANGER sign.....yet the put a restaurant there :)

This surfboard listed all the arrival times for the day. Very convenient!

check out the guy in the corner!

It was so fun. We saw about ten planes in two hours!

We had a great week.
We are so thankful to our parents who gave us the honeymoon we never even expected!

Welcome to our humble abode

Welcome to our little home. I wanted to get BEFORE pictures up since we have already started making a few changes. I love decorating. Sometimes I even draw up plans for rooms I dont have. So needless to say, I am loving the decorating process. Three bedrooms, a living, a dinning room, a kitchen, and two bathrooms to spruce up. And thats just the inside!

of course, I try to make a great room for not a lot of money. Niel is VERY kind in letting be do what I want with the place. He is encouraging and very helpful....especially with anything involving height! The only thing he has requested is that I NOT use any animal print.....fair enough! So here is what we have to work with.

This is the Driveway up to our house. Isn't it cute!

see the little house? its there...keep looking.


This is the front of the house. First on the wish list: front porch.

These are the two sheds. Not much to do there.

Living room. Lots to be done there.

Dining room. Whats ours? Just the table. I don't even know where to start!


Master bedroom. right sideMaster Bedroom. Left side.

That's all for now. I have not taken any of the bathrooms or the bedrooms. I'll keep you updated on changes as they occur. Its a small place but I hope to add a lot of character.

Until next time, Happy decorating.

New Address

We finally did it. We finally moved into our new house. After a whole lot of trouble, we actually signed on the house. Because of the state of the economy and the rush to buy a house in time for the tax credit, it is taking extra long to process applications.

regardless, we are SOOOO excited. Going into the process we had a very short list of things that our house should have.
1. room for REXX to run around outside
2. not in a gated or suburb type community

Well we found it. It is exactly what we wanted.
Its a small cottage style home perfect for the two of us...and Rexx. Its only 1000 square feet but good things come in small packages. Very little needs to be done to it and it has 3 bedrooms! Not only that, it has three storage sheds, plenty of attic space and two bathrooms. There is a song that my mom likes to sing to me.

"A good ole boy and a pretty little girl Start all over in a little bitty world A little bitty plan and a little bitty dream It's all part of a little bitty scheme. Well, it's alright to be little bitty Little hometown or a big old city Might as well share, might as well smile Life goes on for a little bitty while..."
Once again, Mom is right. So introducing......the Shanks' residence!

Out of the box

Ok. So talk about getting out of your comfort zone. i am not a blogger by nature but im really looking for a way to share my life with family and friends that are so far away from us. There are so many times in a day when I wish that we could share a moment. There are times when I wish Mom Shanks could see what her wonderful son (my husband) is up to, or when I want Meg's opinion on what outfit I should wear for the first day of school, or to get Mom's opinion on paint colors.
I cant promise great writing or a perfect persona but hopefully it will keep us connected.