snowflakes..

Unfortunately, the house no longer looks this pretty. It's 40 degrees and raining right now. But I like to pretend it is still snowy ;)
Curling up on the couch for a nice winter nap...thats what we love. And our animals do, too.
Joe caught this shot last winter while hiking around at camp. Love it!
Here is a look outside our living room windows during the really cold weather a few weeks ago. It was sunrise and I just thought the ice was so beautiful (although not the best for our gutters, hmm...)

Looking Back...

Here are some great pictures from our summer adventures with michael & liz this past summer. They gave us an amazing christmas gift of a photo book that had pics from all summer and the trips we took together! Love it! So i was just thinking back and wanted to post some neat shots.
This is a view from the top of the Beartooth Highway...it felt like we were on top of the world!

On a hike through the Tetons, we stopped at Lake Solitude for breakfast. Wow.
At 11,000 ft in the Tetons, on my birthday!!! :)
And this is the favorite campsite. Can it get any better than this??

Some of the finished Product!

Hutch along the living roome/kitchen wall. We love it!

Dining room with a fresh coat of paint (done by Mom & Dad Brown!). I love the white and brown combo.

Looking into the living room from the dining room... we still need to finish some trim on the half wall.
Kitchen, as of now! We would love to continue improvements on this area, as the cabinet faces are plastic yet :) As time and money allows, i suppose! We also want to install an island for extra space!

And here is looking into our new living room! The carpet is wonderful and we like the color of the walls, nice and neutral. *Sigh* We love living here! Still alot of work to do, but we are excited to tackle it all!

The Remodel continues

I am smiling here, but only because I am in a picture. This was during the period of wall paper scraping. Grrrr. Lets just say I took off 4 LAYERS of wall paper, some of it pasted right onto un-primed drywall. Oh my. Never want to do that again!

Here is the kitchen in the middle of things....notice Molly on the floor?? We brought her blanket each day we came to the house so she would have a place to lay down. Awwh.
Here is the living room/kithcen wall before Joe did the drywall work (eventually all of this old drywall came out and we did brand new!)

A few layers of mud and dust layer, here is the wall! Joe was worried about how it would look, but he did a great job! Nothing like hands-on experience to learn a new skill!
What a sad face Molly! Drop cloths are her friend :)

more remodeling!!! Initial stages...

Here is Sue in the process of scraping off the dust/GREASE on the kitchen cupboards (tops and panels). Ewwwww was the only word we murmured for a while during this process. I am thankful for her perseverance and boldness! :)

Stairwell before....
In the Process of the stairwell....

Living room entry way before....

Opened up after we took the door and partial wall out!!!

Moving...this says it all.

Molly jumped in the truck and decided to go with us. She didn't even mind the buckle-up rule. What a great dog. :)

Tearing the wall down...

TadAAA! The kitchen end product!!! With the help of Dave, Dad, Steve, and Joe...we successfully opened up the kitchen into the living room. What a difference!!!

Hmm...interesting walls underneath! Keep tearing it down!

Tearing it down...

The original paneling (ugh!) in the kitchen...soon to be gone!

More house pictures

Looking at the Landing from inside the living room

Looking out the front doors

Dinning room, looking out to the deck and backyard (kitchen is on the right)

Barn in back...yes, it needs some help. Joe thinks it might be a good woodworking shop!

Yet another building in the back...used to be a little apartment? We think we will salvage what we can and then tear it down to open up the yard a bit.

Are you my Mother?....

So, this is the most recent tag-along in the Hughes family...but don't worry, we aren't going to keep this one :) But we would really like to find a home for this little kitty. She is so sweet and loves people AND dogs ! Mom asked me to put up a picture...so here it is! Isn't she so cute, mom?? I think she would love the house on Orn road :) Hmmm, we shall see what Dad says, right?? :)

Chipotle and the 1800's

Mom, Libby and I met a few weeks ago in Richmond, IN for an all-girls weekend getaway !!! It was so much fun to be together! We enjoyed dinner at Chipotle...it was mom's first time, and she loved it! We laughed alot. Shopping, talking, and munching on chocolate chip cookies was enjoyed by all. We also loved touring the historic district of Richmond, where we oohhh and ahhhed over beautiful homes built in the 1800's. Finally we took a stroll through the charming Hayes Arboretum, where mom took this picture of Lib and I. What a blessing that weekend was. I am so thankful to have my family!!!!

Images...

The colors seem to be so brilliant this fall. We enjoyed at least 4 whole weeks of vibrant colors coming from the maples and other trees in our surrounding woods. This is just one of the most amazing times of the year. When I think about the colors, I smile, knowing that God created the color show just for our wonderment. I mean, He could have easily made the leaves fall right off the tree as the cool season approached. However, I feel His love every time I notice the gold, auburn, and deep red colors stand out beneath the bright blue sky!

Took a "creek stompin'" hike with a few kids during Fallen Timbers Outdoor Education week. We put our rubber boots on and took off through the wilds of Heartland. During the hike, we found fish and crayfish and "uncharted territory". Ok, well, to the kids, it seemed like we were hiking up streams that had never been explored before. I loved it.

Snuggle time??

Boy, are we glad these animals love each other! The first picture was taken a few weeks ago as I was lounging in the chair...I got adventurous and called Molly to see if she would jump up into the chair with me. Silly me...why did i even think she wouldn't! So as she made herself comfortable, the cat (now officially Sam) hopped on up and settled in. So funny! And then the other week, we caught this second shot, of Sam sleeping with Molly in her kennel. I don't know how Molly felt about the whole situation, but she tolerated it. Since then, we have often looked over and found the two laying together on the floor, in the kitchen on the rug (especially when i am cooking...they love to be right there with me) or back in Molly's kennel. Companions?? For sure! Entertaining for us?? You bet!

The Hunt continues!

So here is a picture of the house we are currently pursuing to buy!!! This was taken on the morning of our house inspection, which turned out very good. Things have progressed rather quickly these last couple of weeks since we first found out about the house. It is situated 3 miles north of Marengo on a quaint .683 acres of land. There are several things in and around the house that will need some loving care as we move in, but that is something we look forward to tackling together and with the help of talented family & friends! We are so excited to be potentially blessed with a home of our own! At the same time, things can get overwhelming at times! But we are trusting that as God continues to open doors, we will walk through them. Soooo, here we go! We should turn in all of our paper work and loan documents to the mortgage company by the 13th of November and hopefully close by November 28th!!! Here are some further pics of the future Hughes household!!! The sunroom :)

Bedroom

Upstairs bath

finished basement area

Back of the house....we are going to build a new deck!

First Days of fall...

So far this fall, Joe and I have kept ourselves fairly busy between work, animals, house hunting and fellowshipping with good friends and family! We have truly enjoyed being back at home in Ohio. In fact, as we traveled home last month from the west, as we came to Iowa, we opened the windows of the car and both breathed in deeply. After a sigh, we both agreed that there was nothing like the lush, fragrant smell and feel of the midwest! And now, fall is coming, which is quickly becoming one of our favorite seasons! We hope to attend Heritage Days Festival this weekend, where there will be reenactment setups, horse cart rides, and all the fall festival fixin's I suppose. Exciting!

We began our Outdoor Education Season this past week with a brand new school to our program, Granby Elementary School. From monday-wednesday we hosted the sixth graders and their teachers. Everything went very well and we now have some time to work out the kinks before a few other schools travel our way. Joe has had so much to do around camp, he hasn't had time to visit any other potential schools yet, but plans on doing so in the next month or so. We feel that the Lord continues to bless our program and give us opportunities to praise Him and His amazing creation. One of my highlights of the last week would have been the Aquatic class I had the pleasure of teaching. I took the kids down to Alum creek and for an hour we learned about all of the critters & creatures that live in the creek. The kids loved it! They explored all over in the creek. With nets flying, shoes splashing and minds wondering, those kids picked up so many things! Crawdads were the highlight, and in one class, we collected almost 20! Of course, at the end we released them all :) *sigh* I love teaching these kids, and watching them discover the world around them.

The pictures above are of our new kitty, who still does not have a name for certain :) But she is growing bigger by the day! Lately, I think she has taken to thinking that Molly is her "mom". !!! How funny to see them interact; Molly will just lay there at let the kitty play with her nose, ears and feet. Cute! Well, I will continue to try and capture some more of our moments on camera and share them as we have time!