Entry 137: Payback

Every year Lance's school buys the entire staff a shirt that they can wear on the first day of school, on homecoming day, and also for the staff picture. Julie does not like this shirt and has said on numerous times that she was going to tear up the shirt. Well Lance always thought Julie was joking and last night Lance found out that she wasn't and did something worse than tearing it up. Check the pictures.

Entry 136: The Bet

Twice a year the city has a day where you can put out all of the things that you no longer use or want in your house and they will pick it up. Well as you can imagine Julie has this date circled on the calendar months in advance and last night we put out all of our items. In the pile we had an old lawn mower, two hanging light fixtures, and an old vanity. Lance told Julie that those things still wouldn't be out there by the morning because they would be taken by people. Julie didn't believe him, so we made a $20 bet. Within a half hour the lawn mower was taken, and within 2 hours the vanity was gone. Many people came and looked at the light fixtures throughout the night, but when we went to bed there were no takers. Upon waking up this morning and Lance going out to get the paper, it was noticed that the hanging light fixtures were gone. Julie now owes Lance $20 and he already has big plans for it.

Entry 135: New Place Setting

Since the fall season is here and in full swing, Julie decided that it was time to change the place setting to reflect this change in season. The inspiration for the new place setting was a place mat that Julie received from her mom and dad for her birthday. She used the place mats and then found napkins and napkin rings that matched them and then went and found some new things to put in the centerpiece. All in all it is a very festive new place setting.

Entry 134: The Lion King

Today we went to see the touring production of The Lion King as part of Julie's birthday present. Neither of us was really sure what to expect, but we both thoroughly enjoyed it. The costumes were truly amazing. We also both enjoyed going into The Music Hall because neither of us had before. It was a really neat place to go see. Unfortunately they did not allow flash photography during the show, so what you see here is what you get. It was a great show though and we would highly recommend anyone to go and see it.

Entry 133: Julie The Nun

Julie has a retreat tomorrow for work and they are making it a costume deal to celebrate Halloween. As you can tell from the pictures Julie has decided to go as a nun. Lance just hopes that he is not the habit that Julie tries to kick.

Entry 132: Happy Birthday Julie

Today is Julie's birthday and she has finally hit the big 30. Lance has not forgotten this big day and he bought Julie tickets to see The Lion King, a nice baby blue Columbia jacket, and of course flowers sent to work. Lance has also planned a nice dinner for tonight. Happy birthday to Julie.

Entry 131: New Cabinet Vanity

Sunday we took down the cabinet in the bathroom and noticed a huge hole behind it. We decided that instead of putting a mirror up to hide the hole that we would put a whole new cabinet vanity. Since it is Julie's bathroom she picked out the cabinet. She says that she picked it out because she liked the white color and it looks old fashioned. Julie also liked it because you can open the doors without touching the mirror and leaving fingerprints. Julie was also a big fan of the baskets.

Entry 130: New Living Room Fan

The part of the house that Julie did not like was the ceiling fan that had only 3 blades. One of the blades was knocked off when Lance got mad at an Iowa Hawkeyes football game and threw a cup that bounced and knocked the blade off. This ceiling fan added some much needed light to the living room, but it was by far the toughest part to put up because of how high up it was. Julie says that this is her favorite improvement over the weekend.

Entry 129: New Kitchen Lights

The lighting in the kitchen was always bad and the fixtures were very outdated. According to Julie they probably were in the house from when it was built. Julie picked out some lights that matched some of the hardware in the kitchen part and as you can see they add a lot more light and modern flair to this area. This is the thing that Lance likes the best that was installed this weekend.

Entry 128: New Bedroom Ceiling Fan

Above you can see a picture of the new bedroom ceiling fan that was installed this weekend. It is beautiful and we absolutely love it.

Entry 127: New Lights

In our quest to update the house, we decided to change out the light fixtures in all of the rooms in the house. The one you see in the picture above is the fixture in the hallway, computer room, dude's room, and dude's bathroom. According to Julie these were the easiest to put in, except for the fact that Lance and Kent had to take one back because it was broken and get a replacement.

Entry 126: Big Changes (in the house)

As many of you know Julie's birthday is coming up this Thursday and as an early birthday present Julie's mom and dad came to help with some home improvement things. So on Saturday and today we put in two ceiling fans, changed out 6 light fixtures, and installed a new bathroom cabinet. Along the way Julie also came down with a bad cold, the dog ran wild through the neighborhood twice, and the brake lights in our car were broken. As you can tell it was quite the exciting weekend. We can not express how much we appreciate Nancy and Kent for coming down to help us with this. What great parents. You will see pictures of everything in blog entries and I am sure that Julie will give details on why she choose each item when she gets to feeling better.

Entry 125: Birthday Wishes

Lance's sister, Jacque, has a birthday today. Happy birthday Jacque and forgive me but I believe it is your 26th. We both love you.

Entry 124: New Curtains

As you can see from the picture last Sunday we got new curtains. We decided to do this because with the new living room arrangement the window was now a focal point. We also realize that the shears are a little long, but they will be hemmed up in the next few days. Again just one of many changes that are coming to the house.

Entry 123: A Little Joke From Julie

This is an email that Julie got that is really funny, so enjoy.

20 Ways To Keep A Healthy Level Of Humor

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point
a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want
Fries with that.

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone has
Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

6. In the Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write 'For Marijuana'.

7. Finish All Your sentences with 'In Accordance With The Prophecy'.

9. Skip down the hall Rather Than Walk and see how many looks you
get.

10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious
face.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'..

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

14. Put mosquito netting all around your work area and Play tropical
Sounds All Day..

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their
Party Because You have a headache.

17. When The Money Comes Out of The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'

18. When Leaving the Zoo, Start Running towards the Parking lot,
Yelling 'Run For Your Lives! They're Loose!'

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are
Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'

Entry 122: Even More Improvements On The Way

The title for this entry sums it all up: their are even more improvements on the way for the house. Julie's birthday is coming up this month and as a birthday gift, Julie's mom and dad have agreed to come and help us do some improvements around the house. Julie has the whole day planned out for them and everything bought for them to hang up. We decided to replace 2 ceiling fans in the house and have some of the light fixtures in the house switched out. You can see all the pictures of the new items below. It will be a long day on the 18th, but we will make sure we get pictures up after everything has been completed.

Entry 121: New Light Switches

Julie has decided that she wants to make some updates to the house. The first thing she wanted to do was change all of the light switches in the house because the other ones were old and looked like they had been put in when the house was originally built. So after school for a week Lance installed all new light switches in the house. So the bedrooms and bathrooms all have new flippy (as Julie calls them) switches and the rest of the house just have the regular old switches.