LOTS of pictures!!

There’s no better way to spend the Easter holiday than swimming and tanning in Florida!! Ethan and Gretchen spent a week-long vacation visiting with her family down there, visiting with brothers, sisters, grandparents, and new niece Peyton. We had a great time lounging around the pool, some shopping excursions, and even a full-out special day for Ethan at Port Manatee, where he got to ride a REAL train!! It was all low-key and relaxing…a very nice vacation to visit and catch up with everyone. Here are some pictures we took.

As for the house, this Saturday was the first since returning from our trip that I’ve seen it. Boy, it REALLY looks like a home now!!! The drywall is complete and all interior painting has been done. There’s color in the house now! Our room turned out a bit more bright-blue than I anticipated, but I hope once carpet, doors, millwork…and all our housey things are in, it’ll pull together just fine. The colors look great, they’re just very stark right now. Our bonus room is what Ryan doesn’t want to call “celery” green, but it is. Bright and fresh and something different. Leah has a soft pink room that I spent painting on Saturday. The entire house throughout is a soft khaki color and our bathroom toilet room is more of a dark caramel. That’s is as far as inside colors go. I’d like to bust out whatever else I can manage to paint before anything else goes in, but it’s hard up and deciding on colors without being sure of what all goes in the room. I think doing anything else will just have to wait until we’re settled. At least the inside is moving along now. We hope that the tile work inside starts sometime this week or next. Probably about a week for that…then it’s onto lighting, cabinetry, millwork, and other finishing touches. Altogether, a good guess before we can move in is about another 4 weeks, if everything stays on track. Stay tuned!