Need your opinions

We are planning basement projects for this winter. The "big 3"things we need to do are paint, buy a sofa and flooring. We have three paint samples that we are deciding between, all neutral tan shades. For the sofa, we have decided on one from Ashley Furniture that is similar to the one we have already but with chocolate brown cushions that look almost like corduroy. This isn't exactly it, but gives you an idea. The one we picked is definitely more chocolate and doesn't have the fancy polka dot pillows.

So here is where you can have some input, we decided on laminate wood for down there, and these are the 2 favorites:

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=7060

http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=6962

They are so different but both really pretty.

This is an example of what it would look like with the darker floor, except that we have natural wood trim. These sofas are the fabric and color of the sectional we picked.

Lake Phipps

So it stormed like crazy yesterday and this is what happened to our yard. It reminds me of the Monty river we used to get back home.

And this picture per James' request.

Home Improvements

So we are doing lots of work around the Phipps house. We laid floor in the first room in the basement last week and are painting the kitchen this weekend. The floor was just concrete, so flooring makes it look much more finished. The kitchen is this horrible mustardy color which we hate. We are painting it a light blue and the dining room will have a chair rail and tan on the bottom. We also plan to put in this sweet glass tile backsplash in the kitchen. It is fun to make this house we bought into our own home.

For those of you that don't know, I started a new job May 9 as a contract engineer at Zimmer. It took some faith to step into a contract position, but I look forward to what God has in store.

Sorry I'm so bad about blogging. I will try to post pictures of the projects soon!

update

James and the dog. James has taken to giving Harley "hugs." Even though he is a husky, he shivers outside in the snow so we bought him a Harley Davidson sweatshirt. Turns out it was more like a muscle shirt on him.

We had a great trip home for Christmas. It was so much fun to spend an entire week with the family, celebrating together. We also managed a trip to the zoo, where james was finally able to see Pandas! This picture is a perfect description of our relationship. haha.

We have learned the real meaning of cold this winter, with the high yesterday being somewhere around 9! The coldest temp we have seen so far is -2F.

We are looking forward to a good year here in the Phipps house. Hopefully you are all doing well!