James Surprise 30th Birthday party

James big 30th birthday party is coming up on May 20.  I decided the big 3-0 needed to be celebrated, so with the help of my sister Lisa, I threw him a surprise party yesterday.   I got him to Lisa's by telling him we were babysitting Emma, and he had no idea what was in store for him.   This was when we walked in the door.

Lisa made this awesome cake for him!

These guys are the closest thing to family (besides our actual family)  that James could ever hope for.   Note that both guys are wearing there Phipps Engineering shirts that James had given them.

Dixie (more to come on her later) made an appearance at the party.   It was so much fun to have a day to just celebrate how awesome James is.   We played games in the yard, hung out and enjoyed some great food...Thanks to Matt for bbqing!   I hope James realizes how special he is and how much we all love him!

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!

Oops...

I posted my most recent blog to my old blog site, so instead of retyping it, here is the link:

http://meganmonty.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

1 week in, 1 week to go

So we have been in Indiana for 1 week now. We each drove our vehicle out here, James pulling the trailer and me with the cat. The "relaxer" the vet gave the cat made him crazy and the first 6 hours of the trip were constant meowing and trying to claw his way out of the crate. Since James was pulling the trailer it took us 14 hours to get here! I'm so glad we don't have to make that trip again.

The temporary house leaves a lot to be desired. Thank goodness we close a week from tomorrow or we might both go crazy!!! Somewhere between the house's smell and the fullsize bed it just isn't meeting expectations. I guess this will ensure that we appreciate everything about our new home.

James is enjoying his job so far, getting to know people and figuring out what his role will be within the team. My days consist of lots of time spent with Emma and Lisa to avoid the temp house. It is great to live near family again! We will be open for visitors starting with mom and dad in September, so we'd love to have you visit!