Why I Love Home Depot...

Alright, my extended vacation on another blog is over and I'm ready to come back to blogger. (I will still continue to post about living in the rhythms of the Christian seasons and faith formation on the StoryFormed blog though. Stop by every once and a while...)

So I entitled this entry "Why I Love Home Depot" and the responses to this could be unending. I love the exhilaration of walking through the door and thinking about all the things I could do to my house! I love the paint section - especially all the color sample cards. My children love this section too and I have tons of the color cards in my purse to prove it!

I love the garden center - especially when they build a fountain or two and have a cool bench to sit on. I think I could bring a good book and my lunch there someday and be sooooo happy. I also love looking at all the kitchen cabinets and sinks that I could buy when I win the lottery. But today, I have to say "I Love Home Depot" because they taught my husband his flooring techniques.(example above of those great flooring skills!!!)

You may know that David once worked at Home Depot...in the flooring department, by the way. And you may also know that we are in the middle of remodeling our master bathroom. It was kind of my idea, but I love that my husband likes to take my ideas and "make it so" (for you Star Trek fans!)

(above, you can see the original wall paper. why was wallpaper ever popular??)

So he is upstairs right now laying down the flooring in our bathroom and it looks amazing!! Had I been put in charge of it, well....let's just say there would have been a lot of tears and some tiles flung into the wall. We would be walking on the underlying particle board for the rest of our lives!

However, thanks to Home Depot (and A LOT of puzzle games while he was growing up), David is quite the proficient floor guy! And are we glad or what?? We are living proof of the Home Depot slogan (as Luc says it), "you can do...we can do it"!!!

(David laughing at me for even photographing this. It may be because it is late or perhaps because I painted in a very small enclosed room for a good portion of the afternoon...)

The Sixteen Days of Christmas??

Wow, it has been a long time since I've written anything. We were traveling for 16 days and returned home on the 2nd quite exhausted and anticipating sleeping in our own beds. So here is my attempt at our family's personal "holiday song" - with some thank you's and explanations....

During the 16 days of Christmas, my calendar said to me,

Get on 1 super delayed flight (before the airport shuts down)

2 trips to the airport (once to arrive, another time to pick up our luggage!)

3 birthday celebrations (Jesus, Tami and Uncle Rick)

4 photo shoots (Lentzs, Jacobs, Andersons, Renee)

5 cousin sleepovers (thank you Abi, Sam, Destinee, Katie and Corbin)

6 lovely lunches (you know who you are!)

7 morning coffees (gotta love Starbucks gift cards!)

8 dinners full of conversation (food for thought)

9 pounds heavier!!

10 trips to the mall (UGGGG!!)

11 perogy lovers fighting for their share (thanks to mom for great eats on Christmas Eve)

12 stations at the prayer garden (thank You, God, for a few moments of quiet!)

13 minutes in the pool (Mikaela was brave enough to get in to her waist)

14 people to bring in the New Year (including very noisy children)

15 family members for a last yummy dinner (all Malouf's minus one)

16 snow free days!!

All in all, we had a great time. There were still more people we would have like to have seen and the kids had a difficult time understanding why we had to go back to Washington. We arrived home with more luggage than we left with, having to put on a few extra layers, and a huge sigh of relief to have made it all in one piece (or actually many pieces, but everything and everyone was TOGETHER!!)