I went to Carmine to buy and windmill and I brought home a tractor!

How is that for a title? It is entirely true and it pretty much sums up a goodly portion of what we did this weekend. Sally met a really nice fellow at an estate sale a couple of weeks ago. He told her he was going to get an old windmill and he wanted to sell it. Since this is exactly what Sally wants, we went to see it this Saturday. Turns out, it was not the right one for us. Too expensive, too much work and too many missing and/or damaged parts. He was a nice man though and he had a cute home and a great workshop and he loved to piddle. He is a square and round dancer and he asked Sally and I to join his group. We are definately thinking about it. Anyway, after looking at the windmill we decided to go to the steak house in Carmine. On the way, we passed a mechanic shop that had a little red Farmall Cub outside it. Sally suggested we stop and ask if it was for sell. Well, it was! We went right down the street to talk to the owner. Very interesting man. 6' 8" retired basketball coach that owns a VERY cool antique shop and his very own basketball museum. That's right, he owns his on museum. Anyway, he told us what he wanted for the tractor. I mentioned that we had been in the antique business ourselves and we had some cool things that he should come look at. He took me up on it. He and his wife came buy and agreed to take our giant shelves and a fishing calendar and a little money. Viola! We now own a 1948 Farmall Cub!

How do you top a story like that? Well, at our house you work! Last week, Sally and I removed the carpet that was in the living room. The floors needed refinishing so that's what we did. We stayed up until 1:00 Friday night sanding. Then more sanding Saturday. After all of that sanding we had a HUGE MESS to clean up. That took a while and we were so nasty after doing it. We also found time to make the first set of shutters for the house. They look AWESOME! We also cleaned a huge rug, scraped windows and refinished the porch swing. AND ... we finally settled on a paint color for the inside. Kind of greeny-gold. We are also going to do the white on the beaded board in a muted off white. What weekend! We are so tired and sore today but we are excited. Everything we did this weekend really looked great and it all made the house look great. We are inspired again!

Heather's Wedding

I feel horrible. My daughter got married two weeks ago and I am just now getting around to blogging it. Shows how crazy things have been around the Whitehouse. Oh well, let's talk wedding! IT WAS AWESOME!!!! No mess ups or problems of any sort. It was hot, but hey, it was an outdoor wedding in Texas. I think about 200 showed up. Thanks to all who braved the heat for us. After the ceremony evidently about 80 left as the caterer said they only served around 120. Well, it was definately their loss! The food was awesome and the after party was more awesome. The DJ said that it was the best dancing crowd they had ever seen. The wedding site was beautiful. Here is a run down of some of the highlights by person:

Heather-BEAUTIFUL bride that remained calm cool and collected. DID NOT become a bridezilla. She glowed and truly enjoyed and embraced the entire ceremony. Made me cry before the ceremony by giving me a card and a pic of us playing wedding when she ws about two.

Jared-Consumate groom. No visible stress. Helped with the manual labor of getting the site ready. He had such a good time and he really looked happy to be taking the most sacred vow on earth with my daughter

Whitney-MOST EXCELLENT FLORIST. Whitney did such a great job on all of the arrangements and the decorating of the site. She was pretty in pink and she beamed! Big night for her as well

Chris-What a great ceremony. Reverend Rue rose to the occasion and he helped make the wedding very personal. I am so happy he was able to do the vows.

Rue children-Jessie was the best bride's maid ever. Chris did the wedding. Katie and Moose really chipped in and made things happen. Again, family coming together to make this awesome event happen. I am really glad that I am related to these people!

Sally- She was beautiful! I love her so much and weddings remind me why!

Petters-The entire Petter clan was awesome. They helped with everything from the manual labor to the paying part. The wedding simply would not have been as nice with out their help. The Petter brothers were awesome best men. I really enjoyed watching the whole Petter family work and celebrate together. I am so glad we are kind of related to them now.

Other friends and family-To all of those that helped, Thanks! This was a big event and so many of you did so much to make it happen. Thanks again.

Happy Birthday America!

What an incredible 4th of July weekend we had! First, we did something that I never thought I would do. We picked 5 gallons wild mustang (or Muscadine) grapes for us to use to make wine. This was a lot of fun and we really are excited about trying our hand a wine making. Once we got them home we washed them and removed the stems. Next we mashed them with an old baseball bat. We now have the pulp and juice in our living room going through the fermentation process. Once it gets a white mold on top of it, we are going to take it to Beth Kunkle's dad. He is the local wine maker and his wine is good! We are very excited about learning to become amatuer vinters.

Saturday took us to Houston to celebrate Heather's last birthday as a single woman. She prepared fish tacos for us and a lovely avacado dip. OMG! They were awesome! Sally also made a yummy dessert out of our tatume squash. It was awesome! Heather is quite the cook. She is going to make a good little house wife for Jared! After lunch we all went to Sam's and bought Heather a camera for her birthday. After Sam's we went to see Herb and PK. Herb had recieved a bunch of old pictures from his sister. We really had a good time looking at them with him. Also, Jessica was still there. She had to stay over the night because the flooding was so bad from hurricane Alex. After we left the forum we went by Kim's to get stuff for Heather's wedding. We stayed for a couple of hours. Really had a lovely visit.

For the fourth, Sally and I decided to go to the Round Top parade. This is the oldest continuously celebrated 4th of July celebration in the nation west of the Mississippi. This was the 160th celebration. That means that people have been celebrating in Round Top since 1850. That is incredible to me. People have been getting together in that little town to celebrate our nation's independence since 5 years after Texas became a state. The parade was really fun. Too many pics to post here but we saw the governor, lots of beauty queens, amusing floats and a bunch of kids riding longhorn steers. I got my picture made with Governor Rick Perry! We left Round Top and went to Sonic for Hot Dogs. We also went to HEB and got the stuff to treat my POISON IVY. Evidently I paid a heavy price for the grapes we picked. To finish off the evening we went to Washington on the Brazos (the birthplace of Texas) and watched the HEB sponsored fireworks. The fireworks were good but the music on the radio was terrible. In spite of the music it was a perfect end to an almost perfect day.