JOSH'S BIRTHDAY CAME EARLY

So last night Josh got a 6 week early birthday present... the new Iphone 4. (He got the black one but I really like the white one too so I decided to show you both.) He is beyond excited. His old phone was so slow and almost died every night before he could get it back to the charger - ridiculous. It was time for a new one. Here are some of my favorite quotes from him last night...

Right after we got the phone and we were walking out of the store... Josh - "Look at this picture (quality)." Becca - "I know..." Josh - "No you don't, you have never seen anything THIS good!"

When we trying to make a U-turn to go back to firehouse subs for dinner Josh was getting stressed at the traffic and said, "I don't like my Iphone seeing me frustrated like this."

Later after dinner as we are walking to the car..."I've got my wife in one hand and my Iphone in the other... life is good."

O babe you are so funny. I am so glad you like your early birthday present. Love you.

DINING ROOM RENO

When Josh's family was in town a couple of weeks ago we stumbled across a great buy on a new dining room table and chairs. (I would say that our previous dining set was probably our least favorite piece of furniture for both looks and functionality.) We inherited the old table from my dad's condo which we were so thankful for but were ready for a change. We had been keeping an eye out for a new table that would be bigger but still fit in the smallish space - and hopefully be able to fit in the kitchen of a future house! Here is the picture of the dining room before...

After finding the new table... we decided to give the dining room a mini-makeover by painting above the exisiting chair rail and trying to give the room a little more depth. It only took us a couple of hours to paint and I think it made a big difference. Nothing too loud like our other accent walls - but interesting and maybe a little more sophisticated?

We absolutely love our new dining room table!! We got it at Z Gallerie on clearance and they also threw in a nice designer's discount for yours truly. (I love my field!) It is a dark solid wood with charcoal gray legs. The wood is somewhat distressed which we think will be great for future little ones - this way we don't have to worry about it getting damaged. Yet, it is not "country" by any means... the metal legs give it a contemporary feel.

While Josh's family was here we got to immediately test out the functionality of the table by having a full dinner for 6 people where everyone and all the food could fit at the table. Very nice.

Even Molly's area was part of the dining room reno... we picked up these new food and water bowls for her at Homegoods. Very cute and it was time to retire the hot pink ones seen here. Josh was very excited as you can imagine.

WORK IN AUBURN, AL

Last week I took a quick one-day trip with my boss over to an apartment complex in Auburn, AL called Eagle's West that our company owns and manages. We decorated and staged a one-bedroom model to try and entice some more people to rent at this location. This was my first real stab at decorating a model (which is something that I think we will be doing a lot more of...) We did most of the shopping for the model the day before we went. Our budget was $3,000 (not inlcuding major furniture items) and we ending up spending $2,700. I must say it was very fun getting to shop and put together something like this overnight - it almost did not feel like work... does this mean I like my job? :) Here are the pics - how do you think we did?

BATON ROUGE IN AUGUST WITH NO A/C

I must say that the title for this post pretty much sums up last weeks trip with work for me... it was HOT. My boss and I drove down to Baton Rouge last Monday and came back Friday afternoon - we went to work on a project that Capstone is opening tomorrow (Saturday) called The Cottages at Baton Rouge. We were primarily working on decorating a clubhouse for the cottages complex - adding furniture, rugs, art accessories... making it look "lived-in".


Avantages to this trip:

- LOTS of free T-shirts... we were changing our shirts 3 times a day :)

- Got to have lunch one day with my good friend Sarah Rawlings who drove up from New Orleans to see me - I had not seen her in over a year!

- We got to get out of the office for a week and see an awesome student living facility that is so great it makes me want to go back to school just so that I can live in it.



Several disadvantages to this trip:

- We were in LSU country - their fans are always the worst!

- No elevator working to carry heavy items upstairs (i.e. lounge chairs)

- NO A/C IN 117 DEGREE HEAT INDEX...we would walk outside from the clubhouse and this hot weather would feel actually cooler than it was inside


Hot as it was down there... this is a really neat project - the clubhouse is 20,000 sq. ft. and comes complete with a two-story gym, tanning beds, steam room, game rooms with pool tables, poker tables, shuffle board, dart board, TVs for watching game, etc.


Check out the website link to the site... it is really cool. I did not get any pics of the clubhouse as it was still not cleaned once we left. We are hoping they will take professional pictures ASAP. It really was a neat project to be a part of... I learned one thing last week - my job description as an Interior Designer was just broadened and I wil never again take the sweet feeling of air conditioning for granted.

O ALABAMA...

So, remember how I pointed out the lovely TV commercials that we have the pleasure of viewing every day here in Alabama? Apparently the News Stories are not much better...

HEWIETTS & HEWIETTS VISIT THE HEWIETTS

So I am a little behind on my blog postings... the past couple of weeks have been quite busy. Last weekend Josh's parents and grandparents came to visit us here in Birmingham and then this past week I traveled to Baton Rouge for work. (I plan to do a later post about the very eventful work trip....) The picture you see here is 3 generations of Hewiett men.


We had a lot of fun with Josh's family. They arrived on Friday night and where we promptly proceeded to the nearest Jim N' Nicks BBQ for dinner - DELICIOUS. There is just nothing like those cheese biscuits. On Saturday morning we got up and made the trek to Edgar's Bakery for breakfast - very Yummy! We then proceeded to split up into two cars and while the boys headed out to the Bass Pro Shops (which turned out to be a 3 hour tour... literally!) us girls made the rounds to the Vera Bradley store, Charming Charlie's, Calico Corners (to meet my old peeps!) and a few of the ritzy neighborhoods in the Ham.

The line-up outside Edgars

Later that day I took the fam on tour of my office :) Everyone liked it. Guess that means I'm official now?

On Saturday night we had an interesting occurance... our apartment complex gave notice that the city had to turn off our water in order to change the water main for our complex. We prepared for the worst... 6 people in one small apartment with potentially no running water for 12 hours... it turned out fine and it seems that the water was only off from about midnight to 4:00 AM and so most of us slept through it.

On Sunday morning we all got ready and headed off to church at Brook Hills. We were so exited to show Josh's family our wonderful church. They were glad to see everything and hear David Platt preach in person.

The Hewiett ladies ready for church

On Sunday afternoon Josh and I made a very exciting purchase - a new dining room table and chairs! For anyone who has ever been to our place and had the pleasure of eating a meal at our small table, you will appreciate the new one. We found it on clearance at Z Gallerie and once they threw in a designer discount for yours truly we decided to buy it. Since the table was fully assembled and rather large... Josh and his Dad had to rent a truck from Home Depot to get it home... but home it is and it is lovely. (Will post pictures at a later date... we are toying with the idea of a dining room mini-maker over now that we have a new table and it will need a post of its own.)

Molly of course had an absolute blast this weekend... she got to spend lots of quality time with her Keith.... we then had to deal with her deep depression that ensued after he left on Monday morning. Thank you to all of you for coming! We love you all :)

RUSSELL REUNION 2010

Last weekend Josh and I drove to Tyler, TX for the Bi-Annual Russell Family Reunion. Every two years my dad's extended family gets together for a weekend. Among the attendees are all of my Grandpa's siblings and their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. (ie - lots of people!!) This year I think we had about 75 people come out. The picture above is Uncle Bill's family (That's my grandpa.) I think that over the last 4 years with all of the marriages and added boyfriends/girlfriends we have literally doubled in size. Crazy.

Catherine, Mom and Me

The weekend technically begins with Friday afternoon/ evening where everyone is traveling into Tyler. Josh and I drove after I got off work on Friday and so we did not get in until everyone was already asleep. We met up with everyone the next morning as is usual and grandparents and our family cook breakfast for everyone complete with the most amazing pancakes you will ever put in your mouth (Grandpa gave me the recipe to take home and try myself this time...) Josh and I woke up a little late and managed to get passed up on all of the regular pancake and serving line duties which was fine by us... now that we have so many people in our family (see picture at beginning of blog) there are many more people than there are jobs to do and so we managed to provide moral support as they were finishing up breakfast.

After breakfast we LET THE GAMES BEGIN!! As is customary there are tournaments for horseshoes, mini-golf, basketball, fishing, 42, volleyball, did I leave anything out? Everyone has to team up in pairs with someone who is not in their generation... it makes for some very interesting pairs to say the least. I teamed up with Aunt Sissy for horsehoes and we were eliminated in the first round... not surprising. Josh teamed up with my Great Aunt Ellen for horseshoes (as usual) and they played really well but got rained out and were unable to finish - to be postponed until next time. They are currently the reigning champs for horseshoes throwing which I think is awesome.

Josh throwing the horseshoe...

When the rain started in that afternoon we were all stuck inside and the 42 tournament began... since I never learned how to play 42, Josh and I decided to gather up some of the others that had never learned to either and we taught them how to play a Hewiett favorite - Capatalism. It was great. Aunt Sissy definitely had beginner's luck beat us all.

Aunt Sissy, Cousin Vicki, Josh, Jenni, Me and Uncle Jean-Claude

Later in the afternoon we held the Bi-Annual Russell Reunion Auction. We hold this at every reunion to help pay for the expenses of food and housing for the next reunion. Everyone is supposed to bring items that they made or family heirlooms they would like to share and put them in the auction. This usually does very well and this year was no different. It is definitely a fun way to share and raise money for next time. The pictures below are the items that I made - pillows from Calico Corners fabric and some seasonal wreaths. It was a lot of fun!

Molly came along on the trip with us as well. She did really well on the 9 hour one-way car ride to and from Birmingham to Tyler down I-20. Throughout Mississippi the interstate gets a little bumpy and kept her head in the floor and was breathing very deeply for about 2 hours, but other than that she did great! She did really well playing with everyone all weekend - although I think she was not very amused by all of the water guns that were distributed to the kids 10 and under. By Saturday evening, she was tired and we had to coax her down out of the loft in my mom's cabin when we were heading back to ours....

On Sunday morning before everyone leaves to drive home we all have breakfast, a church service and then a pinata hitting together. Its tradition. For the pinata, we get to hit it in order from youngest to oldest... about 6 years ago or so all of the little kids were not so little anymore and then I became accustomed to the pinata being broken open before they get to my age group. Its okay, it is still fun to watch.

My cousin Natasha taking her turn

LOTS OF CANDY :)

Sunday July 11 was actually my sister Catherine's 22nd birthday. (O boy do I feel soooo old...) My mom, Catherine and my sister's boyfriend Dan all drove to Tyler as well and so we caravanned for a while along I-20 and stopped for lunch at Wendy's for Catherine's birthday (lovely place I know, we had to make it quick for Molly's sake.) It was so good to see them and spend some time with Catherine around her birthday weekend.

Overall we had a wonderful weekend and we can't wait until next time!