Elizabethtown

This year, Chad and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary!  We haven't changed much since then, have we?

We tried to celebrate our anniversary while in New York City this past July, but it just didn't work out.  We were in group settings most of the time and never had a chance to get to a nice restaurant to celebrate.  Given that we have taken honeymoon/anniversary trips to cities (Europe for our honeymoon and Chicago for our 1st year anniversary), I really wanted to take a getaway to a cabin, lake, or bed and breakfast.  Other than our first year anniversary, this was the only other trip we have taken to celebrate our anniversary.  Must be because Meredith was here by our 2nd anniversary and Luke by our 4th anniversary :)

Three months late, but in October we celebrated with a weekend getaway to a Bed and Breakfast in Elizabethtown, Illinois which sits right on the Ohio River (we could see Kentucky from our view) and took a brief hike through Shawnee Forest on the way there.  It was just what we needed!  Picturesque, unseasonably warm Fall weather, and beautiful vibrant colored trees.  The kids got to spend the weekend with Grandpa and Grandma Perry and partake in the local Fall Festival and Halloween parade.  It was a win-win for everyone.

As a child, I went here several times but this was our first time together.  

Camel!

On the way from Shawnee Forest to Elizabethtown, we stopped at Cave-in-Rock to eat at a local cafe and watch the ferry take people/vehicles from Illinois to Kentucky.

The Ferry.  Really neat and peaceful to watch.

We were a little unsure about staying at a Bed and Breakfast, but it exceeded our expectations!  The owner was super sweet, breakfast was delicious, and we had great conversations with the couple from Evansville at our table.

This Bed and Breakfast was built in 1914.

There was a huge porch we could sit out on and look out over the river.

Family Room.

Entry into Bed and Breakfast.

Staircase leading up to our room.

The "Elvis Room" just outside our room.

Another view of the Elvis room.

Our room, "The Captain's Quarters".

This tree was well over 100+ years old.  If it weren't for the Japanese beetles, we may have sat around it.

We frequented this floating restaurant during our stay.  It had a deck you could sit out on that overlooked the river.

Sunset

Sunrise

House Painting

This was our summer long project: Painting!  I knew the only way I could convince Chad to paint the interior of our home was to trick him.  Seriously, I've been wanting to paint soon after we got married, but it seemed like such an undertaking that it was easy to put off.  Every single wall in the house was white.  It was time for a change.  I'd been dropping very subtle hints for a while now. Granted, I do change my mind a lot about redecorating the house and we have had to move very heavy furniture too many times to count because of my change of preference, so no wonder Chad didn't want to deal with painting.  Moving a piece of furniture compared to changing the color of a wall is much easier, to say the least.  So, I "tricked" Chad when he asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day.  My response was, "let me paint".  So, we did it!  It took from Mother's Day to Labor Day to finish 90% of the house.

I was ambitious at first and painted four rooms in the course of the first month, but then our mission trip came up and once I lose my momentum, it's hard to get back to work.  It was also much, much, much (did I say much?) trickier to paint with kids in the house than I thought it would be.  We had a few occasions where they went to Grandma and Grandpas house for the evening so we could tackle some rooms, while other rooms that had better ventilation I painted during naptime or bedtime.  We still want to put a fresh coat of white paint in our garage, figure out the color for Luke's room, and paint the walls leading down to our basement.  Otherwise, we are done for quite a while!

BEFORE - Our upstairs bedroom

BEFORE - Our upstairs bedroom

AFTER - Meredith's upstairs bedroom

AFTER - Meredith's upstairs bedroom
(Not sure why it uploaded to be a neon green color; It's a pale green, definitely not that bright).

BEFORE - Downstairs playroom.
I couldn't wait to get rid of these curtains!

BEFORE - Downstairs playroom

BEFORE - Taping downstairs playroom.
I couldn't believe how much work taping could be.  I eventually got much better with my trim work and didn't need to tape nearly as much as at the beginning.

AFTER - Our new bedroom (formerly playroom)

AFTER - Our new bedroom

AFTER - Our new bedroom
We now have curtains, though I haven't taken a picture of that yet.  They are long, red ones.

BEFORE - Upstairs bathroom

AFTER - Upstairs bathroom

BEFORE - Downstairs bathroom

AFTER - Downstairs bathroom

AFTER - Downstairs bathroom

AFTER - Downstairs bathroom.
It's so nice to have our bathroom downstairs; We can get ready without waking the kids and though it may all be by chance, they have been sleeping later (usually until 7:00) since this new arrangement.

BEFORE - Kitchen 

AFTER - Kitchen

AFTER - Kitchen 

AFTER - Kitchen

BEFORE - Stairwell.
Customized with smudges and handprints!

BEFORE - One of the walls close to the basement.
These enormous bumps/dents were created when the couch was moved upstairs.  So glad to have this fixed!

BEFORE - Stairwell.
This was extremely hard to paint, as I didn't have a ladder that worked on steps.  So, I used a contraption that had the paintbrush on the end of a roller stick.  Fun times!

AFTER - Stairwell

BEFORE - Living Room.
This was an enormous task!  A 20-foot tall wall at an angle.  Thankfully, we borrowed our neighbors Little Giant Ladder, but it was still very difficult.  I was too scared to climb the full length of the ladder, so I resorted to the paint brush on the end of the pole technique.  That's why it's extremely splotchy!  It was so hard to cut edges cleanly, too.  I don't ever want to do this again.

AFTER - Living Room. 

AFTER - Living Room.
We decided to keep the shadow box white.  It adds a nice touch to the room.