TheYoungLynches

Bonfire at the Hornbakers

2012-01-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

Those lights in the back are from an excavator they were driving to push more wood onto the fire. Looks like the Terminator's coming, huh?

Obviously this isn't the bonfire, but this is how we found Luna this morning. THIS is the spot she chose to lay in? :)

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-27T06:37:00.001-08:00

My parents came to visit for Thanksgiving this year.

We started off their visit with a trip to Starved Rock.

Thanksgiving Meal

2011 Christmas Tree

Halloween Party

2011-10-30T10:54:00.001-07:00

Grant as Cody Lundin

Jen & Ryan

Dave & Laura

David & Jessica

Rich & Kathy

Russ & Molly

Luna found a favorite spot. :)

Playing games - this one was Pin the Stem on the Pumpkin. We also played Halloween Pictionary and our favorite, Guess the Candy Bar - you had to taste-test 10 pieces of different candy bars and try and identify them. You could tell who had a sweet tooth. :)

Summer 2011

2011-07-28T08:27:00.001-07:00

My parents kicked off the summer with a June visit. We did a lot of relaxing and some sightseeing. These are pictures of us at the Quad Cities Botanical Gardens.

Laughing at the small butterfly exhibit... ;)

Then we were off to North Carolina for the 4th of July.

Do you think he likes it?

Peyton seemed to like the pool much more this summer.

However, he really enjoyed the water table and dumping the toys into the hot tub.

The best part of this picture is who's in the background. Look closely! :)

I love this picture because this is Matt's happy face and Peyton's worried face - yet they look like twins!! :)

Good times on the boat - wait, isn't he the captain?!? Who's behind the wheel?

Next was a trip to Pittsburgh where I met up with Lauren and Owen!

We stopped at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum first - it was a huge hit!

Definitely a place to go back to in the future.

We took the Monongahela Incline to see some great views of Pittsburgh.

Door County, WI

2011-06-06T14:27:00.001-07:00

We took a trip up to Door County, WI for an early 4th anniversary celebration!

We stayed at a beautiful Bed & Breakfast in Baileys Harbor - beautiful views, great food, and great shopping!

Take a look at the dock - good thing we didn't get pooped on!!

Cana Island Lighthouse

The view from our room.

This was a building where people would sign their names when they docked their boats.

Arlington, VA

2011-04-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

For spring break this year, we drove out to Arlington, VA to see Matt, Tyhler, and Peyton. Grant's parents also made the trek up - so we had ourselves a little Lynch reunion!

Very savvy with an iPhone. :)

Getting in some toy-assembly practice!

Blackhawks Game

2011-04-10T16:56:00.001-07:00

Chicago Blackhawks vs. Detroit Redwings

Blizzard of 2011

2011-02-02T10:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it took us 3 hours to shovel ourselves out - but we did it!

We got about a foot and a half of snow and the blowing made it higher in certain parts. Other parts (well, only the area directly in front of our garage doors) were completely free of snow because of the wind patterns.

Can you see our driveway under there? ;)

Shoveling a little sidewalk.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T06:18:00.001-08:00

Grant's parents came up from NC to spend the New Year with us!

Christmas in CT

2010-12-30T11:57:00.001-08:00

This year we spent Christmas in CT. Perry flew in from San Francisco, so we were all there!

Notice the lack of snow in the background of these pictures....

And then on the day we were going into NYC, the blizzard hit. :)

We went into the city to see Wintuk - a Cirque du Soleil show. These photos were taken before the show when were walking around. You can see the snow has started to fall. Once we left the show around 5pm, the winds were really picking up and there was snow everywhere.

It was certainly beautiful, and luckily we made it home just in time.

Outside Magnolia Bakery!

Mother and Daughter in matching coats!

Outside Rockefeller Plaza

Snow!

2010-12-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

The snow just keeps on falling!

And not melting!

First Snow!

2010-12-04T06:46:00.001-08:00

We got a bit more snow than we were expecting... Bring out the snow shovels!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T17:57:00.001-08:00

We found the one!

Halloween Illinois-style

2010-10-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

We spent the day with our friends Steve and Laurie deep in the Illinois backcountry. Steve brought a few guns along, so we decided to see how good our aim was :)

Grant got three clay discs in a row!

New Bed!

2010-09-15T17:47:00.000-07:00

I have vivid childhood memories of spending endless weekends at furniture stores.

I always wondered what my parents found to be so much fun.

Now we get it. :)

Madison

2010-09-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

For my birthday, Grant surprised me and took me for a weekend getaway to Madison, WI! We had a great time exploring the capitol, eating delicious food, and doing a little shopping!

Here I am at the top of the capitol building with the lake in the background.

It was a beautiful capitol building.

Here we are at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. They had this really cool Thai Pavilion that you could walk to and explore - it was a gift to the University of Wisconsin by the Thai government - built in Thailand and shipped here to assemble - beautiful to see.

While we were shopping we saw this car. Sitting in the driver's seat and passenger's seat were two dogs that truly looked like they were getting ready to drive the car. :)

Grant's Birthday!

2010-09-01T15:28:00.001-07:00

We fit on 31 candles!

Unfortunately it took Grant more than one breath to blow them all out...

What does that mean exactly?

New birthday plates. :)

Yum, yum, yum!

San Francisco with Perry

2010-08-05T12:59:00.001-07:00

Perry flew me out to SF for my birthday! We decided to go the more touristy route this year and spent some time in Muir Woods, finding cupcake/ice cream places around the city, and at a motorcycle race in Sonoma. We went to Humphry Slocombe which is an ice cream store and had peanut butter curry ice cream - it was delicious!

We met up with Perry's friend, Pam.

Tim had a friend from his lab who was racing,

so we had someone to actually watch/cheer on - it was really cool,

and the scenery wasn't so bad either. :)

Summer Vacation 2010

2010-07-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

Our summer road-trip brought us to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

We started in CT and visited a quaint coastal town called Essex. We also spent time at an old favorite - Compo beach, ate lots of good food, did a little shopping, and caught up on some old board games.

After CT we drove down to Easton, PA to visit my best friends from college - Lauren and Adam.

They just had a baby boy named Owen on May 31st. He's sure a cutie! :)

After PA, we drove down to NC to see Grant's family and our new favorite addition to the family, Peyton. :) He is EVEN cuter than when we last saw him (didn't think it was possible...) and we had a lot of fun playing with him and watching him do all sorts of new things.

Eating real baby food... mmm... carrots!

On our first day there, we took a ride out on their boat.

It was our first time out for a ride and it was a lot of fun!!!

Just in case... :)

It was WINDY!!!

So literally the whole entire drive was blue skies that looked like the picture above...

The second we enter Princeton we see skies come over us like this and it starts to rain. Have we mentioned the crazy weather here? Ahh... it's good to be home. ;)

Wild Weather

2010-06-24T04:08:00.001-07:00

We have had the craziest weather the past two weeks or so.

Last night we had a severe thunderstorm with really heavy winds and rain.

The streets looked like this all over Princeton. Other friends from town posted photos

and they actually had water very close to their house. Yipes!

Cubs Game

2010-06-21T06:42:00.001-07:00

We spent the weekend in Evanston with Jen and Ryan. On Sunday, we went to the Cubs/Angels game at Wrigley Field. It is an awesome stadium and we had a lot of fun. The Cubs won!!!

Our New Tree!

2010-06-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

Here's our new Ginkgo tree!

A Good Bedtime Story...

2010-06-16T12:55:00.001-07:00

This book was donated to the library last week.

Grant bought it from the Friends for our own collection. :)

A Beautiful Day in Illinois

2010-06-16T12:53:00.000-07:00

2010 Stanley Cup Champions

2010-06-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

The Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup right when we moved to NC.

The Blackhawks win while we're living in IL.

Where should we go next? :)

Farewell Tree...

2010-06-07T13:52:00.001-07:00

The tree in our front yard was taken down today.

Here are some pictures of the progression.

We'll plant a new one in its place sometime this summer -

we'll post photos when we do!

Good-bye Tree!

2010-06-02T16:04:00.001-07:00

About a week ago we had a strong thunderstorm and this branch fell off of the tree.

Needless to say... we're having the tree taken down next Monday since the remainder of the tree hangs over our house.

And here's my little herb basket that we affectionately call Herb. :)

Garden Photos

2010-05-15T16:11:00.001-07:00

This is the area in back of our garage.

It has these gorgeous yellow flowers - I don't know what they are.

Can you see the ice cream truck? :)

Chicago

2010-04-26T15:01:00.001-07:00

We went to Chicago this weekend to have dinner with our friends from North Carolina. Our friends who live in Evanston, Jen and Ryan, were kind enough to let us spend the night!

Grant with Jen and Ryan outside of the Art Institute - or should I say Institvte...

Looking at art...

Discussing art...

Can you find Grant and Ryan?

Grant made a new friend!!

Later that evening we had dinner with Sarah and Sarah at Sushi Samba!

We missed you, Edwin!!

San Francisco with Matt, Tyhler, and Peyton!

2010-04-07T15:37:00.001-07:00

We had a wonderful trip out to San Francisco to meet our new nephew, Peyton!

Walking to breakfast...

Walking the streets of Noe Valley

I'd say we spent a lot of our time making funny noises and faces just to see Peyton smile!

Here is Peyton's first Wondercon experience - we think he had a lot of fun! :)

Fisherman's Wharf

Driving down Lombard Street...

The Painted Ladies

Good-bye San Francisco. 'Til next time!

Berkeley with Perry and Tim

2010-04-07T15:28:00.001-07:00

We walked around the campus of Berkeley when we first met up with Tim and Perry.

This is a special type of genetically engineered tree.

The Berkeley Library

Can't leave out a picture of Navi!

First Day of... Spring?

2010-03-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

From Both Sides...

2010-03-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

These are photos taken on the opening night of "From Both Sides...",

an art exhibit of local artists put on by the library.

The sculpture that inspired this whole art exhibit.

It is being moved from Main Street to outside the library.

Cat in the Tub

2010-02-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

"So...are you going to turn the water on, or what?"

Winter in Illinois

2010-02-16T15:17:00.001-08:00

Grant and I drove down to Peoria on Saturday.

The trees had frost on them and it had snowed the night before

so they looked really pretty in front of the bright blue sky.

We're Done!!!!!!!

2010-02-16T15:01:00.001-08:00

One month and 13 days later.... the bathroom is complete!!

Here are some final shots.

We still need to get some stuff to hang on the walls..

and I'm sure you'll see that on here when we finally get something! :)

I figured we've showed you everything else about our bathroom renovation -

why leave out the toilet? :)

We've got to find another place for that ugly tissue box!!

We're planning on putting some sort of cabinet behind the toilet

and something on the adjacent wall.

Here's what you see when you enter the bathroom.

Not much has changed except for the color.

We need something for the wall in this little nook too.

Now onto the downstairs bathroom.... JUST KIDDING!!! :)

Floor, Vanity, and Mirror

2010-02-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

So we're nearing the home stretch! The last big step is getting the plumber back in to hook up the toilet and sink. They've been working on putting up the towel bars and small stuff like that the past few days.

A shot of the floor...

Our new waste basket from Crate and Barrel!

And one of our towel racks..

Here's the vanity. We're getting slightly different looking knobs put on. I think there was some schmuckus on my camera... that's why it's kind of blotchy if you zoom into the picture.

Oh, and we were really shocked to see that Luna loves our new bathmat. :)

Shower Doors

2010-01-29T17:18:00.000-08:00

The shower doors are in! We can shower on Sunday - woo hoo!!

Shower

2010-01-28T17:35:00.000-08:00

Our shower was tiled this week and will be ready for us to use early next week!!! He should be putting in the shower doors tomorrow and he'll be tiling the floor next week.

It's getting very exciting!!

As you can see above, the shower basin is now exposed, but for a while it was covered with some pads and it was Luna's FAVORITE napping spot. I think the fact that the heating vent blew right into that spot made it extra toasty!

Bathroom Update

2010-01-16T06:28:00.001-08:00

So it's been two weeks of taking baths and walking on cardboard to get through our house. The demo was definitely the worst - now things are cleaner and it's nice to see the progress they're making. They have put down the shower base and put up some of the sheetrock/cement board. They've also worked on the plumbing to move the shower drain over a bit and put in some new pipes for the sink. They told us that we'll be painting next weekend, so now we're trying out colors and have paint swatches taped all over the walls. It is stressful trying to imagine how everything will work - we're just crossing our fingers that everything will look good together!

The guys working on our bathroom asked us if we wanted to leave a memento in the walls, and we didn't think people REALLY did that - so we were kind of thrown off, we hadn't thought of anything! So we quickly wrote something on the wall. Then, we thought we'd better write on a 2x4 in case they bust through that wall and didn't see our writing!

The wall's still open at this point.

If you have any ideas for what we could leave in there - let us know!

It's true, we do love this house. It's hard to imagine ever leaving it.

Despite water in the basement, a cold guest room, and it's other endless quirks... :)

They moved the heating vent to the floor because the sconce needed to go directly where the vent was before. Our vanity is on short legs, so the heat will come out underneath it at our feet. That will be nice on cold mornings! :)

There's the cement board, shower base, and lighting for the light above the shower.

The light is hanging off of the shower handle, that's not where it's going. :)

It's amazing how much smaller the bathroom looks with the walls up...

New Things in Our House

2010-01-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

We got some new furnishings for our house - thought you'd all like to see!

New lamp by our wicker chair so that we can actually sit there at night.

New candleholders to hold Perry's beeswax candles.

This bowl was a gift from Grant's grandmother.

A man who also lives at The Pines made it by hand!

New curtains in the dining room. It was about time!!

A new rug for our living room. Luna loves it - no surprise there!!

Friday's Bathroom Work

2010-01-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

So the guy that's putting our bathroom back together, Rick, worked here on Friday and got the floor up and the rest of the shower out (cement bottom and studs). It's looking good!

That's where our vanity will go.

No more old shower. Here's more-or-less where our new one will go.

In case you wanted to see our shower drain... here you go. :)

Icicles

2010-01-07T15:16:00.001-08:00

Bathroom Demolition!

2010-01-03T08:21:00.001-08:00

The fun begins...

Covering all the hardwood floors with cardboard...

The first tiles come off...

Bye-bye sink!

Removing more tiles and poking holes through to see what's behind our walls.

First studs exposed!

Our tub all covered up to protect it...

Our toilet used to be under all this rubble...

In back of our sink...

We found lots of newspaper shoved in here from 1940.

Our house was built in 1949. Hmm...

Cleaning up the mess!

Starting on the floor tiles...

Smashing through the shower...

Looking into the shower through where a wall used to be...

Finally down to the studs!

We're done!!!

The floor of our shower... we're letting the professionals get the rest of the cement down...

Want to take a shower? :)

We'll continue to take photos once they start putting it back together!

Christmas in North Carolina

2010-01-03T08:17:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T13:49:00.001-08:00

Grant and I hosted Thanksgiving this year.

It was great having my family here with us in Princeton!

The cutting-down-your-tree torch was passed down to us this year.

Perry helped carry.

After a long struggle with the tree stand, we eventually got our tree up.

We celebrated Dad's birthday with some spaghetti and meatballs. :)

Perry and I strung red lights on some of our outside trees.

We think we did the best job in all of Princeton.

Believe me, we've looked...

You can also see our Christmas tree from inside.

An Update

2009-11-08T12:26:00.001-08:00

Some going-ons in Princeton

Our ghost from Annie's Little Pots that hung in our front tree

Luna waking up from a nap in the sun

Our new toilet and rug :)

Grant goes... "People usually post pictures of their kids on their blog...

and we're posting our new toilet..."

The pumpkin that the squirrels ate.

It's Grant's pumpkin.

They left mine alone. :)

Christmas in Princeton?

2009-11-08T12:04:00.001-08:00

No pictures for this post, but our neighbors down the street already have Christmas lights on their house and candy canes lining their walkway. And these aren't just subtle white lights, they are flashing, fading, colored lights.

I thought getting our Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving was early. I guess not!

Yard Clean-Up Day in Princeton

2009-08-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend Grant's Uncle Rick and Aunt Marti and his cousin Beth and her husband, Brad came down to Princeton from the suburbs to help us with our house maintenance! We still had some dead limbs hanging from the big tree in our backyard from the big storm a few weeks ago, so Rick helped us get those down. Marti was a huge help by weeding and pruning our plants around the house. We had a great time! Oh, and don't worry about Rick on those high ladders - he's a firefighter!

Glad we're down on the ground!

Marti obscured by the yard waste bag.

Head's up!

And as Grant said... (jokingly of course) "Hey Rick, could you get those branches down with a little less leaf mess?" :)

It's a bird... it's a plane... No... It's Uncle Rick! :)

Oh, and he even showed Grant how to use a chainsaw. We should all be afraid. Very afraid. :)

Tornado

2009-07-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

It's official - it was a tornado that hit us Friday night. Here's what the local paper had to say:

As it turns out, the Princeton area was hit by a tornado Friday night. On Saturday, the National Weather Service said the damage was caused by straight-line winds. On Sunday, the National Weather Service sent professionals to the area to assess the damage. On Monday afternoon, a press release from the Quad Cities National Weather Service determined at least a portion of Friday night’s storm damage was due to a tornado.

According to the agency’s Web site, the majority of the damage was still caused by straight line winds, however, evidence of a brief tornado was found near Route 26, about two miles southeast of town.

Wind damage from Friday’s storm was rated as EF1, which means wind was estimated at 105 miles per hour along the damage path, according to the weather service. The tornado dissipated three miles southeast of town, where a witness sighted a funnel cloud more than halfway to the ground.

What a Week!!

2009-07-28T09:24:00.001-07:00

Last weekend our friends Dan and Cheryl came to visit with their kids, Chloe and Gavin.

It was a lot of fun having everyone around and we even survived a "tornado!"

Oh yeah - and we had a guest dog too - Jessie! :)

All of the girls got new purses in Princeton!

On Friday night we had a terrible storm. No one is quite sure what this storm was classified as, but you look at the damage. Looks like a tornado to us. We even had the tornado siren go off! Thankfully we had Dan and Cheryl to help with the clean-up!!

The worst damage for us was this tree on our garage. Luckily it didn't do any damage other than ripping off the gutter.

Trees down behind our garage.

This tree got singed by something and lost all of its needles on the bottom half.

Our beautiful backyard tree - now a lot more sparse!

Relaxing the morning after the storm.

We took a break from the clean-up to take a walk to the park.

As we went further down our street (Thompson) this is what we saw.

The roof on the funeral home down the street.

These people live about two blocks away from us.

We bought a little electric saw and chopped up the tree ourselves.

Dan and Grant on the roof while Cheryl and I hauled limbs to the curb.

Everyone helped out.

Even Chloe!

The next day we enjoyed the beautiful day and had a little picnic.

Notice all the limbs sitting on the curb across the street!

We did lots of reading and relaxing while everyone was here. A perfect kind of summer!

The Quad City Air Show

2009-06-20T15:51:00.001-07:00

This was a school bus with a jet engine in it!

It's certainly one way to get to school!

Watching the planes.

See the wing walker?!?

Otto the Helicopter flying backwards

Meeting Olivia

2009-06-14T16:36:00.001-07:00

Our friends Mike and Melissa just had their baby, Olivia, a couple of months ago.

We met them for lunch and she is just so adorable!

Mike and Melissa with Olivia

Look at that smile!

Holding on for dear life.

Notice all the drool on Grant's shirt. :)

I Think I May Have My Mom's Green Thumb

2009-06-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

I went to Hornbaker Gardens today and got some plants for our garden. Our friend Molly helped me pick some things out. Grant and I removed some of the broken fountains that were in our backyard which left some empty space.

Let's hope everything grows!

This Hosta is called 'June'.

Here is a plant called Lamium 'Chequers' that has a pretty purple flower and will hopefully spread around the hostas.

This is where I planted three new plants. I am hoping to draw the attention away from the hose and other wires by our house. Two of the new plants are shown in a close-up right below this picture - the third is the dark purple plant behind the pink flowers and it's a Heuchera called 'Plum Pudding'. It's a really nice deep purple color.

Here is the Bleeding Heart 'Gold Heart'.

It looks pretty close to our house in this picture - but it has enough room.

This hosta is my favorite and it's called 'Lakeside Hoola Hoop'!

Spring Photos

2009-05-17T06:50:00.001-07:00

Hostas, hostas, everywhere!

The Little Hosta That Could!

Starved Rock

2009-05-10T16:16:00.001-07:00

We had beautiful weather this Mother's Day - so we were off to Starved Rock for a hike!

The waterfalls were beautiful!

Between Fences Exhibit

2009-03-08T10:16:00.001-07:00

A view into the media room...

New Coffee Table

2009-02-09T15:12:00.001-08:00

Our new coffee table arrived! We think it's beautiful. :)

And it's actually a bit darker than in these pictures.

In case you wanted to see it from all angles...

Snow Day!

2009-01-14T09:43:00.001-08:00

Cat in a Box

2009-01-14T09:36:00.001-08:00

A Very Merry Christmas

2008-12-29T13:12:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas celebrations started with the library staff. We had a Progressive Dinner where we had a different meal at each person's house. It was a lot of fun.

The Lynch family all met up at our house where we celebrated Christmas a few days early. It was extra special because all of our pets were there too!

Wrigley and Luna really got along well!

"Pretty Exciting!"

Tyhler and Wrigley (with his Christmas collar)

Then we drove to CT where we got to celebrate Christmas Day with the Young family. We wore these neat hats for Christmas dinner. :) Sorry we didn't take more pictures!!

Happy New Year!

First Illinois Snow

2008-11-30T08:44:00.001-08:00

We must be new homeowners.

We didn't see anyone else out taking pictures of their house in the snow! :)

You can see our snowman if you look closely by the pine tree on the left.

We couldn't resist - it was PERFECT snowman snow!

We knew that gravel in our backyard was good for something -

the snowman's eyes and mouth!

Christmas Tree

2008-11-29T17:10:00.001-08:00

Here's our Christmas tree!

Being my usual self, we were out at the crack of dawn on Friday to get our tree.

Unfortunately, Illinois doesn't have very many tree farms (go figure) and many people in town get their tree from WalMart or the local grocery store. They are already bundled up and you can't see what they look like before you get it home!

I hated the thought of getting our tree like that, so we waited outside the one fresh-cut tree place in town for a couple of hours until they decided to open - 11:00!

We quickly find the tree we'd like and the guy asks us which car is ours. We point to the Corolla and he laughs. He immediately offered to drive the tree in the back of his truck to our house. We gladly accepted and saved the hassle of driving 3 mph back to our house with a tree loosely tied onto our roof! Oh the joys of Christmas!

Our Little Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

Our day started with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Grant wondered why everyone always cheered so loudly for the Rockettes when they did their kicks.

So I had to show him how hard it was!

Preparing the turkey - it came out great!

Sharpening the knife for the carving.

Yummmmm!

I should have taken a picture before we carved it!

Our spread minus the Corn Casserole which was still in the oven!

It was ready about 10 minutes after we started to eat. :)

And of course... Luna ate with us. :)

Illinois v. Ohio State

2008-11-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

Grant's Uncle John gave us tickets to the Illinois v. Ohio State game this Saturday.

It was a great time!!

We were rooting for both teams.

My red jacket screamed Ohio State, so Grant had to get an Illinois hat to wear so that we wouldn't be yelled at in the Illinois section that we were in!

I must add that I was wearing an orange sweater under my coat, but no one could see it.

We sat right in the Horseshoe section - very cool!

Best cookie ever!

During half-time the students all had colored signs that they

moved around and made lots of cool pictures! It was very impressive!

Brrrrr - it was cold!

Chief Illiniwick showed up during half-time!

Ooooh - we wish we were up there!

The view from our seats.

Leaves, Leaves Everywhere!

2008-11-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

Well, those trees sure were beautiful in the summer.

Good thing we have a leaf blower!

Yes, those are the gutters that Grant just cleaned out. :)

David and Lisa's Wedding

2008-10-19T13:03:00.001-07:00

This weekend Grant's whole family came to Illinois to celebrate their cousin David's wedding to Lisa. Before we headed up to Chicago, everyone got to see Princeton and Grandma had a huge sandwich!!!

Grant and Matt's Cousin Paul

Cousins, Aunts, and Uncles

All of the cousins and spouses in a silly pose

Cousins

The Bride and Groom

The Flood...

2008-09-15T18:58:00.000-07:00

So we've been in Illinois for less than 3 months now and we've already heard comments from our neighbors like "this hasn't happened in 6 or 7 years" twice now.

Did we bring this bad weather luck with us???

It rained for about 3 days straight and our basement had about 2 or 3 inches of water in it. It wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have things sitting on the floor -like my teaching stuff! :)

Yes, that's us plunging a drain that was closed.

The water came in through the walls!

You can't really see the water, but it's all over the floor.

The Lynch Birthday Marathon

2008-09-07T16:30:00.001-07:00

Having our birthdays one week apart has good and bad parts. We will certainly never forget each other's birthday since it falls so closely to our own - but we're always so sick of cake and birthday treats at the end of the two weeks that we're glad we have another year before the next birthday celebration!

We had brownie sundaes for Grant's birthday.

Yummmm!

We went out to lunch at a place called The Nodding Onion for my birthday.

Then off to Starved Rock to sight see!

We actually drove to the top of the mountain. :)

Happy Birthday Grant!

2008-08-30T14:27:00.001-07:00

Grant asked for chicken wings for his birthday dinner - and that's what he got! :)

Lots of them!

Luna was very interested.

Goodbye Ivy!

2008-08-16T15:31:00.000-07:00

As beautiful as the ivy was on our house, as soon as we moved in everyone told us to get rid of it because it was ruining the house. So, we set to it... slowly but surely!

The people we bought the house from left us this nice ladder.

Looks better, huh?

So then Grant set to work chopping wood with his new axe.

Don't worry, he still has all of his limbs. :)

Here's what the log looked like after about 10 minutes of chopping.

Proud of his little chip.

Oooh even bigger!

Back to work on the ivy on the back of the house.

When Grant was on the deck roof I could see him through the bathroom window!

Our New Furniture!

2008-08-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

Our new living room furniture arrived today!

We're not sure of the layout yet, but we'll work on it.

We loved the back of this chair even though you'll never see it. :)

The fabric on one of the chairs.

The fabric on the couch and other chair.

Luna loves it!

Bedroom

2008-08-08T13:02:00.003-07:00

This was our bedroom this morning :)

This is our bedroom now :)

I've always thought "accent walls" were such a great idea.

Much less painting and a really cool effect!

The main walls are a really really light pink, so we thought this shade of brown looked nice.

Our pretty flowers fully bloomed this morning!

Garden Flowers

2008-08-05T16:12:00.001-07:00

We have a beautiful garden and when I got back from CT many of the flowers had bloomed!

I'm not sure what any of them are called really, so if you know - let me know!

These aren't flowers. These are our new outside chairs. :)

This is such a funny story. Grant and I went to an auction when we first got to Princeton. In the middle of the auction they picked people's numbers out of a hat to win potted flowers as door prizes. I was one of the volunteers to choose a person's number. Guess whose number I chose? Yes, mine! Everyone got a big laugh out of it. So, above is the flower I chose. It stayed in it's plastic pot until I moved it to our garden just last week. It had a rough beginning, but now there's a flower!

So this is what homeownership is like... :)

2008-07-22T11:47:00.001-07:00

A storm came through town Monday morning.

Lots of power lines down.

This is the tree in our front yard whose limb fell down.

That's our limb behind the blue spruce.

A tree also fell in our neighbor's yard.

I asked her if she had a chainsaw to clean it up with.

She said she was just going to call her landlord.

Boy, do we miss those days (sort of). :)

This is the limb in our front yard.

Luckily most of it fell in the street and on the sidewalk.

That meant the city was in charge of cleaning it up. Yes!!

The tree it fell from

Princeton Public Library

2008-07-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

Our New House!!

2008-07-19T10:12:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of our new house!

I'm new at this program so the photos aren't grouped very well.

The outside pictures of the house are at the bottom on this posting.

Enjoy!

Guest Bedroom

The Office - I painted it red last week.

Decorative piece from our kitchen nook.

Grant in the garden (going in the back door)

Outside Fireplace

Gas fireplace in the living room

The most wonderful tub!!!

The basement (with all of my teaching stuff!)

Dining Room

Kitchen (looking into the dining room)

Kitchen

Family Room

Built-in in Dining Room (downstairs bathroom on the left, pantry on right)

The laundry chute!!!!!! (basement)

Laundry room in the basement and door to the scary tool room!

Our new washer and dryer

Downstairs gas fireplace

Stairs going upstairs

Outside looking at the garage

The garage

Gas stove in the family room

Looking from the family room into the front entrance (left) and living room (right)

1101 S. Euclid Ave. (from the side and back)

Side of the house and the garage

Entrance into the garden from the driveway

Front entrance

2008-06-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

The house that's for sale.

Look at the name of this hospital!

One of 7 covered bridges in Illinois.

Cute roads

There she is! Sorry you can't see the whole library!

Yes, there are definitely cornfields. :)

Cute houses

2008-06-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

Downtown Princeton