A New Edition to the House - April 27 2011

Well Steph and I finally left the hills of Northern Arkansas and returned to the great state of Texas.  Our journey began with a trip to College Station to see Ann and Jared.  They have moved from Waco to College Station and bought a beautiful newly built home.  We arrived in time for dinner and a little celebrating with Ann, Jared, and their friends Cole and Jessica.  Dinner was prepared on Jared's outdoor kitchen (Hamburgers and Jalapenos). 

I guess the long trip (650 miles), a big meal, and a little happy time was just to much for Steph.  Believe it or not, this is the only picture taken during the entire trip.  Oh, by the way, Steph was really tired, but the rest of the photo was staged without her knowledge.  Now let's get on with the real subject of the posting.

Mr. Staley made an appearance around 9:00am this morning with his latest creations for us.  This is just the beginning of Steph's cutting table for the sewing room.  The table is so large it came in about 10 pieces that Jr. and Allen (Jr.'s helper) had to assemble in the room where the table would be used.

This is more of the pieces that needed to be put together.

This is Jr. putting the wheels on the bottom so that Steph can move the table in the sewing room.

This picture shows Allen trying to figure out which piece goes where. 

It's starting to come together, but we seem to be missing a key piece of the table!!

They did it!!  I think it's almost complete and we don't have any extra pieces.

I think Steph will be able to put much of the "stuff" in the closet somewhere inside the cutting table.

Now that the Queen, oops that's Stephanie, has her dream cutting table it's time to move down to the basement and get to work on the mini-kitchen.  Jr. and Allen are busy installing the upper cabinets and the lower counter.

ALL DONE!!

The serving tray, cups, and dishes are a house warming gift from Brent and Melissa.  These are a great addition to the mini-kitchen in the basement.  The guest area is now complete with a microwave, a mini-refridge, and a coffee pot.  As I said earlier, you better get your reservations in early as we expect a busy summer.

No posting is complete without a lake picture.  You won't believe how much the lake has risen in the last week.  When we left to go to Texas the lake was at  653 ft., as of this writing the lake is at 676 ft.  We have been moving the dock as many as 4 times a day.  Steph and I spent over two hours weed-eating the scrub brush and sticker bushes so that the dock would have a clean space as we moved the dock to higher ground.  We will be back at it tomorrow as the lake is forecast to continue to rise to the 685 to 690 ft level.  We will get some pictures of the high water.  In the mean time, go back to some of the other lake pics and look at the rocky shoreline and then look at the current picture -- we have no shoreline, it's up to the trees.  How did this happen, try 15 inches of rain in the last 5 days.