The Life and Times of Charlotte Pool!

What a cutie she is! I love how cute puppies are. The last couple of months, Jeff has been working hard on talking me into getting a dog. I grew up with black labs and was always ok with them, but I never thought I would have a dog. Jeff also grew up with dogs and had a yellow lab. Over the last few months, Jeff showed me pictures of dogs and told me how much he wanted one. We looked online, thought about whether we wanted a rescue dog or a puppy from a breeder. We even took a few trips to the Humae Society. There were a few cute dogs there but we weren't ready for those dogs - 1. Jeff was going on a fishing trip and I didn't want to take care of a dog by myself and 2. I didn't want to get an older dog who didn't know us and we wouldn't know how it would handle a baby in the future - and I mean way in the future. We love our neighbor's dog Morgan who is a bulldog/boxer mix and is the sweetest dog. I also have always loved the looks of bulldogs. After finding out that they are over $1000, we started to look at labs. Knowing that we both grew up with labs, they are loving dogs that are great with kids, we started to look even more. I still wasn't 100% sure I was ready for a dog (I still don't know if I am). But we found a breeder online within our price range that had a female left and I knew how much Jeff wanted a puppy. I told him my feelings about some things so he was aware and we decided that she would be coming home with us!

How can you not love that adorable face! When she sits like that and sleeps all day, I love her. Our first night last night.....yeah not so much. I don't know how I feel about the whole waking up every 1.5hours because she doesn't like her crate. It is going to be a learning experience for both her and us, but I keep trying to tell myself that it will get better. She will start to get the whole going outside to go to the bathroom thing and she will start to get that she needs to spend time in her crate. It will pay off in the long run, right? I guess it is getting us prepared for someday having a kid and having to stay up with a baby. But as I keep saying, that's different. You can take them places and they wear a diaper. Can I put a diaper on Charlotte? Probably not. So far today we have only had one accident in the house (knock on wood). I do love her and know that she will be a great addition to our lives. Here's hoping the next week goes quick and she picks it up! I will definitely have more updates on the life and times of Charlotte Pool!

Finally a finished finished basement!

When Jeff and I moved into our house last April, the basement was finished. We didn't need to do anything with it! We were so excited that we would have a finished basement and that we wouldn't have any work to do.

As the snow began to melt, we quickly learned that our finished basement was soon going to be unfinished. Water was leaking in through the wall and pooling in the middle of the room. We ripped back the carpet and tore down the wall. To fix the water problem, my dad moved dirt in the backyard and we got new gutters, hoping this would fix the problem. Jeff and I could not wait to find out this spring if the gutters fixed the problem so we decided to finish the basement.

Again, with LOTS of help from friends and our awesome neighbor, Ryan, we have finished the basement. We put up more drywall, painted it a new color (one that would look good with the bar Jeff put in the basement), put the carpet back, and cleaned up the dust.

We still have some work to do with decorating and finishing the bar, but at least all of the dust is cleaned and we can at least be in the basement. Yes, Michael Jordan will be living in our basement bar, much to my chagrin. Thanks to a rainy Sunday, we are able to check more items off our list! Maybe by the time we are ready to sell the house in a few years, we will be finished with all of our projects!