10 Cannots

I came across this quote the other day while listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio.  I think in our country's current state, it is extremely insightful and something we should all think about as our country faces such rough times...

By William J. H. Boetcker
(wrongfully attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

New Indianapolis Airport

This weekend, Chip's parent's came down for a visit. Today, we were able to take advantage of the free tours that they are having this weekend of the brand new Indianapolis Airport! It's incredible and I highly recommend checking it out if you're able. It's only 10 minutes from our house and we don't even have to get on the interstate.

Where the old airport always felt cramped and confusing, this one is extremely well designed and with the most in-frequent flyer in mind. All of the glass and natural light make it feel very open, airy and spacious, but not too big that you'd get lost. It really only has 4 main areas: the food court, ticketing/check-in, the concourses, and baggage claim. And all seem to flow seamlessly into each other. The best part is that you can really see planes landing and departing from pretty much anywhere you stand. Here's a slideshow of some of the things we saw. All of the pictures are taken on my cell phone though so I apologize if they are low quality. We weren't sure if we could take cameras inside so I left my good camera at home. Enjoy!

Labor Day Weekend

Well we did it again! I'm a little behind on this one, but Labor Day weekend we decided that it was time to paint an accent wall in the bedroom. We're taking it one room at a time so now that we're pretty much done with the living room, it's on to the next one. The chosen wall...pay no attention to the blue painter's tape...or the MESS! We hastily moved everything away from the wall and piled everything onto the bed in the process. It worked!

Chip said he wanted to pick the paint color for this room and said he wanted something "like the ocean". So we settled on a very serene, ocean-like blue-green color. This picture really doesn't do it justice because it look VERY blue here. I assure it's not like this color at all. It's much darker and greener....more turquoise.

This picture shows it a little better. This was after 1 heavy coat. We decided it needed another one to fill in some of those blotchy spots.

Once again, Kona was not happy that she had to remain on the other side of the fence. She actually cried a little bit halfway through..."Are you guys done yet??" She looks so sad.

Here's the (somewhat) finished product! This is not our permanent bedroom furniture (notice the tv-trays as nightstands) but it works for now! Like I said...once thing at a time :)

Pretty much as soon as we had finished and everything was dry, Kona was back up on her spot on the bed. Our full-size bed doesn't quite look big enough when she's on it! Haha!

Happy 1 Year to the Greenes!

It's hard to believe that it was one year ago (yesterday) that we all gathered up at Brook Lodge in Michigan for Kate and Ryan's day. It was such a beautiful event and I'm so glad that we have such great memories! We're so happy for you both and hope you had a great time in Hawaii!! Congrats!

AND Happy Birthday (a day late) to Bink! Hope you had a good one!

Happy Anniversary Bink & Tom

Happy Anniversary Bink and Tom! Hope you're enjoying some time together!

Visiting the Greenes

In August, we made the trip up to Michigan to visit with Kate & Ryan. Kona and Wrigley enjoyed visiting with each other almost as much as we enjoyed visiting the Henry Ford Museum. There were too many too pictures to share so I just made them into a slideshow. Enjoy!

State Fair - Jessica Simpson

A few weeks ago, I convinced Leila to go with me (not that it took much convincing!) to the State Fair, here in Indy, to see Jessica Simpson in concert. I thought we could probably get pretty good seats and to be honest, I'd heard she was not doing so good on tour and thought at the very least, it might be mildly entertaining. It ended up being a very good show! When we first arrived we had to hit up a couple of important stops....

A corndog for me.
And a hotdog for Leila.
It was so funny because right before the show was about to start, about 12 state troopers escorted Jessica's dad from the backstage area (which was just like 2 RVs) to right behind where we were - to a little fenced in area underneath the grand-stands. Everyone was rushing over to take a picture with him and I couldn't resist the photo op!

We actually both though the show was really good. Her new country album comes out soon and I'm not ashamed (well maybe a little) to say that I'll probably get it. Her stuff was a little better than her old pop stuff. Although, she just talked and talked and talked before each song. It got a little awkward because she was revealing some pretty personal stuff towards the end.

We had a really good time and decided to walk each other out to our cars at the end because it was so late and we drove separately. We saw a bunch of people crowding around back behind the stage and decided to check it out. We ended up standing there for a few minutes watching some of these major fans like crying because they kept thinking they saw her. In reality, she was way far away in a trailer. But after about 10 minutes, we were just about to leave when some state troopers came over to where we were all standing and said Jessica was coming out to sign autographs. We figured, what the heck, we're already here! So we hung out and she came out and signed autographs.
By the time she got to us in the line, they weren't letting us take pictures with her, and my camera died so this is the only up-close shot I have. But it was really cool. She came over and I didn't have anything for her to sign except a box of taffy that I had just bought to give to Chip for his birthday. So I said, "Can you write 'Happy Birthday Chip?'" And I'm not kidding, she looked at me and said "Chip....like C-H-I-P?" And it honestly took me a minute to answer! LOL!! Sooo funny!

But inside Chip's Addidas Notre Dame duffle bag that he got for his birthday he found the taffy box signed by Jessica Simpson! Happy Birthday babe!!

Amanda and Eric's Wedding

Over a month ago (I'm a little behind) Chip and I made the trip up to Fort Wayne to attend my college roommate's sister's wedding (I went to high school with both of them...and was in Charisma...which is seriously another entire blog...) They had a few kinks in the day. Their wedding was supposed to be outside, but the weatherman called for storms. And their 2nd choice location didn't seem to pan out so they had to make a quick decision and move the wedding to the same location as the reception (The new Grand Wayne Center in downtown Fort Wayne). I went to lend a hand as much as I could. They were in the midst of calling all the guests, when I arrived to tell them the new location. Here's a few highlights....

We're Marriott rewards people so it was interesting to stay in a Hilton for a change. I think we agreed....Marriott is still our fave :)

Leila walking down the aisle.

The wedding party.

The gorgeous setup in the ballroom. Her colors were pink and green. It was so pretty!!

She did something I don't know if I've ever seen before which was to have a huge table for the entire wedding party and their guests that didn't have them all on one side. I think it's actually a pretty cool idea because then the wedding party can enjoy themselves and not feel like they're on display. You can kind of see in this picture that she also had pink flip-flops set out on each of her bridesmaids chairs with a little note that said "Kick off your heals and dance the night away!" or something like that. Such a cute idea! She thought of everything!

She had an incredible spread of candy in the colors of the wedding. Every guest had a candy bag at their place setting and they could go up and fill their bag throughout the night. Such a cute idea!!

Kona spent the weekend with Emma at the farm and I think she was exhausted! On the drive home it was as if she couldn't get close enough to us, but was just sooo tired. She nestled herself up against Chip's seat in the car and passed out. Too cute!!

Painting

What is it about 4th of July weekend and home projects? For some reason I think we are genetically programmed to have to some kind of housework or home project during that weekend....It's like it's an American tradition or something. Chip came down to Indy on Friday night and we got to watch the fireworks from the apartment. It was cool, we could see the fireworks downtown out on window and in Plainfield out the other.

Then, I worked the John Mayer concert on Saturday at VWMC (and accidentally bumped into Jennifer Aniston backstage - greatest moment of my life! If I hadn't been in my management shirt I totally would've been a fan and asked to take a picture with her). Before I left though, we somehow ended up at Menards, buying paint samples. I've been saying for months and months that we need some color in this place and I guess almost a year after we moved in is the perfect time!

We decided on accent walls and only two of them in the main room of the apartment. We're all about wine-theme and I love bold, rich colors. So I kinda picked and then asked Chip to consult :) So here's some before and after.....

The supplies...

Somehow before we'd really even gotten started, Chip managed to get primer on his shirt. Kona didn't quite understand why she had to be on the other side of the fence. She was mad at us.

Kona approves!!

Brad Paisley

As Dad's Father's Day present, my boss at VWMC hooked us up with some suh-weeeet seats for the Brad Paisley concert. I have to admit, I was maybe a little more excited than he was because I've turned into a huge fan of Julianne Hough, who opened up for him.

In case you don't recognize her, she was on Dancing with the Stars with Helio Castronevez. Her country album is awesome. After her was Chuck Wicks, who I didn't really know at first, but he sings "Stealing Cinderella". He was really good as well and looks a lot younger than he sounds

And then, the big surprise (kinda of) was that Jewel was there! WOW! She is sooooo talented. It was amazing to get to see her in concert. She has a really powerful voice.


And finally, Brad Paisley came out and rocked the house. I have been on-site for his shows before, but never really paid attention. Which is funny, because I know most of his songs. So it was pretty cool to see him up there.

One of the coolest things about his show (being the techy that I am) was the video screen behind the stage. At one point there would be huge play, pause and, stop buttons on the screen and the guys onstage would "pretend" to hit them and stop and start the music. And they actually looked like they were buttons being pushed. Then, if you know the video game,"Guitar Hero", at one point they had two guys on either side of the scren who were supposedly playing each other during the song and there were crowd meters and everything. It even had the same note layout as in the game. Pretty cool. You can kind of see it in this picture...