America's Next Top Model

Here is a puppy fashion show for your viewing pleasure!

Anytime Sherri plays the piano Zoey jumps up to sit in her lap while she is playing!

The Columbus Zoo

We spent a day at the Columbus Zoo - it put the Salt Lake City Zoo to shame but then again I guess that's not hard to do. This one is up there with the LA and San Diego Zoos - who'd have thought? Anyway, we had a ton of fun and saw a lot of great animals.

Sherri with the unique white alligator

Shayne's favorite part was watching all the penguins

This was the best we could do since Sherri couldn't stand next to the real Tigers like she wanted - Go Bengals!

The underwater aquarium was awesome we were right next to all the action.

Niagra Falls

After Palmyra we headed to Ontario Canada to visit Shayne's old mission companion and his wife (Ryan and Mary Babcock) we spent a day at Niagra Falls it was a blast. We never ventured over to the US side because the view of the Falls from the Canadian side is 100% better. It was a fun getaway and good for Shayne to reunite with his old buddy. Sherri and Mary got along great and had a lot in common so much actually that Shayne swears Mary is the Canadian version of Sherri rhyming names and all. We can't wait to visit again soon! The view of the falls from the Canadian side! The falls at night - they would change different colors periodically, it was magnificent!

Time for Some Fun!

After spending almost 3 straight weeks of renovating, unpacking and just trying to get settled we decided we needed to have a little fun, so we headed to Palmyra New York to visit the church sites

Sherri at the top of the Hill Cumorah

Palmyra Temple

The Smith Family Home

Inside the Smith family home

The Sacred Grove

Basement, Bathroom and Laundry

No before picture of the basement because all we had to do was paint - this is looking as your coming down the stairs, not a whole lot to see. This is just another view from the wall the stairs are just to the right This is the half bath in the basement, same renovations as all the other bathrooms. This is the pantry/make shift food storage area of the laundry room, or unfinished part of the basement The other corner of the laundry room with of course the washer and dryer and Sherri's sewing machine - to the right of the sewing maching is a large area that goes under the stairs for storage

Guest Bedroom and bath and Office

For now this is the guest bedroom and Sherri's "craft" room, once again no good before picture but just the same pink walls as everywhere else and no light - we had to install one. To the left of this bed is quite a bit of open space and a desk it was too hard to get a good picture

This is the office - no before picture but again same boring paint before and no lights (most of the rooms didn't have lights but the light switches work plugs in the walls for lamps - finding this is true for most houses in Columbus why people prefer lamps we are not quite sure?) This is looking in through the door to the left . This is looking straight in the door - this would be Shayne's study desk right by the window so he can look outside and see everything he is missing while he studies away. This is the guest bathroom, it sits next to the office and across from the guest bedroom. We tiled in here and did all the same stuff as the other bathrooms: faucet etc., and, it's hard to tell but we painted it a light grey Just another view - the tile looks almost black in this pic but is not - just to clarify it is actually the same brownish tile throughout the whole house

Master Bedroom

This is the only good before picture we have of our bedroom.

The walls were a sea green color and we painted them a very light blue.

View of the bedroom from the doorway

View of the bedroom from the window, you can barelysee where the bathroom is attached around the corner from the big mirror

This is our "surfer" themed bathroom we did the same renovations with this one as all the others (faucet, mirror, lights and painting) Although it is hard to tell this bathroom is the same blue as the bedroom

Another view of the bathroom

Living Room

The main color on the wall is hard to see from the picture but in person it looked pink it was gross. The entire house was this color with the exception of the first bathroom and kitchen. And then of course there was this random green accent wall with the fireplace.

This picture is just to show you our beautiful furniture. These two

chairs were all we had for the first few months while we waited

for our couches that we had ordered to arrive.

Our main color that we painted over the pink was a dark tan/brown.

The living room is really a great room so we have our sofa and our

table in the same room. This is the view from the kitchen.

This is just another view from the back porch so

you can see where the table and kitchen sit.

Front Entry and Kitchen

We didn't get a good before picture of our bathrooms

but here is a reminder of the ugly linoleum This bathroom was red when we got here and we decided to leave it that way and make it our Ohio State bathroom (everybody that lives here has at least one room in their house designated to Ohio State - they are crazy fans) we figured we'd jump on the bandwagon with that one. I don't have a good before picture but basically there was just a large square mirror with no frame and round light bulbs with no coverings and a really short ugly faucet. This is kind of a half done picture of our ever so tiny ktichen basically it was red before and we panted it a really light yellow.

Again no good before picture of the front entry just picture the

ugly pink walls and linoleum and you'll have a good idea.

The New Condo!

Sherri's mom was disappointed she couldn't come out and see our new place so per her request here are our before and after pictures of the condo.

We weren't quite sure what this exotic plant was in our

front entry but Sherri made sure it was the first thing to go.

No more ugly plant!

This was out back yard all the way around the fence, again weird plants and tons of weeds. There were tons of spider webs all throughout as well.

No more weeds or plants - we decided not to plant anything else because it's going to get cold soon, but this looks much better for now. The puppies think it's fun to dig random holes now that all the plants are gone.

Painting Puppies

Belle and Zoey were very helpful with all of the painting.

How cute are they?

Belle - 9 months old

Zoey - 7 months old

Whistle While You Work

Are we having fun yet Shayne?

Shayne's mom, she was a painting machine!

Sherri unpacking one of many boxes.

This would be Shayne's dad installing a new faucet,

that man knows how to fix or install anything!

While Shayne's parents were here they helped us do some renovating of our new place, we ended up doing more than we expected. We painted every inch of the place (walls, doors, baseboards etc), we tiled the entry way, kitchens and bathrooms, one of the bathroom faucets was leaking so we ended up replacing all the faucets, mirrors and lights in the bathrooms, some rooms did not have any lights at all so we installed lights and ceiling fans. We won't even go into the part about the toilet leaking into the ceiling and the air conditioning not working. We can't thank Shayne's parents enough, we worked everyday from 9-midnight the whole week they were here but we got it all done and the place looks great. Thanks guys!

We Made It!

So we finally made it here and in record time. We left on Thursday morning at 6am and arrived in Ohio on Saturday around 11:30 am. We ended up being locked out (the keys the realtor sent us did not work) thank goodness we had given some spare keys to our friends that were already out here. About 8 guys showed up from our new ward and we were moved in within an hour, it was great! We had only been here 5 minutes and had a new friend. One of the little neighbor girls (she is only 5) Lydia came over to introduce herself and hangout, she still comes over to hang out all the time (the puppies are still trying to warm up to her), we love her she is too cute!

Oh HI Oh Here We Come!

We made a bed in the back and everytime Shayne fell asleep you could find Belle right there with him - too cute! The St. Louis Arch - most of our trip was pretty flat and boring, we passed St. Louis at a gorgeous time so it was a much needed sight for sore eyes! Zoey on "the bed" she isn't as much of a cuddle bug but she sure is cute! This is Belle's other favorite place to sleep, crazy right? But, once again way cute! Shayne's parents offered to ride out with us and help us move in (I don't think they knew what they were getting into) we are so thankful for their help. They drove the big Penske towing my car and Shayne and I rode in his car with the puppies. Surprisingly, the puppies traveled really well and I think we broke Zoey of her car sickness problem finally. They enjoyed trading off and riding in the big truck with Shayne's parents too.