Home Improvement

We have finally finished all of our home decor projects, so now I can post pictures! 

When you walk in the door, we have our entrance table and our big clock! I am in love with wicker baskets because they are the easiest solution to organize all the clutter. 

This was my absolute favorite project! The letters are made out of shoebox lids wrapped with scrapbook paper and then modpodged for texture. The letters were made from stencils, painted brown, and glued on! 

Its really hard to get good lighting of things around the window! 

The rose petals in the bird bowl are the petals from my wedding bouquet!

This is the start of my "cross collection" as Joseph would say...

This was another one of my favorite projects. Joseph and I actually tied this knot at our wedding ceremony along with the verse, "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves, but a cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12. The plaque underneath the rope has this verse written on it. Not only, is this a way to decorate our house with things from our wedding, but its a constant reminder of the promise that we made to each other that day.  

This is in our hallway. A friend of the family, Shelley Jennings painted this for me as a wedding gift. I LOVE her work! 

I know that I have already posted bathroom pictures, but while we are on the Fugate house tour, I will post them again!

This is our bedroom! We had the hardest time, picking out a comforter for our bed, and this was the first one that we both equally liked. I am so glad that we decided to get this one because we still both love it a lot! 

The frame above our night stand holds a sign that was used at our wedding after we were pronounced husband and wife (again painted by Shelley Jennings). I love it hanging in our bedroom because again, it reminds us daily of the couple that we are striving to be. 

I know that I have had a lot of favorite projects, but this one might really be my favorite. Joseph and I like to write notes to each other all the time. When we were dating, I used to slip a note in his backpack before he went home, and he would leave me notes hidden in my room. We both have kept all of the notes that we have written each other since the day we started dating (10-23-11), and we wanted to keep them without seeming like hoarders! I decorated a shadow box and it now holds all of the notes that we have written to each other, tickets from various things we have attended together, and holiday cards. 

Our final project was reupholstering or bar stools! Joe pretty much did these all on his own, and they turned out really well! 

Well, here it is! As mentioned in a previous blog, Joe lived in this apartment before we were married, so his lease will be up in September. We decided to move to a bigger place near the school where he works, so all of our projects will be moved to the new home in September. It may seem silly to decorate a place that we will only be in for another month and a half, but it keeps my sanity and will allow for us to only move our projects and not have to completely start from scratch. Plus this summer has allowed for us a lot of free time to complete all of these projects...free time that we will be deprived of once school starts! Enjoy the rest of your summer! 

Peace and Love, 

Samantha

Eureka Springs

Joseph and I decided to have a day date today to celebrate our one month wedding anniversary, which was Monday. (Can you believe its already been a month????) We celebrated Monday night with a candle light dinner and home made parmesan chicken (YUMMY), but we wanted to get out and do something fun this weekend. 

We decided to make a day trip to Eureka Springs to watch the downhill race at the Fat Tire Festival, and go to Turpentine Creek which is a wild-life refuge. The Fat Tire downhill bicycle race was our first stop for the morning, and neither one of us realized that we would have to hike a ways uphill to get to our destination. That led to me being extremely sweaty and not in the greatest mood....and I fell on the way down the hill and busted a blood vessel in my hand and rolled my ankle a bit. It wasn't the best morning, but Joe got to see the part of the race that he wanted, so I sucked it up and we went on with our day. PS...after seeing the downhill race, I don't like the idea of my husband mountain biking anymore! It is so much more dangerous than I thought!!!!

After the race, we went and ate at a little diner, and we had some time before we wanted to head to Turpentine Creek. Joe had never seen Christ of the Ozarks, or Big Jesus as I like to call him, so we decided to go there to kill some time. 

 Before we were married, Joe used to always joke "make sure theres room for Jesus" when we sat down next to each other on the couch or something.....this picture captures that saying PERFECTLY! 

After having our come to Jesus meeting, we headed down to Turpentine Creek. Turpentine Creek is a refuge for big cats (lions, tigers...and they have a bear) that people have tried to domesticate into being pets. Obviously for the common sense using person, that is an awful idea, but this place had over 100 big cats that they had rescued from private owners. 

This is a liger....it really does exist!

This white tiger was gorgeous...but so aggressive with the other tiger next to her!

This little bear...or big bear..was so funny! He was one of the most entertaining animals that we saw. 

Turpentine Creek was overall a really fun experience. We got half price tickets off of living social, which made the experience even better!

Right before we got to Eureka, we saw a sign for "Dinosaur World" on the side of the road. If you don't know the story about Dinosaur World, I shall tell you. My cousin Bruce got married the day before my ninth birthday in Eureka Springs, so our family spent my whole birthday, driving the five hours back to Texas. To try to make my day more enjoyable, my family stopped at Dinosaur World. We had no clue what it was, but we decided to go. Basically, Dinosaur World consisted of huge concrete statues of dinosaurs.....and nothing else. At the time, I was infuriated and since then, I have said that it was my worst birthday ever. Last year, I realized that I only lived about an hour from Dinosaur World, so I looked it up. I learned that it had closed down, but I hadn't really thought anymore about it. When we saw the sign this morning, both Joe and I really wanted to try to find it and see if anything was there. To our surprise, we actually got to see a lot. You can't drive through it, but I videoed from the road.......I was speechless to be back there again. 

After Dinosaur World, we made one last stop.......the perfect end to our wonderful day. 

I love my husband so much, and I am continually being blessed every day that I get to spend with him. I love that we can go out and spend days like this together! 

Love, 

Samantha

Busy Bees

Time seems to be flying by! Its been four weeks since the wedding, and Monday will mark our one month anniversary! It just doesn't even seem like we have already been married for one month!

Since coming home from Europe, we have been very busy. We are beyond blessed with the amount of gifts that we received from the shower, so we have been organizing and reorganizing our new apartment (Joe's old apartment). So far, we have organized all the kitchen cabinets with our new things, rearranged our bedroom, and added the new comforter and furniture. The only room that is completely finished AND decorated is the bathroom! I guess Joseph has his priorities! :) 

 

If you know anything about Joseph, you know that he loves his bicycles. I was happy to find one that matched perfectly. He loves seeing it everyday! 

More house pictures to come, but for now the bathroom is all that is complete!

We also ran a 5K! Three days after the honeymoon wasn't the best time for my first 5K, but it did show me that I could do it, and now I want to do more! 

To take a break from decorating and organizing, we took a short trip to Texas to see my family! We left on Monday and came home on Thursday. While we were there, I was able to officially change my name on my social security card and my drivers license. It feels so good to see my new name in print! I am still not 100% used to writing it though, as I have had to change some "N's" to "F's"! 

While we were home, I also got, what I like to call, a "wife haircut"! My hair has been long for...forever. I have gotten it cut short maybe twice in my life, but after growing it out extremely long for the wedding, I decided that it was time for something new! This is the shortest that my hair has ever been, but I absolutely love it! It feels so good in this heat too! 

We had a fabulous few days with my family. I love relaxing in the pool, and hanging out with my mom and dad. Its funny to see my teenage brothers going to work in the mornings too...they aren't babies anymore! On the way back home to Arkansas, we had just stopped for some dinner at the halfway point in Mena. Usually Joe drives to that point, and then I drive the rest of the way. Sometimes he feels generous and drives longer, and luckily Thursday night was one of those times. We were about ten minutes north of Mena when we both saw a deer on the side of the road. We have seen several deer on the side of the road, but never have either one of us even come close to hitting one. We were the only car on the road, and all of a sudden, as soon as we get close, the deer darts right in front of us! I closed my eyes, but Joseph said that it jumped over our car as we were slamming on the brakes, grazed our windshield, and kept running. It was so scary! Luckily, the only injury sustained was to Joseph's right forearm where I dug into him for dear life! ....oops! 

While this month has already flown by, we are taking some advice that we have received from couples that have counseled us, and we are starting early on enriching our marriage. We bought two books yesterday from Lifeway: The First 90 Days of Marriage: Building the Foundation of a Lifetime by Eric and Leslie Ludy and Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti: Understanding and Delighting in Your Differences by Bill and Pam Farrel. We also our going to use a book called A Marriage Without Regrets by Kay Arthur, that our friend Hannah got us. We have already begun searching for a church home, and we believe that we have found the one, but please pray that we can settle in and find our place right where God wants us. We attended together for the first time last Sunday, but won't make a definite decision until we attend services a few more times. 

Joy and Love, 

Samantha