The Jones Family Visits

It has been a full house in the Barrett home during the past 5 days. My mom, brother and sister in law came to visit us (as well as their dogs) and man, it was so fun! They arrived late on Friday night which forced all to head to bed pretty quickly. As they drove to Evansville, Johnny and I continued laying our flooring. On Saturday, the girls headed out for a day of shopping and the boys stayed home to continue laying the laminate floor. It was such a fun day! The boys really did a great job on the flooring and even almost finished it! Us girls came home with lots of bags containing great buys--which I later got huge buyer remorse over and will be taking back. When we got back, Amiee and I proceeded to make her holiday wreaths which turned out fantastic!

Sunday as we were hanging out, the dogs were too! Bobby is on the left (Brad & Amiee's dog) and Bo on the right. 

L-R: Bobby, Sassy (my mom's dog) & Bo

Brad and Amiee had to leave on Sunday after lunch but mom stayed through Wed. On Monday we made a trip to Lowe's and to our JCPenney Home Store to grab a few things we didn't get on Saturday. Tuesday, we met Johnny at the Cargill elevator in Mt. Vernon. Johnny gave us a tour of the plant and then we headed to lunch. It was really fun. Tuesday night after Johnny got off work, we went to dinner at the "Log Inn" restaurant. The restaurant is the oldest in IN and is famous for being a place where Abe Lincoln stopped and ate. It is a transformed old home that used to be a trading post. Log Inn seats about 500 guests and serves home cooked meals! My gosh, it was so good!! All 3 of us left via crawling out the door.

Mom and I at the top of the elevator overlooking the Ohio River

Our tour guide :-)

Ground Pile....These are so cool. I hadn't ever seen one until Johnny showed them to me when we first started dating. This one is holding 1.3 million bushels of wheat. 

Another view of the massive size of the ground pile. 

We walked all of these stairs......ok, not up them...but still! 

Mom in front of the ground pile standing about 30 feet above the ground. 

It was such a great time and we really hated to see them leave. It is pretty quiet around here now.

As for the floors, we're about 2 rows of boards, quarter round and threshold away from being completely finished. The stove, kitchen table, living room furniture, etc. are all back in their spots. WAHOOOO!!!! The only thing we are missing is the dishwasher. My friend Selena told me that God always has a plan and we are to follow it-even if we are unsure about where He is leading us. And that maybe His plan with our flooring is for us to appreciate it that much more. I do believe that she was exactly right. We are loving the floors and appreciating our home and "luxuries" more than ever! (The pictures cover a period of 3 days.)

Now everyone knows who is really doing all the work! 

Living Room almost complete

We have furniture!!!!

Brad & Johnny working the day away

Hallway...almost finished.

Moving on to the kitchen

I'm continuing to do very well with eating no sweets, despite the fact that they are EVERYWHERE. As we were shopping this weekend we came across 2 holiday open houses there were serving what looked like amazing goodies and even though I wanted nothing more than to chow down.....I didn't......at EITHER place! It was such a great, powerful feeling to say no. I have already had my 2 pieces of ice cream cake (which I substituted 1 piece for chocolate pie for at the Log Inn) this week, which will make it really hard for the rest of the week, but I can do it! As of Monday I have already lost 4 pounds. It makes it much easier to make the change when you see results. Now, I need to get back into my walking/running/elliptical routine which I have slacked on during the past week.

And finally, here's our thankful list for the 6-10th:

6. Good Weather- Lately, Evansville has had some amazing weather. It has been sunny and warm versus snow and ice. It is really nice to be able to drive without questioning if it is safe to or not.

7. Finished flooring-As I mentioned earlier, after living on plywood floors for about 4 weeks, we are so thankful for our flooring. We can actually walk around barefoot now if we want to.

8. Our home- We just love our home. We are very fortunate to have an extremely nice home and we really couldn't ask for more.

9. Music- Both of us have a love for music. Johnny is really talented at playing the drums, and I can play the violin some....but we both love to listen to it, especially live music. We're very appreciative of the talent to be able to sing or play. We're really thankful that we have some of our own musical talents as well as the ability to listen to others'.

10. Freedom- In the spirit of Veteran's Day, we are both extremely thankful for our freedom and are very appreciative of those that are fighting for us and have fought for us. We especially thank: Issac Jackson, Derek Fly, Aaron Belt, , Evan Young, Alex Herbel and Daniel Jennings.

I will be back to work on Friday, as the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation observes Veteran's Day tomorrow and I've had all week off to spend time with my mom. Will need to go to bed early these next few night to make sure I can still get out of bed at 5:30 on Friday morning. But, there's nothing bad about a 1 day work week!!