This is for Mason Peterson!

We're Back!

Happy New Year from the Nelsons!
I dedicate this post to Mr. Mason Peterson- :) I hope your reading!
Ok, can I admit that I forgot my login information because it has been ONE YEAR since I last blogged. But, I am back and now know how to upload pictures. You can laugh, Hunter did! I just always got confused...wow..
Hunter and I have had some major changes yet again.
Hunter has changed jobs and is now working at Elmington Capitol which is a real estate investment company. He is loving every minute of it and he is fabulous at it!
I got a great job teaching 1st grade at a private school in Nashville and have loved being there!
Lulu is growing and has become the center of our lives. That is sad seeing as how she is a 65 pound golden retriever, but we love her!
2011 was a great year for us. We spent a lot of time with family and friends and continue to love Nashville. We traveled to Highlands, NC, Cancun, Mexico, and of course the wonderful city of Birmingham.
We hope that this year is just as wonderful and we pray yours is too!

This Old House...

Well, we have lived in 521 Hogan for a year now and some things have changed. Hunter and I laid in bed our first night in the house (a year ago) and made a really interesting list of things we would like to see happen to this old house! Well, a year has come and gone and we have accomplished about 7 things on our list- with a few minor set backs of things that were must do's.

This year,we have:

1. put doors back on the laundry room (again, remember the list was not too involved)

This is before we put the doors back on....

This is with the doors back on...again I said it was little improvements...we have not made it to painting the doors...

2. Replace lighting in the kitchen. When we bought the house there was this funky light fixture in the kitchen that was extremely modern- not Hunter and myself. So, we found an old chandelier at an antique store in Birmingham and switched them out.

3. Replaced carpet on the stairs...(Remember me saying that some of things were not known at the time of the house being built...this would be one). After we got Lulu, she decided that this carpet belonged to her. She completely demolished the old carpet and we replaced it with some new carpet.

This is the new carpet...I am too embarrassed to show you the before picture...

4. Redo the corner cupboard. The people that we bought the house from were kind enough to leave us this. It was a older piece of furniture that just needed some love. It was cream and just looked dirty at times, so Hunter fixed it for me...

Before....

After....

Hunter took out the glass and replaced it with chicken wire. We also replaced the hardware and painted..I think he did a great job!

5. Take out dead tree in front yard...CHECK!!

6. Paint all the rooms...CHECK!!!

7. Get the third bedroom complete...ALMOST THERE!! pictures to come!!

8. Finish downstairs family room....ALMOST THERE!! pictures to come!!

9. Last, but not least, we put in a deck!! We are very fortunate to have a HUGE backyard, but the last owners did not have any outdoor space, so we knew we wanted to add something.

Before:

And After....

Next year....

We hope to...

1. Start working on our new kitchen.... Here are a few pictures of our inspiration...

The first picture is courtesy of the McKinney's...I love their kitchen!

2. Put in a fence...

This is a lofty goal...but we do really need to do this so our sweet dog can be outside more often.

3. Finish our downstairs room. This should happen soon. We have bought a new coach and found some great chairs. Now, it is just putting it all together!

4. Buy RUGS! This has been the hardest thing. We have hard woods throughout our house, and I can't seem to find rugs that I really like. This is a goal for myself this year.

Well, these are some lofty goals, but I am hoping that we achieve them next year...I would say that we have done some great stuff this first year! We love our house and our neighborhood and could not be happier.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers

Sorry for the delay in the postings...we have been out of town 6 of the last 7 weekends! I got a new job teaching 2nd grade in Nashville and I have had to move classrooms the last two weeks. Hunter was nice enough to come down to the school on Saturday and Sunday of last weekend to help me move stuff. So to thank him, I made these burgers for him on Sunday night and they are amazing, but a heart attack waiting to happen! The recipe in really simple and they are really filling. Here is the recipe with pictures...enjoy!!

Blue Cheese Stuffed Burgers

Ingredients:

4 oz. package of blue cheese crumbles

1/8 tps onion powder

1 lb of ground beef (we use lean ground beef 93/7)

Salt and Pepper

Here is a picture of all of the ingredients, we just added the Sweetwater Blue to drink while you are fixing it.

LuLu was trying to help out.

1. In a bowl, mash the blue cheese, onion powder, salt and pepper together. We tried to mash the blue cheese crumbles as small as possible.

2. We divided the ground beef into 8 equal pieces and formed the meat into balls and sprinkled with salt and pepper. We then took two pieces of wax paper and put the meat balls in between them and mashed them into really thin patties.

3. We then took one patty and spooned the cheese into the flatten patty. We took another patty and laid it on top to form the whole burger, pretty a blue cheese double doozie. We pushed the edges of the two patties together to form a pocket of cheese in the middle of the burger.

4. We cooked it on the grill and enjoyed with a side of grilled corn. We also sprinkled the left over blue cheese on top of the burgers.

Here are some pics....

Here are the burgers on the grill, you can see the cheese coming out of the side.

Here is the finished product with our side of grilled corn.

Like I said, not a healthy meal, but definitely a man's meal!

So...Hunter and I have gotten the "project bug." I am loving all of these little projects that I can do during the summer. I was talking with a friend the other day who gave me a little idea (thanks Jennie!)...a chalkboard to write memos, verses, the nights menu, or whatever your heart desires. I knew that Hunter would go for something that would not cost a lot of money but would cover another wall in the empty walled kitchen. All that to say, my "project bug" is getting bigger and bigger. This literally was an easy project and Hunter and I had a great time doing it together.

Ok, so we spent about an hour and a half at Home Depot buying supplies, well I take that back. About an hour at Home Depot and then to Sonic for Happy Hour. This is becoming a Nelson guilty pleasure. We both can't resist a Cherry Limeade. Back to the project. For your chalkboard you will need: Chalkboard paint (you can buy this at any home store), rollers, two different colors of paint(if you plan to distress yours), sand paper, molding, and plywood.

So our work space is not exquisite, but you get the picture. Large piece of plywood.

This is the molding that we choose. There were tons of options, but again we went with the cheaper options. This is about to be painted.

After the first coat of paint. We went with a light/grayish brown.

While the molding was drying, I did several coats of blackboard paint onto the plywood. This is where the roller comes into play.

As the blackboard paint was drying, I went back to my other "fine" workstation. I painted the molding with a light blue color(Ozone from Behr paint).

I had to take a break and go get ice cream while the paint dried. I worked hard...right? haha. After you have painted both (or one) color on your molding use sand paper to distress the molding. All it takes is you running the sand paper over the molding.

Make sure you nail it all together....and tada...chalkboard...I will upload another picture in better light....and with writing...

More fun "projects" to come this summer. Thank you to all my friends who have inspired me to become more "projecty". If that is a word...

Hope you enjoy!

LuLu's Hair Dryer

Here is a funny video of how LuLu dries herself after her bath.

Way Overdue...

Sorry for the slight delay in postings. We have had a few things going on..but none the less I am ready to fill you in! In the past two weeks we have successfully done the following: built a deck in a day, finished a half marathon, and bought our first (and maybe only) dog. I will start with the marathon because that is where I would finish life...no seriously, I did not train like I should have I had a sinus infection the day of the race..nothing like alittle sore throat and runny nose to get you going on a great run....o, did I mention I AM NOT a runner. Literally, if sometime told me before this moment that I was supposed to run I would laugh hysterically. But, I did finish the race which is all that matters. Here is the one picture after the race...

The Sunday after the race our families came up (along with some very other handy men) to help build our deck. This was our very special Christmas present from Hunter's dad. It was a great gift..Here are a few pictures of the men at work...

Well, we are now dog owners. Hunter has been a dog owner before, me not so much. This is totally new for me. The first night Hunter had to go out of town on business, so it was me and Lulu (remember I am not the dog person). I think I got two hours of sleep. To say the least the first night was not glamorous. Then at 6:30 A.M. I decided that no more sleep was going to happen, so I got up and by 7:30 I had cleaned up poop twice and pee four times. It was a trying morning for Lulu and I. Granted, I am NOT a morning person, so it did not take much to get me even more grouchy. The next night was so much better! She slept better (still had some crying) but it was better. We are currently on the second full day, so I will let you know how it goes... Here are some pictures of sweet Lulu....

I hope everyone has a great Wednesday!

Choosing a Puppy for Dummies

Well....it is that time...Hunter and I went this morning to pick out our puppy. Someone should write a book on how to pick the "perfect puppy". It literally was so hard. They are all soft, cuddly, and cute, but after about 45 minutes we had narrowed it down to 2 puppies. Of course, Hunter and I were split on the two- I loved one and Hunter loved the other. The one I loved was huge (twice as big as the others) and Hunter loved the sweet little girl puppy with the mohawk. Either puppy was a great pick and we ended up going with the little girl who we hope will not be as big as a horse. The other puppy was questionable. I am going to post all of the pictures we took. We are picking her up in two weeks and cannot wait. If you have any good girl names let us know. We are leaning towards LuLu and call her Lu.

Can you see her little mohawk on her nose?

I think she already loves Hunter more than me...