Marylanders

Back in December, my friends got together to hang out at Kathy and Jong's house in Columbia. Kathy is one of my besties. Over the course of nine years when I lived in Maryland, I grew really close to a select few people, whom I love dearly.  It's with these friends where I can be 100% myself and it's like a breath of fresh air whenever I'm around them.

This is Daeho and Irene - engaged now for quite awhile. I met Daeho when I was 16 y.o. back in PA. He moved down to MD for college and helped me a great deal to transition from "living at home" to "mooching off my friends" to "living on my own."  I don't know how Irene puts up with him, but she is probably one of the strongest women I know so if anyone can, she can.

Kathy and Jong - married - and our lovely hosts for the night. Kathy is one of a kind, she is kind and compassionate but can be direct and opinionated just as well. She's a hardcore Republican and she and Daeho go at it at times - actually a lot of times! But in the end there's nothing but love. Jong is very laid back and he's funny. They are a great couple.

This is Brandon and Sang. Brandon currently lives in S. Korea right now for work (so lucky!). Sang and Brandon are partners in crime. They have the kind of relationship where they will draw on each other if one passes out first. All night Sang had that big Band-Aid on his face and I was determined to find out what was underneath it.

Sung Min and Roy. Sung Min is a new father to baby Eleanor.  She is adorbs.

This is me after I ate one of those small green Thai chili peppers. Kathy had them in this salad she made and I just decided to eat one. I had no idea it would burn my face off! NEVER doing that again. Luckily the burning sensation went away after 15 minutes. But those 15 minutes were pretty tortuous.

Here's a group shot. There is a couple missing in this picture, Liz and Steve. They live out in California. Liz was supposed to come but had an emergency with her dog, Juno, so she had to fly back. Liz was my roommate for 3 years. We miss her so much. She is a free spirit and a true foodie so San Francisco suits her well, I think. (Side note: Daeho and Irene made those red/green macarons and the yellow jello shots. They were soooo good. In fact, all the food was sooo good that night).

We all played some poker too. As you can see, I ate a lot of the jello shots.

Look at my poker face. You can't tell at all what I have, can you? I should be a pro. And that Band-Aid did come off that night. There was barely anything under it!!!!!! Sang, you so crazy.

The Gathering of the Smiths

In celebration of Roy's father's recent retirement from work, all of Roy's siblings gathered in Elizabethtown last Friday. This was the first time since I've been with Roy (over 3 years) that all of his five sisters, one brother and him have been in town at once. His oldest sister lives in New Jersey and his youngest sister lives in California.  Two of the triplets live nearby and one lives in Kentucky. His younger brother also lives nearby. Here is a family photo taken with all the nieces and nephews as well.

My brother also came to visit that night and we hung out with him for a bit. He crashed on our couch that night. The next day, Saturday, I went skating in the morning and we went to lunch with my brother. He left afterwards and that evening we ate dinner the fam and then went bowling. I beat Roy the first game by 3 points but he crushed everyone else in the following games.

On Sunday, we took Roy's sister Christina's mother-in-law to Amish country (after we made a quick stop at the jewelry store to peruse some wedding bands and ring settings). She came to visit from New Orleans so we wanted to show her some local attractions. We went to this Amish Village where they provided a guided tour of a traditional Amish house and explained their way of life. It was pretty interesting. The last part of the tour was a basement, where the women would spend 17 hours a day cooking in the summertime since it was too hot in the regular kitchen. There was a wringer washer in there, the same kind that Roy has in his basement (it came with his place when he bought it). Except, he used to use his for a beer and ice cooler.

We toured the grounds of the Amish house and there were quite a few animals. Goats, chickens, cows, horses, and peacocks. The peacock happened to open up his feathers for us!  Apparently they are like watch dogs on the farm, they make loud noises when they see or hear something strange:

Beautiful!

It was a great weekend (though I ate and drank way more than usual). Roy and George (his bro-in-law) didn't get in the drink tank as much this time around. There was a lot of wedding talk, especially with Christina. She is all about event planning (more about wedding stuff in another post)! She is really good about putting together photo books, photo frames, or anything to do with crafty projects.  As a gift, she gave her dad a photo/scrap book of all the kids when they were younger. My cousins kept saying how handsome Roy was when he was younger. What about now? He still is, in my opinion! 

Guns and beer 4 life

This photo might have been staged, but I'm pretty sure Roy had a real beer in his hand a couple years after this was taken. 

437 Finito

Hope you had a great Easter weekend! Roy and I spent Easter putting the finishing touches on our current rental property project. Here are the before and after photos:

View of the front entrance (tenants started moving in over the weekend).  The hardwood floors are original and were hidden under that sea green carpet. Roy sanded, stained, and sealed it. It looks just like his floor.  The layout is actually near identical to his house but flipped since this house is a lefty and his is a righty (semi-detached).

View of the dining room from the living room.  The paint color is Oyster by Behr.

A different angle 

Another angle (please excuse the bad lighting)

Here is the kitchen coming in from the back door.  The fridge was placed by itself in the corner before so we made sure to open up the space by putting the fridge by the counter.

Kitchen - To accommodate the fridge space, we had to eliminate the dishwasher.

Stairs looking down

Rear Bedroom - I had fun knocking those closets down using my fierce karate moves

Hallway looking toward the front of the house

Bathroom - the bottom photo doesn't match up, but you get the idea. Roy did the tile.

Middle Bedroom.  Paint colors are our go-to Behr shades: Chocolate Froth and Mocha Accent

Front Bedroom

Basement - Roy is OCD with 90 degree angles

Random Photos

It's amazing what paint and new carpet can do to a place.  Roy redid the entire bathroom and kitchen (down to the studs), added some dry wall and crown molding to the bedrooms, and with some help we demo'd the basement and filled an entire dumpster. It had all this wood paneling and it was enclosed because it was once a children's daycare (which is really, REALLY creepy). All in all, the rehab cost was around $8,000 - $10,000. We haven't tallied the total yet but it's probably more toward the $10K number (or more since we did buy appliances, too). Purchase price was $69,000.  We are getting it appraised within the next week or two so we'll see if we can break $100K.

So now we can sit back and relax for awhile, right? Umm no. I was asked to start looking for the next one this morning. Roy is a maniac! =)